2004–05 Four Hills Tournament


The 53rd 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.
The Four Hills tournament counts as part of the World Cup season. Before the competition in Oberstorf, eight out of twenty-eight events were already held. Janne Ahonen had won seven of them, and placed second in the only one he did not. This early-season dominance of the Finnish athlete, who had already won the Four Hills tournament twice before, made him the favourite for the title, and Ahonen did not disappoint. He won the first three events, though he failed to become the second ski jumper after Sven Hannawald to win all four events of the tournament when runners-up Martin Höllwarth snatched the victory at the final event in Bischofshofen.

Format

At each of the four events, a qualification round would be held. The 50 best jumpers would qualify for the competition. The fifteen athletes leading the World Cup at the time would qualify 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 would be paired up for the first round of the final event, with the winner qualifying for 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 qualify for the second round.
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.

World Cup Standings

The standings at the time of the tournament, after seven out of twenty-two events, were as follows:
RankNamePoints
1. Janne Ahonen780
2. Jakub Janda448
3. Martin Höllwarth397
4. Roar Ljøkelsøy379
5. Thomas Morgenstern328
6. Matti Hautamäki323
7. Andreas Widhölzl298
8. Adam Małysz277
9. Noriaki Kasai228
10. Alexander Herr218

Participating nations and athletes

The number of athletes a nation was allowed to nominate was dependent on previous results. In addition, a "national group" from the host nation is added to each event.
The defending champion was Sigurd Pettersen. Six other competitors had also previously won the Four Hills tournament: Andreas Goldberger in 1992-93 and 1994-95, Janne Ahonen in 1998-99 and 2002-03, Primož Peterka in 1996-97, Kazuyoshi Funaki in 1997-98, Andreas Widhölzl in 1999-00 and Adam Małysz in 2000-01.
The following athletes were nominated:
NationStarting SpotsNumber of AthletesAthletes
8 + 816Alexander Herr, Georg Spaeth, Michael Uhrmann, Jörg Ritzerfeld, Michael Neumayer, Stephan Hocke, Maximilian Mechler, Martin Schmitt
National Group: Andreas Wank, Christian Bruder, Ferdinand Bader, Stefan Pieper, Kai Bracht, Julian Musiol, Mark Krauspenhaar, Hans Petrat
8 + 816Martin Höllwarth, Thomas Morgenstern, Andreas Widhölzl, Wolfgang Loitzl, Andreas Goldberger, Florian Liegl, Andreas Kofler, Balthasar Schneiderbr />National Group: Stefan Kaiser, Reinhard Schwarzenberger, Martin Koch, Roland Müller, Mathias Hafele, Stefan Thurnbichler, Manuel Fettner, Christian Nagiller
22Maksim Anisimov, Petr Chaadaev
23Tian Zhandong, Li Yang ', Wang Jianxun '
45Jakub Janda, Jan Mazoch, Jan Matura, Michal Doležal ', Antonin Hajek '
22Jaan Juris, Jens Salumäe
55Janne Ahonen, Matti Hautamäki, Tami Kiuru, Veli-Matti Lindström, Risto Jussilainen
33David Lazzaroni, Emmanuel Chedal ', Nicolas Dessum '
66Noriaki Kasai, Daiki Itō, Hideharu Miyahira, Kazuyoshi Funaki, Akira Higashi, Kazuya Yoshioka
22Asan Tahtahunov, Radik Zhaparov
11Boy van Baarle '
88Roar Ljøkelsøy, Lars Bystøl, Bjørn Einar Romøren, Henning Stensrud, Sigurd Pettersen, Tommy Ingebrigtsen, Daniel Forfang, Morten Solem
34Adam Małysz, Robert Mateja, Krystian Długopolski ', Stefan Hula '
23Dimitry Vassiliev, Ildar Fatchullin ', Dimitry Ipatov '
11Martin Mesík
56Jernej Damjan, Rok Benkovič, Peter Žonta, Primož Peterka, Robert Kranjec ', Bine Zupan '
22Kang Chil-ku ', Kim Hyun-ki '
22Johan Erikson, Isak Grimholm '
44Simon Ammann, Michael Möllinger, Andreas Küttel, Marco Steinauer
22Clint Jones, Alan Alborn

Results

Oberstorf

, Oberstorf
28-29 December 2004
Defending champion Sigurd Pettersen was not among the fifteen pre-qualified jumpers, and only placed 63rd in the qualification round. Thus, he failed to qualify.
In the final event, Roar Ljøkelsøy's jump over 140.0 meters catapulted him from 18th place after the first round onto 2nd place overall.
Qualification winner: Janne Ahonen
RankNamePoints
1 Janne Ahonen268.4
2 Roar Ljøkelsøy258.8
3 Adam Małysz253.8
4 Daiki Itō247.5
5 Martin Höllwarth245.7
6 Matti Hautamäki244.7
7 Jernej Damjan243.1
8 Michael Uhrmann242.7
9 Jakub Janda242.0
10 Dmitri Vassiliev239.9

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

, Garmisch-Partenkirchen
31 December 2004 - 1 January 2005
Qualification winner: Janne Ahonen
RankNamePoints
1 Janne Ahonen260.1
2 Thomas Morgenstern254.1
3 Georg Spaeth247.2
4 Martin Höllwarth243.0
5 Michael Uhrmann236.6
6 Jakub Janda233.1
7 Roar Ljøkelsøy232.6
7 Adam Małysz232.6
9 Andreas Widhölzl229.5
10 Daiki Itō228.1

Innsbruck

, Innsbruck
02-03 January 2005
Qualification winner: Janne Ahonen
RankNamePoints
1 Janne Ahonen243.8
2 Adam Małysz236.8
3 Jakub Janda232.5
4 Thomas Morgenstern229.0
5 Martin Höllwarth228.5
6 Andreas Widhölzl227.3
7 Martin Schmitt223.7
8 Michael Uhrmann220.3
9 Akira Higashi219.9
10 Tommy Ingebrigtsen218.5

Bischofshofen

, Bischofshofen
05-6 January 2005
Qualification winner: Martin Höllwarth
RankNamePoints
1 Martin Höllwarth277.0
2 Janne Ahonen271.0
3 Daiki Itō269.5
4 Jakub Janda265.2
5 Thomas Morgenstern263.9
6 Roar Ljøkelsøy262.7
7 Adam Małysz262.1
8 Georg Spaeth256.3
9 Sigurd Pettersen252.1
10 Noriaki Kasai245.9

Final Ranking

RankNameOberstorfGarmisch-PartenkirchenInnsbruckBischofshofenPoints
1 Janne Ahonen1st1st1st2nd1043.3
2 Martin Höllwarth5th4th5th1st994.2
3 Thomas Morgenstern11th2nd4th5th985.8
4 Adam Małysz3rd7th2nd7th985.3
5 Jakub Janda9th6th3rd4th972.8
6 Roar Ljøkelsøy2nd7th13th6th969.7
7 Daiki Itō4th10th11th3rd962.7
8 Michael Uhrmann8th5th8th13th939.0
9 Georg Spaeth21st3rd17th8th928.5
10 Matti Hautamäki6th11th19th12th922.2

After failing to qualify in Oberstorf, the defending Four Hills champion, Sigurd Pettersen, ultimately ranked 22nd overall.