2001–02 Four Hills Tournament

The 50th edition of the annual Four Hills Tournament marked the first time an athlete won all four events of the tournament. In the past, fifteen times a ski jumper won three out of four events, but never the 'Grand Slam'. Sven Hannawald's feat would not be repeated until 2017-18 by Kamil Stoch.

Four Hills Tournament
at the 2001-02 FIS Ski Jumping World Cup
VenuesSchattenbergschanze, Große Olympiaschanze, Bergiselschanze, Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze
LocationGermany, Austria
Dates29 December 2001 (2001-12-29) – 6 January 2002 (2002-01-06)
Competitors108 from 23 nations
Medalists
gold medal 
silver medal 
bronze medal 

Format

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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

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At the time of the tournament, nine out of twenty-eight World Cup events were already held. Title holder Adam Małysz had won six of them, a fourth place being his worst finish of the season so far. Thus, he went into the tournament as favourite.

The standings were as follows:[1]

Rank Name Points
01.   Adam Małysz 810
02.   Sven Hannawald 399
03.   Stephan Hocke 356
04.   Martin Höllwarth 317
05.   Matti Hautamäki 311
06.   Martin Schmitt 297
07.   Andreas Widhölzl 278
08.   Kazuyoshi Funaki 268
09.   Andreas Goldberger 265
10.   Risto Jussilainen 259

Participating nations and athletes

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The number of jumpers a nation was allowed to nominate was dependent on previous results. At each event, a 'national group' of ten jumpers from the host country was added.

The defending champion was Adam Małysz. Six other competitors had also previously won the Four Hills tournament: Toni Nieminen in 1991-92, Andreas Goldberger in 1992-93 and 1994–95, Primož Peterka in 1996-97, Kazuyoshi Funaki in 1997-98, Janne Ahonen in 1998-99 and Andreas Widhölzl in 1999-00.

The following athletes were nominated:

Nation Starting Spots Number of Athletes Athletes
  Germany 8+10 18 Sven Hannawald, Stephan Hocke, Martin Schmitt, Christof Duffner, Alexander Herr, Michael Uhrmann, Georg Spaeth, Dirk Else
National Group: Frank Löffler, Jörg Ritzerfeld, Hansjörg Jäkle, Kai Bracht, Michael Neumayer, Roland Audenrieth, Maximilian Mechler, Michael Möllinger, Stefan Pieper, Leif Frey
  Austria 8+10 18 Martin Höllwarth, Andreas Widhölzl, Andreas Goldberger, Martin Koch, Stefan Horngacher, Wolfgang Loitzl, Manuel Fettner, Stefan Thurnbichler (Garmisch-Partenkirchen onward)
National Group: Markus Eigentler, Christian Nagiller, Reinhard Schwarzenberger, Stefan Kaiser, Bernhard Metzler, Bastian Kaltenböck, Andreas Kofler, Thomas Hörl, Gerhard Hofer, Balthasar Schneider
  Bulgaria 1 1 Georgi Zharkov
  Czech Republic 4 6 Jakub Janda, Michal Doležal, Jaroslav Sakala (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Jakub Jiroutek (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Jan Matura (Innsbruck onward), Jiří Parma (Innsbruck onward)
  Estonia 2 2 Jaan Jüris, Jouko Hein
  Finland 8 8 Matti Hautamäki, Risto Jussilainen, Veli-Matti Lindström, Jussi Hautamäki, Toni Nieminen, Tami Kiuru, Janne Ahonen, Janne Ylijärvi
  France 3 3 Nicolas Dessum, Emmanuel Chedal, Rémi Santiago
  Georgia 1 1 Kakhaber Tsakadze
  Italy 1 1 Roberto Cecon
  Japan 8 8 Kazuyoshi Funaki, Noriaki Kasai, Hideharu Miyahira, Masahiko Harada, Kazuya Yoshioka, Hiroki Yamada, Yasuhiro Shibata (Bischofshofen only), Teppei Takano (Bischofshofen only)
  Kazakhstan 4 4 Stanislav Filimonov, Pawel Gaiduk, Maxim Polunin, Alexander Korobov (Innsbruck onward)
  Kyrgyzstan 1 1 Dmitry Chvykov
  Netherlands 1 1 Ingemar Mayr
  Norway 5 5 Roar Ljøkelsøy, Tommy Ingebrigtsen, Anders Bardal, Olav Magne Dønnem, Henning Stensrud
  Poland 5 5 Adam Małysz, Robert Mateja, Tomasz Pochwała, Tomisław Tajner, Wojciech Skupień
  Russia 4 5 Valery Kobelev, Ildar Fatchullin, Anton Kalinitschenko, Alexander Belov
  Slovakia 3 3 Martin Mesík, Dušan Oršula, Jan Zelencik (Oberstorf only)
  Slovenia 6 6 Peter Žonta, Damjan Fras, Primož Peterka, Igor Medved, Robert Kranjec, Blaž Vrhovnik (Innsbruck onward)
  South Korea 4 4 Kim Hyun-ki, Kang Chil-ku, Choi Yong-jik, Choi Heung-chul
(all until Innsbruck)
  Sweden 2 2 Kristoffer Jåfs, Johan Munters
  Switzerland 4 4 Simon Ammann, Andreas Küttel, Sylvain Freiholz, Marco Steinauer (until Innsbruck)
  United Kingdom 1 1 Glynn Pedersen
  United States 2 2 Alan Alborn, Clint Jones

Results

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Oberstorf

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  Schattenbergschanze, Oberstorf
29-30 December 2001

Qualification winner:   Andreas Widhölzl

Rank Name Points
1   Sven Hannawald 260.2
2   Martin Höllwarth 252.2
3   Simon Ammann 248.7
4   Matti Hautamäki 248.1
5   Adam Małysz 245.1
6   Andreas Widhölzl 239.7
7   Risto Jussilainen 239.3
8   Ildar Fatchullin 237.3
9   Georg Spaeth 232.7
10   Andreas Goldberger 232.4

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

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  Große Olympiaschanze, Garmisch-Partenkirchen
31 December 2001 - 1 January 2002

Qualification winner:   Andreas Widhölzl

Rank Name Points
1   Sven Hannawald 264.5
2   Andreas Widhölzl 262.8
3   Adam Małysz 259.7
4   Hiroki Yamada 259.1
5   Simon Ammann 253.9
6   Matti Hautamäki 252.0
7   Martin Höllwarth 245.3
8   Martin Schmitt 243.3
  Valery Kobelev 243.3
10   Martin Koch 241.5

Innsbruck

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  Bergiselschanze, Innsbruck
03-4 January 2002

With a comfortable lead from the first half of the tournament already to his name, Sven Hannawald won by over 20 points in Innsbruck, all but securing him the title. In the event's first round, Hannawald beat his direct duel opponent Martin Höllwarth by eight meters - Höllwarth's jump was still the second best of the entire round.

Qualification winner:   Martin Höllwarth

Rank Name Points
1   Sven Hannawald 270.0
2   Adam Małysz 247.0
3   Martin Höllwarth 244.1
4   Matti Hautamäki 240.5
5   Martin Schmitt 238.3
6   Andreas Widhölzl 237.9
7   Valery Kobelev 234.9
8   Robert Kranjec 234.0
9   Stephan Hocke 228.3
10   Hideharu Miyahira 227.9

Bischofshofen

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  Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze, Bischofshofen
05-6 January 2002

With Hannawald's large lead after three events, the only hope for his rivals was a failure to proceed to the event's final round. Instead, the German yet again displayed the event's best jump in the first round and did not only secure tournament victory, but became the first athlete in the 50 years of Four Hills history to win all four events.

Qualification winner:   Matti Hautamäki

Rank Name Points
1   Sven Hannawald 282.9
2   Matti Hautamäki 280.4
3   Martin Höllwarth 274.2
4   Robert Kranjec 266.8
5   Martin Schmitt 256.6
6   Alan Alborn 256.2
7   Roberto Cecon 247.8
8   Peter Žonta 247.6
9   Adam Małysz 241.0
10   Andreas Goldberger 240.9

Final ranking

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Rank Name Oberstorf Garmisch-Partenkirchen Innsbruck Bischofshofen Points
1   Sven Hannawald 1st 1st 1st 1st 1077.6
2   Matti Hautamäki 4th 6th 4th 2nd 1021.0
3   Martin Höllwarth 2nd 7th 3rd 3rd 1015.8
4   Adam Małysz 5th 3rd 2nd 9th 992.8
5   Andreas Widhölzl 6th 2nd 6th 12th 980.4
6   Simon Ammann 3rd 5th 11th 15th 961.4
7   Martin Schmitt 19th 8th 5th 5th 957.5
8   Risto Jussilainen 7th 20th 15th 13th 923.6
9   Andreas Goldberger 10th 22nd 17th 10th 918.5
10   Stephan Hocke 21st 11th 9th 17th 914.8

References

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  1. ^ ""ruhrgas" FIS World Cup Ski-Jumping 2001/2002 World Cup Standing" (PDF). FIS. 2001.
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