The four venues – all without fans
The sad news first: The 2021/22 tour will take place without spectators. On Thursday (December 23rd, 2021) the Austrians announced that they would now also exclude viewers because of the Omikron variant of the Corona virus. The giant event traditionally starts with the qualifying competition on December 28th in Oberstdorf’s Schattenberg Arena, then the entourage moves on to Garmisch-Partenkirchen over New Year’s Eve and climbs the Olympic hill. After the two competitions in Germany, it goes over the border to Austria: From January 2nd, the Bergisel Stadium in Innsbruck will be jumping, the tour will end on 5th / 6th. January as always on the Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze in Bischofshofen.
The transmission times
In Oberstdorf the qualification starts on December 28th and the jumping on the following day at 4.30 p.m. – The first broadcasts live, sportschau.de is also at the start of all events of the tour with a live ticker. The qualification in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on New Year’s Eve and the New Year’s competition both start at 2 p.m. (ZDF). Innsbruck follows on January 2nd and 3rd (1.30pm / ZDF), Bischofshofen on January 5th from 5.15pm and on January 6th from 5.30pm (Das Erste / sportschau.de).
The German starters
National coach Stefan Horngacher has not yet nominated his final squad for the tour – on January 27th he will give an online press conference at 2 p.m. What is certain, however, is that top favorite Karl Geiger will lead the German squad as number 1 in the overall World Cup. Markus Eisenbichler (7th in the World Cup), Pius Paschke (14th), Constantin Schmid (15th), Stephan Leyhe (21st) and Andreas Wellinger (22nd) are seeded, Severin Freund qualified through the Continental Cup. Martin Hamann, Luca Roth and David Siegel shouldn’t do anything else over New Year’s Eve either.
The favorites
Karl Geiger leads the World Cup by almost 100 points over the Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi, who, however, won the youngest competition in Engelberg ahead of Geiger. Another top season was the Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud, the Slovenian Anze Lanisek and Granerud’s team-mate Marius Lindvik. Markus Eisenbichler was completely out of shape recently, but has enough experience to be in top shape for the tour.
The best of the best
Five overall tour victories have only been achieved by one athlete: The Finn Janne Ahonen was successful in 1998/99, 2002/03, 2004/05, 2005/06 and 2007/08. The German ski jumping legend Jens Weißflog has won four times. Weißflog holds together with the Norwegian Björn Wikola the record of daily wins (10), ahead of Ahonen and the Austrian Gregor Schlierenzauer (9 each).
The Tour Grand Slam Champions
Sven Hannawald will be in the record books of the tour forever, because in 2001/02 he was the first to manage the feat of winning all four competitions. 16 years later, the Pole Kamil Stoch and the Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi the following year.
The hill records
The hill record in Oberstdorf’s Schattenberg Arena is slowly overdue: The Norwegian Sigurd Pettersen has held the record with 143.5 meters since 2003. Seven years younger, but exactly the same length, was the best jump so far in Garmisch, where the Swiss Simon did Ammann immortalized. On the Bergisel in Innsburck, Michael Hayböck from Austria is the all-time best with 138 meters from 2015, in Bischofshofen Dawid Kubacki from Poland has held the record with 145 meters since 2019. With that he landed the widest sentence that has ever existed in tour history.
The prize money
For the 70th edition of the Four Hills Tournament, the organizers are increasing the prize money significantly: the overall winner will receive 100,000 Swiss francs (around 96,000 euros) in addition to the usual World Cup prizes – this will increase the prize money for the champions fivefold. The cumulative prize money that will be distributed across the four tour stops increases to 400,000 francs (384,000 euros). 75,000 francs per location are paid out as the usual World Cup bonus and for the qualification win.