2004–05 Four Hills Tournament

Four Hills Tournament at the 2004-05 FIS Ski Jumping World Cup
Venues	Schattenbergschanze, Große Olympiaschanze, Bergiselschanze, Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze
Location	Germany, Austria
Dates	28 December 2004 (2004-12-28) – 6 January 2005 (2005-01-06)
Competitors	93 from 20 nations
Medalists
Janne Ahonen   Martin Höllwarth   Thomas Morgenstern

Finishing almost 50 points ahead of runners-up Martin Höllwarth, the third out of Janne Ahonen's five Four Hills victories was the most distinct.

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:

Rank	Name	Points
01.	Janne Ahonen	780
02.	Jakub Janda	448
03.	Martin Höllwarth	397
04.	Roar Ljøkelsøy	379
05.	Thomas Morgenstern	328
06.	Matti Hautamäki	323
07.	Andreas Widhölzl	298
08.	Adam Małysz	277
09.	Noriaki Kasai	228
10.	Alexander Herr	218

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:

Nation	Starting Spots	Number of Athletes	Athletes
Germany	8 + 8	16	Alexander 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
Austria	8 + 8	16	Martin 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
Belarus	2	2	Maksim Anisimov, Petr Chaadaev
China	2	3	Tian Zhandong, Li Yang (Oberstorf and Innsbruck only), Wang Jianxun (Bischofshofen only)
Czech Republic	4	5	Jakub Janda, Jan Mazoch, Jan Matura, Michal Doležal (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Antonin Hajek (Innsbruck onward)
Estonia	2	2	Jaan Jüris, Jens Salumäe
Finland	5	5	Janne Ahonen, Matti Hautamäki, Tami Kiuru, Veli-Matti Lindström, Risto Jussilainen
France	3	3	David Lazzaroni, Emmanuel Chedal (Garmisch-Partenkirchen onward), Nicolas Dessum (Garmisch-Partenkirchen onward)
Japan	6	6	Noriaki Kasai, Daiki Itō, Hideharu Miyahira, Kazuyoshi Funaki, Akira Higashi, Kazuya Yoshioka
Kazakhstan	2	2	Asan Tahtahunov, Radik Zhaparov
Netherlands	1	1	Boy van Baarle (Innsbruck onward)
Norway	8	8	Roar Ljøkelsøy, Lars Bystøl, Bjørn Einar Romøren, Henning Stensrud, Sigurd Pettersen, Tommy Ingebrigtsen, Daniel Forfang, Morten Solem
Poland	3	4	Adam Małysz, Robert Mateja, Krystian Długopolski (until Innsbruck), Stefan Hula (Bischofshofen only)
Russia	2	3	Dimitry Vassiliev, Ildar Fatchullin (until Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Dimitry Ipatov (Innsbruck onward)
Slovakia	1	1	Martin Mesík
Slovenia	5	6	Jernej Damjan, Rok Benkovič, Peter Žonta, Primož Peterka, Robert Kranjec (until Innsbruck), Bine Zupan (only Bischofshofen)
South Korea	2	2	Kang Chil-ku (Innsbruck onward), Kim Hyun-ki (Innsbruck onward)
Sweden	2	2	Johan Erikson, Isak Grimholm (Innsbruck onward)
Switzerland	4	4	Simon Ammann, Michael Möllinger, Andreas Küttel, Marco Steinauer (Oberstorf only)
United States	2	2	Clint Jones, Alan Alborn

Results

Oberstorf

Schattenbergschanze, 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

Rank	Name	Points
1	Janne Ahonen	268.4
2	Roar Ljøkelsøy	258.8
3	Adam Małysz	253.8
4	Daiki Itō	247.5
5	Martin Höllwarth	245.7
6	Matti Hautamäki	244.7
7	Jernej Damjan	243.1
8	Michael Uhrmann	242.7
9	Jakub Janda	242.0
10	Dmitri Vassiliev	239.9

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Große Olympiaschanze, Garmisch-Partenkirchen
31 December 2004 - 1 January 2005

Qualification winner: Janne Ahonen

Rank	Name	Points
1	Janne Ahonen	260.1
2	Thomas Morgenstern	254.1
3	Georg Spaeth	247.2
4	Martin Höllwarth	243.0
5	Michael Uhrmann	236.6
6	Jakub Janda	233.1
7	Roar Ljøkelsøy	232.6
	Adam Małysz	232.6
9	Andreas Widhölzl	229.5
10	Daiki Itō	228.1

Innsbruck

Bergiselschanze, Innsbruck
02-3 January 2005

Qualification winner: Janne Ahonen

Rank	Name	Points
1	Janne Ahonen	243.8
2	Adam Małysz	236.8
3	Jakub Janda	232.5
4	Thomas Morgenstern	229.0
5	Martin Höllwarth	228.5
6	Andreas Widhölzl	227.3
7	Martin Schmitt	223.7
8	Michael Uhrmann	220.3
9	Akira Higashi	219.9
10	Tommy Ingebrigtsen	218.5

Bischofshofen

Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze, Bischofshofen
05-6 January 2005

Qualification winner: Martin Höllwarth

Rank	Name	Points
1	Martin Höllwarth	277.0
2	Janne Ahonen	271.0
3	Daiki Itō	269.5
4	Jakub Janda	265.2
5	Thomas Morgenstern	263.9
6	Roar Ljøkelsøy	262.7
7	Adam Małysz	262.1
8	Georg Spaeth	256.3
9	Sigurd Pettersen	252.1
10	Noriaki Kasai	245.9

Final ranking

Rank	Name	Oberstorf	Garmisch-Partenkirchen	Innsbruck	Bischofshofen	Points
1	Janne Ahonen	1st	1st	1st	2nd	1043.3
2	Martin Höllwarth	5th	4th	5th	1st	994.2
3	Thomas Morgenstern	11th	2nd	4th	5th	985.8
4	Adam Małysz	3rd	7th	2nd	7th	985.3
5	Jakub Janda	9th	6th	3rd	4th	972.8
6	Roar Ljøkelsøy	2nd	7th	13th	6th	969.7
7	Daiki Itō	4th	10th	11th	3rd	962.7
8	Michael Uhrmann	8th	5th	8th	13th	939.0
9	Georg Spaeth	21st	3rd	17th	8th	928.5
10	Matti Hautamäki	6th	11th	19th	12th	922.2

After failing to qualify in Oberstorf, the defending Four Hills champion, Sigurd Pettersen, ultimately ranked 22nd overall (678.1 points).

External links

• FIS website
• Four Hills Tournament web site