PREDAZZO, Italy (AP) — An early photo of the Prevc ski jumping clan shows teenager Peter eyeing three little siblings — Nika, Domen and Cene — perched on the edge of a sofa, tiny torsos tucked over bent knees and arms stretched back as if about to launch themselves to Olympic glory.
Sixteen years later, three of the four are now Olympic medalists after Nika won silver on Saturday on the women’s normal hill. And there may be more hardware to come: Domen enters Monday’s men’s competition as the current top male ski jumper in the world.
“At that time I didn’t know that the photo would be so great and so historical,” Gorazd Kavcic, who snapped the picture for a newspaper in the region of Slovenia where the Prevcs grew up, told The Associated Press. “I hope Domen will bring the Olympic medal home so the four of the Prevcs own Olympic medals. It's amazing.”
The Prevc athletes are national heroes back home, though they are hardly known outside the rarefied world of ski jumping.
The first Olympics for Nika, 20, and Domen, 26, could change that, particularly if they repeatedly step onto the podium as is widely expected.
Bigger and bigger jumps
It all began for the family more than 20 years ago in the village of Dolenja Vas in southern Slovenia when Peter as a young boy got bored skiing and started building small jumps to make it more exciting.
“They got bigger and bigger and when I was around 10 years old the jumps were already 25 meters long, and I was kind of enthusiastic for it,” Peter Prevc said. “My father saw my enthusiasm and he drove me to the ski jumping club.”
Peter said the others followed his path because they saw he was having fun and that's what sparked their passion and motivated them.
When Kavcic took the photo in 2010, Peter had entered the World Cup circuit and was beginning to make a name for himself.
The younger ones were either learning to jump or, like Nika, keen to get started.
Nika said her ambition was always to compete on the world’s largest stage.
“My childhood dreams are coming true,” she said after her second-place finish. “Now I will continue and go on.”
Secrets to success
Cene attributes their unusual success to the values their father, who owns a furniture business and is a ski jumping judge and mother, a librarian, taught them: to excel at whatever they do.
Kavcic thinks the success was due more to the amount of practicing the children did. Their father was constantly shuttling them from one hill to the next.
Another factor is likely due to the ski jump-crazy nation’s development program for promising skiers, said Tomi Trbovc, a team spokesperson. All of the siblings attended a special school in Kranj in the north, where skiers are educated around daily training sessions.
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Long list of accomplishments
Peter, 33, is a four-time Olympic medalist who won gold in the mixed team jump four years ago in Beijing. Cene, 29, shared a team silver with his brother in Beijing in the team event.
Both are now retired, though still associated with the sport. Peter is head of equipment development for the Slovenian ski jumping team and Cene, who does standup comedy, is doing TV commentary during the Milan Cortina Games.
Nika, 20, and Domen, 26, are reigning World Champions on the large hill, and Nika also holds the title for the normal — or shorter — hill. The two hold the records for the longest jumps ever and have dominated World Cup competition this season.
Domen said that even though he fantasized of some day being in the Olympics, he never believed it would happen and said it was amazing to be there.
“They always told me that your brothers are successful, but you’ll never manage to get there," he said. "Sometimes people tell you some things, but they tell you maybe to give you a chance to prove them wrong.”
Nika entered the normal hill event Saturday as the favorite to win, but technical mistakes at the take off of one jump and landing of the other cost her the gold to Anna Odine Stroem.
Stroem was gracious in victory, saying she had figured the main competition was for second place behind Prevc. Referring to Prevc's prowess in ski flying, the largest of jumping hills, she said: "we get to ski-fly and watch Nika almost never land.”
More family firsts
Although Nika failed to win Saturday, she became the first woman to join a brother — two in her case — to win Olympic medals in the sport.
Domen dismissed his 21st place showing in Sunday's practice round as not very important and said the real test will come Monday.
If he medals then in the men’s normal hill, it would mark the first time brother and sister ski jumpers have medaled at the same Olympics.
Depending on the outcome of that event, the two siblings could also join forces for the mixed team even Tuesday.
There is a younger sibling, Ema, who is still in school, but there's no chance she will end up in the Olympics, Cene Prevc said.
“She never even had a slight interest to perform in a ski jumping,” he said. “The only smart one in the family.”
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
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