2005–06 Four Hills Tournament


The 54th 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. For the first and only time, the two ski jumpers at the top of the table shared exactly the same number of points after all four events. The competitors in question, Janne Ahonen and Jakub Janda, were both declared tournament winners. For Ahonen, it was the fourth tournament victory, equalizing the record of Jens Weißflog. He would surpass Weißflog and become the lone record holder two years later.

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 events during the Four Hills tournament count as part of the World Cup season. The standings at the time of the tournament, after seven out of twenty-two events, were as follows:
RankNamePoints
1. Jakub Janda552
2. Janne Ahonen435
3. Andreas Küttel430
4. Michael Uhrmann367
5. Andreas Widhölzl254
6. Adam Małysz240
7. Lars Bystøl239
8. Thomas Morgenstern228
9. Robert Kranjec206
10. Roar Ljøkelsøy180

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 Janne Ahonen. Four other competitors had also previously won the Four Hills tournament: Primož Peterka in 1996-97, Andreas Widhölzl in 1999-00, Adam Małysz in 2000-01 and Sigurd Pettersen in 2003-04.
The following athletes were nominated:
NationStarting SpotsNumber of AthletesAthletes
6 + 613Michael Uhrmann, Georg Spaeth, Martin Schmitt ', Michael Neumayer, Alexander Herr, Jörg Ritzerfeld ', Maximilian Mechler '
National Group: Stephan Hocke, Julian Musiol, Andreas Wank, Erik Simon, Kai Bracht, Mario Kürschner
'
8 + 816Andreas Widhölzl, Thomas Morgenstern, Andreas Kofler, Wolfgang Loitzl, Martin Koch, Martin Höllwarth, Balthasar Schneider, Stefan Thurnbichler
National Group: Reinhard Schwarzenberger, Manuel Fettner, Stefan Kaiser, Roland Müller, Bastian Kaltenböck, Gerald Wambacher, Mathias Hafele, Artur Pauli
22Maksim Anisimov, Petr Chaadaev
22Petar Fartunov, Georgi Zharkov
11Stefan Read
22Tian Zhandong, Li Yang
45Jakub Janda, Jan Matura, Antonin Hajek, Jan Mazoch ', Ondřej Vaculík '
22Jens Salumäe, Jaan Juris '
77Janne Ahonen, Matti Hautamäki, Janne Happonen, Risto Jussilainen ', Joonas Ikonen, Tami Kiuru, Harri Olli
33David Lazzaroni, Emmanuel Chedal ', Vincent Descombes '
22Sebastian Colloredo, Andrea Morassi
66Takanobu Okabe, Noriaki Kasai, Daiki Itō, Tsuyoshi Ichinohe, Hideharu Miyahira, Hiroki Yamada
22Ivan Karaulov, Nikolay Karpenko
68Lars Bystøl, Roar Ljøkelsøy, Daniel Forfang ', Tommy Ingebrigtsen, Bjørn Einar Romøren, Sigurd Pettersen ', Henning Stensrud ', Anders Bardal '
46Adam Małysz ', Kamil Stoch, Robert Mateja, Marcin Bachleda ', Stefan Hula ', Rafał Śliż '
44Dimitry Vassiliev, Denis Kornilov, Dimitry Ipatov, Ildar Fatchullin
11Martin Mesík
56Robert Kranjec, Primož Peterka, Rok Benkovič, Jernej Damjan ', Jurij Tepeš, Primož Pikl '
23Choi Heung-chul, Choi Yong-jik ', Kim Hyun-ki '
23Isak Grimholm, Johan Erikson ', Jakob Grimholm '
44Andreas Küttel, Simon Ammann, Michael Möllinger, Guido Landert '
11Volodymyr Boschuk '
11Alan Alborn

Results

Oberstorf

, Oberstorf
28-29 December 2005
Qualification winner: Andreas Widhölzl
RankNamePoints
1 Janne Ahonen270.9
2 Roar Ljøkelsøy268.4
3 Jakub Janda262.6
4 Takanobu Okabe260.8
5 Matti Hautamäki258.0
6 Andreas Widhölzl248.1
7 Georg Spaeth245.3
8 Simon Ammann244.8
9 Michael Uhrmann244.4
10 Bjørn Einar Romøren243.8

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

, Garmisch-Partenkirchen
31 December 2005 - 1 January 2006
Qualification winner: Noriaki Kasai
RankNamePoints
1 Jakub Janda264.7
2 Janne Ahonen262.2
3 Matti Hautamäki260.3
4 Andreas Küttel259.8
5 Roar Ljøkelsøy249.8
6 Andreas Kofler248.9
7 Michael Uhrmann246.6
8 Simon Ammann242.9
9 Georg Spaeth240.8
10 Takanobu Okabe238.6

Innsbruck

, Innsbruck
03-4 January 2006
Qualification winner: Janne Ahonen
RankNamePoints
1 Lars Bystøl264.7
2 Jakub Janda263.2
3 Bjørn Einar Romøren258.1
4 Thomas Morgenstern257.6
5 Roar Ljøkelsøy256.9
6 Janne Ahonen255.4
7 Andreas Küttel255.2
8 Takanobu Okabe253.8
9 Noriaki Kasai251.7
10 Rok Benkovič251.4

Bischofshofen

, Bischofshofen
05-6 January 2006
Qualification winner: Janne Ahonen
After three out of four events, World Cup leader Jakub Janda was two points ahead of defending champion Janne Ahonen. With Janda skipping the qualification tournament, and Ahonen winning it, there was a direct duel between the two jumpers at the first round of the final tournament. Janda jumped first, and reached 141.0m, surpassing the leading Ljøkelsøy by four meters. Ahonen then reached the same distance, but lost the duel due to worse Judges Marks by one point. As the best duel loser, he still qualified for the second and final round in second place.
Ahonen reached 141.5 meters in his second attempt, earning 146.7 points. With Janda then reaching 'only' 139.0 meters in the tournament's final jump, earning 143.7 points, Ahonen surpassed him in the Bischofshofen ranking and equalized in the tournament ranking - both having scored exactly 1081.5 points over the four events.
RankNamePoints
1 Janne Ahonen293.0
2 Jakub Janda291.0
3 Roar Ljøkelsøy282.0
4 Andreas Küttel277.7
5 Bjørn Einar Romøren265.8
6 Takanobu Okabe264.6
7 Alexander Herr262.0
8 Thomas Morgenstern257.6
9 Andreas Widhölzl256.6
10 Andreas Kofler255.9

Final Ranking

RankNameOberstorfGarmisch-PartenkirchenInnsbruckBischofshofenPoints
1 Janne Ahonen1st2nd6th1st1081.5
1 Jakub Janda3rd1st2nd2nd1081.5
3 Roar Ljøkelsøy2nd5th5th3rd1057.1
4 Andreas Küttel20th4th7th4th1022.9
5 Matti Hautamäki5th3rd15th15th1018.0
6 Takanobu Okabe4th10th8th6th1017.8
7 Bjørn Einar Romøren10th16th3rd5th997.9
8 Andreas Kofler15th6th11th10th992.8
9 Noriaki Kasai13th12th9th11th981.5
10 Georg Spaeth7th9th13th22nd976.7

Lars Bystøl, who won the Innsbruck event, placed only 20th or above in the other three competitions and placed 16th in the final ranking.