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.

Four Hills Tournament
at the 2003-04 FIS Ski Jumping World Cup
VenuesSchattenbergschanze, Große Olympiaschanze, Bergiselschanze, Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze
LocationGermany, Austria
Dates28 December 2003 (2003-12-28) – 6 January 2004 (2004-01-06)
Competitors84 from 21 nations
Medalists
gold medal Norway Sigurd Pettersen
silver medal Austria Martin Höllwarth
bronze medal Slovenia Peter Žonta
Tournament winner Sigurd Pettersen won six World Cup events during his career - all of them within one month, and three of them during the Four Hills.

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:[1]

RankNamePoints
01.Norway Roar Ljøkelsøy288
02.Finland Janne Ahonen268
03.Poland Adam Małysz240
04.Norway Sigurd Pettersen206
05.Finland Tami Kiuru176
Finland Veli-Matti Lindström176
07.Germany Sven Hannawald172
08.Finland Matti Hautamäki158
09.Norway Bjørn Einar Romøren145
10.Austria Andreas Widhölzl133

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
 Germany88Sven Hannawald, Michael Uhrmann, Maximilian Mechler, Georg Spaeth, Martin Schmitt, Stephan Hocke, Alexander Herr, Jörg Ritzerfeld
 Austria8 + 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
 Belarus22Maksim Anisimov, Dimitri Afanasenko (Oberstorf only)
 China22Li Yang (Garmisch-Partenkirchen onward), Tian Zhandong (Garmisch-Partenkirchen onward)
 Czech Republic33Jakub Janda (until Innsbruck), Jan Matura (until Innsbruck), Michal Doležal (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen)
 Estonia22Jens Salumäe, Jaan Jüris
 Finland88Janne Ahonen, Tami Kiuru, Veli-Matti Lindström, Matti Hautamäki, Akseli Kokkonen, Jussi Hautamäki, Arttu Lappi (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Janne Happonen (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen)
 France22Emmanuel Chedal, Nicolas Dessum
 Italy33Alessio Bolognani (Garmisch-Partenkirchen only), Giancarlo Adami (Garmisch-Partenkirchen only), Stefano Chiapolino (Garmisch-Partenkirchen only)
 Japan55Noriaki Kasai, Hiroki Yamada, Hideharu Miyahira, Kazuyoshi Funaki, Akira Higashi
 Kazakhstan22Radik Zhaparov, Asan Tahtahunov
 Netherlands11Christoph Kreuzer (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen)
 Norway88Roar Ljøkelsøy, Sigurd Pettersen, Bjørn Einar Romøren, Tommy Ingebrigtsen, Anders Bardal, Henning Stensrud, Morten Solem, Lars Bystøl
 Poland34Adam Małysz, Wojciech Tajner, Tomisław Tajner (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Marcin Bachleda (Innsbruck onward)
 Russia24Denis Kornilov (Oberstorf and Bischofshofen), Dmitry Ipatov (Oberstorf and Bischofshofen), Alexei Silaev (Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck), Dmitri Vassiliev (Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck)
 Slovakia11Martin Mesík
 Slovenia55Peter Žonta, Rok Benkovič, Robert Kranjec, Damjan Fras, Primož Peterka
 South Korea11Kang Chil-ku
 Sweden23Johan Erikson, Andreas Arén (until Innsbruck), Isak Grimholm (Bischofshofen only)
  Switzerland22Andreas Küttel, Simon Ammann
 United States22Clint Jones, Brian Welch (Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Bischofshofen)

Results

Oberstorf

Germany 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: Norway Sigurd Pettersen

RankNamePoints
1Norway Sigurd Pettersen295.2
2Austria Thomas Morgenstern272.7
3Austria Martin Höllwarth269.1
4Germany Michael Uhrmann267.9
5Japan Noriaki Kasai261.8
6Slovenia Rok Benkovič261.6
7Germany Georg Spaeth261.3
8Norway Tommy Ingebrigtsen260.2
9Poland Adam Małysz254.4
Norway Roar Ljøkelsøy254.4

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Germany Große Olympiaschanze, Garmisch-Partenkirchen
31 December 2003 - 1 January 2004

Qualification winner: Finland Janne Ahonen

RankNamePoints
1Norway Sigurd Pettersen253.8
2Austria Martin Höllwarth253.1
3Germany Georg Spaeth248.7
4Finland Janne Ahonen248.5
5Slovenia Peter Žonta241.2
6Japan Noriaki Kasai239.8
7Germany Michael Uhrmann238.6
8Austria Thomas Morgenstern233.7
9Germany Sven Hannawald231.9
10Finland Veli-Matti Lindström230.8

Innsbruck

Austria 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: Finland Janne Ahonen

RankNamePoints
1Slovenia Peter Žonta265.2
2Finland Veli-Matti Lindström253.9
3Finland Janne Ahonen253.8
4Norway Sigurd Pettersen251.8
5Austria Martin Höllwarth251.7
6Japan Noriaki Kasai249.5
7Austria Thomas Morgenstern247.6
8Norway Lars Bystøl245.7
9Germany Sven Hannawald244.4
10Germany Georg Spaeth242.6

Bischofshofen

Austria Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze, Bischofshofen
05-6 January 2004

Qualification winner: Switzerland Andreas Küttel

RankNamePoints
1Norway Sigurd Pettersen265.8
2Slovenia Peter Žonta263.4
3Finland Janne Ahonen261.3
4Austria Thomas Morgenstern258.9
5Austria Martin Höllwarth257.6
6Germany Georg Spaeth257.2
7Finland Veli-Matti Lindström256.1
8Finland Matti Hautamäki251.7
9Germany Michael Uhrmann250.2
10Norway Roar Ljøkelsøy247.1

Final ranking
RankNameOberstorfGarmisch-PartenkirchenInnsbruckBischofshofenPoints
1Norway Sigurd Pettersen1st1st4th1st1066.6
2Austria Martin Höllwarth3rd2nd5th5th1031.5
3Slovenia Peter Žonta11th5th1st2nd1023.6
4Austria Thomas Morgenstern2nd8th7th4th1012.9
5Finland Janne Ahonen13th4th3rd3rd1012.6
6Germany Georg Spaeth7th3rd10th6th1009.8
7Germany Michael Uhrmann4th7th11th9th998.7
8Japan Noriaki Kasai5th6th6th11th996.5
9Norway Roar Ljøkelsøy9th14th19th10th956.5
10Norway Lars Bystøl21st11th8th13th952.6

References
  1. ""e.on ruhrgas" FIS World Cup Ski-Jumping 2003/2004 World Cup Standings" (PDF). FIS. 2003.
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