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 
silver medal 
bronze medal 
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

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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, eight out of twenty-eight events were supposed to be completed, but three were cancelled.

The standings were as follows:[1]

Rank Name Points
01.   Roar Ljøkelsøy 288
02.   Janne Ahonen 268
03.   Adam Małysz 240
04.   Sigurd Pettersen 206
05.   Tami Kiuru 176
  Veli-Matti Lindström 176
07.   Sven Hannawald 172
08.   Matti Hautamäki 158
09.   Bjørn Einar Romøren 145
10.   Andreas Widhölzl 133

Participating nations and athletes

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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:

Nation Starting Spots Number of Athletes Athletes
  Germany 8 8 Sven Hannawald, Michael Uhrmann, Maximilian Mechler, Georg Spaeth, Martin Schmitt, Stephan Hocke, Alexander Herr, Jörg Ritzerfeld
  Austria 8 + 8 16 Martin 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
  Belarus 2 2 Maksim Anisimov, Dimitri Afanasenko (Oberstorf only)
  China 2 2 Li Yang (Garmisch-Partenkirchen onward), Tian Zhandong (Garmisch-Partenkirchen onward)
  Czech Republic 3 3 Jakub Janda (until Innsbruck), Jan Matura (until Innsbruck), Michal Doležal (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen)
  Estonia 2 2 Jens Salumäe, Jaan Jüris
  Finland 8 8 Janne Ahonen, Tami Kiuru, Veli-Matti Lindström, Matti Hautamäki, Akseli Kokkonen, Jussi Hautamäki, Arttu Lappi (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Janne Happonen (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen)
  France 2 2 Emmanuel Chedal, Nicolas Dessum
  Italy 3 3 Alessio Bolognani (Garmisch-Partenkirchen only), Giancarlo Adami (Garmisch-Partenkirchen only), Stefano Chiapolino (Garmisch-Partenkirchen only)
  Japan 5 5 Noriaki Kasai, Hiroki Yamada, Hideharu Miyahira, Kazuyoshi Funaki, Akira Higashi
  Kazakhstan 2 2 Radik Zhaparov, Asan Tahtahunov
  Netherlands 1 1 Christoph Kreuzer (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen)
  Norway 8 8 Roar Ljøkelsøy, Sigurd Pettersen, Bjørn Einar Romøren, Tommy Ingebrigtsen, Anders Bardal, Henning Stensrud, Morten Solem, Lars Bystøl
  Poland 3 4 Adam Małysz, Wojciech Tajner, Tomisław Tajner (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Marcin Bachleda (Innsbruck onward)
  Russia 2 4 Denis Kornilov (Oberstorf and Bischofshofen), Dmitry Ipatov (Oberstorf and Bischofshofen), Alexei Silaev (Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck), Dmitri Vassiliev (Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck)
  Slovakia 1 1 Martin Mesík
  Slovenia 5 5 Peter Žonta, Rok Benkovič, Robert Kranjec, Damjan Fras, Primož Peterka
  South Korea 1 1 Kang Chil-ku
  Sweden 2 3 Johan Erikson, Andreas Arén (until Innsbruck), Isak Grimholm (Bischofshofen only)
  Switzerland 2 2 Andreas Küttel, Simon Ammann
  United States 2 2 Clint Jones, Brian Welch (Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Bischofshofen)

Results

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Oberstorf

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  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

Rank Name Points
1   Sigurd Pettersen 295.2
2   Thomas Morgenstern 272.7
3   Martin Höllwarth 269.1
4   Michael Uhrmann 267.9
5   Noriaki Kasai 261.8
6   Rok Benkovič 261.6
7   Georg Spaeth 261.3
8   Tommy Ingebrigtsen 260.2
9   Adam Małysz 254.4
  Roar Ljøkelsøy 254.4

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

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

Qualification winner:   Janne Ahonen

Rank Name Points
1   Sigurd Pettersen 253.8
2   Martin Höllwarth 253.1
3   Georg Spaeth 248.7
4   Janne Ahonen 248.5
5   Peter Žonta 241.2
6   Noriaki Kasai 239.8
7   Michael Uhrmann 238.6
8   Thomas Morgenstern 233.7
9   Sven Hannawald 231.9
10   Veli-Matti Lindström 230.8

Innsbruck

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  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

Rank Name Points
1   Peter Žonta 265.2
2   Veli-Matti Lindström 253.9
3   Janne Ahonen 253.8
4   Sigurd Pettersen 251.8
5   Martin Höllwarth 251.7
6   Noriaki Kasai 249.5
7   Thomas Morgenstern 247.6
8   Lars Bystøl 245.7
9   Sven Hannawald 244.4
10   Georg Spaeth 242.6

Bischofshofen

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

Qualification winner:   Andreas Küttel

Rank Name Points
1   Sigurd Pettersen 265.8
2   Peter Žonta 263.4
3   Janne Ahonen 261.3
4   Thomas Morgenstern 258.9
5   Martin Höllwarth 257.6
6   Georg Spaeth 257.2
7   Veli-Matti Lindström 256.1
8   Matti Hautamäki 251.7
9   Michael Uhrmann 250.2
10   Roar Ljøkelsøy 247.1

Final ranking

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Rank Name Oberstorf Garmisch-Partenkirchen Innsbruck Bischofshofen Points
1   Sigurd Pettersen 1st 1st 4th 1st 1066.6
2   Martin Höllwarth 3rd 2nd 5th 5th 1031.5
3   Peter Žonta 11th 5th 1st 2nd 1023.6
4   Thomas Morgenstern 2nd 8th 7th 4th 1012.9
5   Janne Ahonen 13th 4th 3rd 3rd 1012.6
6   Georg Spaeth 7th 3rd 10th 6th 1009.8
7   Michael Uhrmann 4th 7th 11th 9th 998.7
8   Noriaki Kasai 5th 6th 6th 11th 996.5
9   Roar Ljøkelsøy 9th 14th 19th 10th 956.5
10   Lars Bystøl 21st 11th 8th 13th 952.6

References

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