2003–04 Four Hills Tournament


The 52nd edition of the annual Four Hills Tournament was held in the traditional venues: Oberstorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany, and Innsbruck and Bischofshofen in Austria.

Format

At each of the four events, a qualification round was held. The 50 best jumpers qualified for the competition. The fifteen athletes leading the World Cup at the time qualified automatically. In case of an omitted qualification or a result that would normally result in elimination, they would instead qualify as 50th.
Unlike the procedure at normal World Cup events, the 50 qualified athletes were paired up for the first round of the final event, with the winner proceeding to the second round. The rounds start with the duel between #26 and #25 from the qualification round, followed by #27 vs #24, up to #50 vs #1. The five best duel losers, so-called 'Lucky Losers' also proceed.
For the tournament ranking, the total points earned from each jump are added together. The World Cup points collected during the four events are disregarded in this ranking.

Pre-Tournament World Cup Standings

At the time of the tournament, eight out of twenty-eight events were supposed to be completed, but three were cancelled.
The standings were as follows:
RankNamePoints
1.0

Participating nations and athletes

The number of jumpers a nation was allowed to nominate was dependent on previous results. In Innsbruck and Bischofshofen, the amount of Austrian athletes was doubled.
The defending champion was Janne Ahonen. Six other competitors had also previously won the Four Hills tournament: Andreas Goldberger in 1992-93 and 1994–95, Primož Peterka in 1996-97, Kazuyoshi Funaki in 1997-98, Andreas Widhölzl in 1999-00, Adam Małysz in 2000-01 and Sven Hannawald in 2001-02.
The following athletes were nominated:
NationStarting SpotsNumber of AthletesAthletes
88Sven Hannawald, Michael Uhrmann, Maximilian Mechler, Georg Spaeth, Martin Schmitt, Stephan Hocke, Alexander Herr, Jörg Ritzerfeld
8 + 816Martin Höllwarth, Andreas Widhölzl, Thomas Morgenstern, Andreas Goldberger, Andreas Kofler, Florian Liegl, Reinhard Schwarzenberger, Martin Koch
National Group: Wolfgang Loitzl, Stefan Kaiser, Roland Müller, Mathias Hafele, Stefan Thurnbichler, Manuel Fettner, Christian Nagiller, Balthasar Schneider
22Maksim Anisimov, Dimitri Afanasenko '
22Li Yang ', Tian Zhandong '
33Jakub Janda ', Jan Matura ', Michal Doležal '
22Jens Salumäe, Jaan Jüris
88Janne Ahonen, Tami Kiuru, Veli-Matti Lindström, Matti Hautamäki, Akseli Kokkonen, Jussi Hautamäki, Arttu Lappi ', Janne Happonen '
22Emmanuel Chedal, Nicolas Dessum
33Alessio Bolognani ', Giancarlo Adami ', Stefano Chiapolino '
55Noriaki Kasai, Hiroki Yamada, Hideharu Miyahira, Kazuyoshi Funaki, Akira Higashi
22Radik Zhaparov, Asan Tahtahunov
11Christoph Kreuzer '
88Roar Ljøkelsøy, Sigurd Pettersen, Bjørn Einar Romøren, Tommy Ingebrigtsen, Anders Bardal, Henning Stensrud, Morten Solem, Lars Bystøl
34Adam Małysz, Wojciech Tajner, Tomisław Tajner ', Marcin Bachleda '
24Denis Kornilov ', Dmitry Ipatov ', Alexei Silaev ', Dmitri Vassiliev '
11Martin Mesík
55Peter Žonta, Rok Benkovič, Robert Kranjec, Damjan Fras, Primož Peterka
11Kang Chil-ku
23Johan Erikson, Andreas Arén ', Isak Grimholm '
22Andreas Küttel, Simon Ammann
22Clint Jones, Brian Welch

Results

Oberstorf

Schattenbergschanze, Oberstorf
28-29 December 2003
Jumping 133.0 meters, Sigurd Pettersen was already in the lead after the first round. During the rest of the tournament, only Martin Höllwarth equalled this distance. In the last jump, Pettersen then soared to 143.5 meters, setting a new hill record and securing his victory.
Qualification winner: Sigurd Pettersen
RankNamePoints
1

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Große Olympiaschanze, Garmisch-Partenkirchen
31 December 2003 - 1 January 2004
Qualification winner: Janne Ahonen
RankNamePoints
1

Innsbruck

Bergiselschanze, Innsbruck
03-4 January 2004
Aged 24, Slovenian jumper Peter Žonta celebrated the first and only World Cup victory of his career in Innsbruck. Runners-up Lindström, for whom two second places were career bests, was denied this honour.
Qualification winner: Janne Ahonen
RankNamePoints
1

Bischofshofen

Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze, Bischofshofen
05-6 January 2004
Qualification winner: Andreas Küttel
RankNamePoints
1

Final ranking

RankNameOberstorfGarmisch-PartenkirchenInnsbruckBischofshofenPoints
1