2002–03 Four Hills Tournament

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Four Hills Tournament
at the 2002-03 FIS Ski Jumping World Cup
Ski jumping pictogram.svg
Venues Schattenbergschanze, Große Olympiaschanze, Bergiselschanze, Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze
Location Germany, Austria
Dates28 December 2002 (2002-12-28) – 6 January 2003 (2003-01-06)
Competitors110 from 20 nations
Medalists
Gold medal icon.svg  
Silver medal icon.svg  
Bronze medal icon.svg  
  2001–02
2003–04  

The 51st 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 defending champion was Sven Hannawald. After being the first ski jumper to win on all four hills in the previous year, he also won the first event of 2003-04. This fifth consecutive victory at a Four Hills tournament equalized a record set by Helmut Recknagel in the late 1950s. Kamil Stoch achieved the same feat in 2018.

Contents

The tournament victor was Janne Ahonen, who had already won the tournament four years prior. Ahonen would continue to win it three more times, becoming the most successful athlete of the Four Hills tournament.

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 already held.

The standings were as follows: [1]

RankNamePoints
1. Flag of Austria.svg Martin Höllwarth 469
2. Flag of Finland.svg Janne Ahonen 427
3. Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Widhölzl 405
4. Flag of Norway.svg Sigurd Pettersen 396
5. Flag of Poland.svg Adam Małysz 381
6. Flag of Germany.svg Michael Uhrmann 320
7. Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Goldberger 279
8. Flag of Slovenia.svg Primož Peterka 278
9. Flag of Germany.svg Sven Hannawald 224
10. Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Kofler 220
Flag of Slovenia.svg Peter Žonta 220

Participating nations and athletes

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 Sven Hannawald. 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, Janne Ahonen in 1998-99, Andreas Widhölzl in 1999-00 and Adam Małysz in 2000-01.

The following athletes were nominated:

NationStarting SpotsNumber of AthletesAthletes
Flag of Germany.svg  Germany 8+1019 Michael Uhrmann, Sven Hannawald, Georg Spaeth, Martin Schmitt, Christof Duffner, Stefan Pieper, Maximilian Mechler, Michael Neumayer (not in Innsbruck), Stephan Hocke (until Innsbruck)
National Group: Alexander Herr, Jörg Ritzerfeld, Kai Bracht, Michael Möllinger, Dirk Else, Ferdinand Bader, Frank Ludwig, Daniel Klausmann, Frank Reichel (Oberstdorf only), Roland Audenrieth (Garmisch-Partenkirchen only)
Flag of Austria.svg  Austria 8 + 1020 Martin Höllwarth, Andreas Widhölzl, Andreas Goldberger, Andreas Kofler, Florian Liegl, Mathias Hafele, Thomas Morgenstern, Martin Koch (until Innsbruck)
National Group: Reinhard Schwarzenberger, Wolfgang Loitzl, Stefan Thurnbichler, Christian Nagiller, Bastian Kaltenböck, Balthasar Schneider, Bernhard Metzler, Stefan Kaiser, Manuel Fettner, Markus Eigentler (Innsbruck only), Stefan Becker (Bischofshofen only), Michael Nagiller (Bischofshofen only)
Flag of Bulgaria.svg  Bulgaria 11 Georgi Zharkov
Flag of the Czech Republic.svg  Czech Republic 34 Jakub Janda, Jan Matura, Lukáš Hlava (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Jiří Parma (Innsbruck onward)
Flag of Estonia.svg  Estonia 33 Jens Salumäe, Jaan Jüris (not Innsbruck), Jouko Hein (Garmisch-Partenkirchen only)
Flag of Finland.svg  Finland 88 Janne Ahonen, Arttu Lappi, Matti Hautamäki, Tami Kiuru, Akseli Kokkonen, Veli-Matti Lindström, Jussi Hautamäki, Risto Jussilainen
Flag of France.svg  France 33 Nicolas Dessum (Innsbruck onward, Emmanuel Chedal (Innsbruck onward, Maxime Remy (Innsbruck only)
Flag of Italy.svg  Italy 33 Roberto Cecon, Alessio Bolgnani, Giancarlo Adami
Flag of Japan.svg  Japan 55 Noriaki Kasai, Kazuyoshi Funaki, Hideharu Miyahira, Hiroki Yamada, Kazuya Yoshioka
Flag of Kazakhstan.svg  Kazakhstan 33 Pawel Gaiduk, Stanislav Filimonov, Maxim Polunin
Flag of the Netherlands.svg  Netherlands 22 Ingemar Mayr, Christoph Kreuzer (Innsbruck onward)
Flag of Norway.svg  Norway 88 Sigurd Pettersen, Roar Ljøkelsøy, Bjørn Einar Romøren, Kim-Roar Hansen, Henning Stensrud, Lars Bystøl, Tommy Ingebrigtsen, Anders Bardal
Flag of Poland.svg  Poland 45 Adam Małysz, Marcin Bachleda, Tomasz Pochwała, Tomisław Tajner (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Robert Mateja (Bischofshofen only)
Flag of Russia.svg  Russia 45 Valery Kobelev, Ildar Fatchullin, Ilya Rosliakov, Alexei Silaev (until Innsbruck), Dmitri Vassiliev (Bischofshofen only)
Flag of Slovakia.svg  Slovakia 22 Martin Mesík, Dušan Oršula
Flag of Slovenia.svg  Slovenia 66 Primož Peterka, Peter Žonta, Damjan Fras, Robert Kranjec, Igor Medved, Rok Benkovič (Innsbruck onward)
Flag of South Korea.svg  South Korea 44 Kim Hyun-ki, Kang Chil-ku, Choi Yong-jik (until Innsbruck), Choi Heung-chul (until Innsbruck)
Flag of Sweden.svg  Sweden 22 Kristoffer Jåfs, Isak Grimholm
Flag of Switzerland (Pantone).svg  Switzerland 44 Simon Ammann, Andreas Küttel, Marco Steinauer (until Innsbruck), Sylvain Freiholz (Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck)
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States 33 Alan Alborn, Clint Jones (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Tommy Schwall (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen)

Results

Oberstorf

Flag of Germany.svg Schattenbergschanze, Oberstorf
28-29 December 2002

Qualification winner: Flag of Norway.svg Roar Ljøkelsøy

RankNamePoints
1 Flag of Germany.svg Sven Hannawald 263.1
2 Flag of Austria.svg Martin Höllwarth 257.7
3 Flag of Finland.svg Janne Ahonen 257.5
4 Flag of Germany.svg Martin Schmitt 252.5
5 Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Kofler 245.1
6 Flag of Norway.svg Roar Ljøkelsøy 243.6
7 Flag of Slovenia.svg Primož Peterka 239.7
8 Flag of Slovenia.svg Peter Žonta 239.0
9 Flag of Austria.svg Thomas Morgenstern 237.4
10 Flag of Austria.svg Florian Liegl 236.8

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Flag of Germany.svg Große Olympiaschanze, Garmisch-Partenkirchen
31 December 2002 - 1 January 2003

The second event saw three former tournament winners on the podium, two of which have not even placed in the Top Ten in Oberstorf. The first event's winner Sven Hannawald on the other hand, only placed 12th (235.1p).

Qualification winner: Flag of Austria.svg Thomas Morgenstern

RankNamePoints
1 Flag of Slovenia.svg Primož Peterka 264.6
2 Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Goldberger 261.1
Flag of Poland.svg Adam Małysz 261.1
4 Flag of Norway.svg Roar Ljøkelsøy 256.1
5 Flag of Finland.svg Janne Ahonen 255.6
6 Flag of Switzerland (Pantone).svg Simon Ammann 247.9
7 Flag of Japan.svg Hideharu Miyahira 245.9
8 Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Kofler 245.5
9 Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Widhölzl 239.8
10 Flag of Austria.svg Martin Höllwarth 236.9

Innsbruck

Flag of Austria.svg Bergiselschanze, Innsbruck
03-4 January 2003

The jumbled results of the first two events saw Janne Ahonen in the lead after the tournament's first half. With a clear victory in Innsbruck, the Finn increased his lead in the overall ranking to 26.7 points.

Again, the winner of the previous event could not be found in the Top Ten. Peterka placed 15th (198.1p).

Qualification winner: Flag of Austria.svg Stefan Thurnbichler

RankNamePoints
1 Flag of Finland.svg Janne Ahonen 227.5
2 Flag of Austria.svg Florian Liegl 218.7
3 Flag of Austria.svg Martin Höllwarth 216.6
4 Flag of Germany.svg Sven Hannawald 215.7
5 Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Widhölzl 214.4
6 Flag of Poland.svg Adam Małysz 211.9
7 Flag of Norway.svg Roar Ljøkelsøy 210.6
8 Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Goldberger 208.4
9 Flag of Germany.svg Martin Schmitt 206.9
10 Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Kofler 204.6

Bischofshofen

Flag of Austria.svg Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze, Bischofshofen
6 January 2003

Due to bad weather, the qualification was postponed to January 6, and instead of Sudden Death match-ups in the first round, the usual World Cup format was used.

The surprise winner was 21-year-old Bjørn Einar Romøren, whose best position during the tournament so far had been a 15th place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It was his first World Cup victory.

Janne Ahonen performed two solid jumps and his comfortable lead in the overall ranking was not in danger.

Qualification winner: Flag of Austria.svg Thomas Morgenstern

RankNamePoints
1 Flag of Norway.svg Bjørn Einar Romøren 263.1
2 Flag of Germany.svg Sven Hannawald 262.4
Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Kofler 262.4
4 Flag of Finland.svg Janne Ahonen 259.3
5 Flag of Norway.svg Sigurd Pettersen 257.0
6 Flag of Austria.svg Thomas Morgenstern 255.5
7 Flag of Poland.svg Adam Małysz 253.0
8 Flag of Slovenia.svg Primož Peterka 252.3
9 Flag of Austria.svg Florian Liegl 250.5
10 Flag of Italy.svg Roberto Cecon 248.1

Final ranking

RankNameOberstorfGarmisch-PartenkirchenInnsbruckBischofshofenPoints
1 Flag of Finland.svg Janne Ahonen 3rd5th1st4th999.9
2 Flag of Germany.svg Sven Hannawald 1st12th4th2nd976.3
3 Flag of Poland.svg Adam Małysz 13th2nd6th7th959.7
4 Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Kofler 5th8th10th2nd957.6
5 Flag of Slovenia.svg Primož Peterka 7th1st15th8th954.7
6 Flag of Norway.svg Roar Ljøkelsøy 6th4th7th15th949.3
7 Flag of Austria.svg Martin Höllwarth 2nd10th3rd16th945.6
8 Flag of Austria.svg Florian Liegl 10th17th2nd9th934.2
9 Flag of Austria.svg Andreas Goldberger 14th2nd8th22nd923.0
10 Flag of Austria.svg Thomas Morgenstern 9th25th12th6th912.8

The winner of Bischofshofen, Bjørn Einar Romøren, had failed to proceed to the second round of Oberstorf and only placed 19th overall (801.4p).

References

  1. ""e.on ruhrgas" FIS World Cup Ski-Jumping 2002/2003 World Cup Standings" (PDF). FIS. 2002.