Every year the question arises: When is the time ripe for the women’s Four Hills Tournament? While the World Ski Association FIS plans to introduce it in the winter of 2026/2027, World Cup sports director Horst Hüttel from the DSV is hopeful that something will happen this year. He explained exclusively to sport.de why he is confident and what the problem is.
In the shadow of the large, even powerful Four Hills Tournament, the ski jumpers took part in the second edition of the Two-Nights Tour. This will also be held in the tour locations Oberstdorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but in the reverse order and the two Austrian stations Innsbruck and Bischofshofen are of course missing.
There has been a struggle for more than half a decade to offer women a Four Hills Tournament. If the World Ski Association (FIS) has its way, it should be ready in the post-Olympic winter of 2026/2027. Before the current Four Hills Tournament, the World Cup director of the German Ski Association (DSV), Horst Hüttel, expressed the hope that the saga would come to an end in 2025.
“A crucial meeting will take place in May. This is the annual tour meeting with all four organizers, the two ski associations and the FIS. Until then, a lot will be checked and evaluated,” he explained in an interview with sport.de in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on New Year’s Eve. He sees the basis for the fact that it could happen faster than currently assumed in the fact that “I can’t find anyone anymore who doesn’t want it.”
DSV “absolutely” wants the women’s Four Hills Tournament
He and his association colleagues at DSV “absolutely want that.” The introduction of the two-night tour in winter 2023/2024 had already been given as a signal. However, the current mode with only 30 participants in the first round, who contest 15 knockout duels, which is significantly slimmer than the classic one for men, is not the association’s desired solution. “As usual with women, we would welcome a field of 40 athletes,” said Hüttel.
The official leaves no doubt that all four ski jumps are a must for the women’s tour: “The two-night tour proves that the ski jumps are well suited for women’s competitions and I feel the same about Innsbruck and Bischofshofen. The four jumps offer the potential for exciting duels and a compact field and are therefore ideal for the idea we have.”
This is behind the DSV’s Four Hills Tournament concept
The starting point of the DSV concept is a suggestion that the then women’s national coach Andreas Bauer had already made in January 2020. The Oberstdorfer, who is currently head of the materials commission at the FIS, had already suggested at the time that the women’s competitions should take place on the men’s qualification days.
Based on this idea, the program in Garmisch-Partenkirchen was also scheduled this year, which worked even better than previously expected. The break between the men’s qualification and the women’s competition was generously calculated at one and a half hours and would have been shorter based on what was known on the day of the event.
“The biggest concerns we had here were about the stadium renovation. But it worked perfectly, they were twice as fast as planned and only took 20 minutes instead of 40. But you don’t know that beforehand and you only learn with experience,” reported Farmer in conversation with sport.de.
His former boss Hüttel accepted this mental template and pointed out the general conditions that had to change for the introduction of the women’s tour. “One thing is marketing, as our two touring competitions are marketed by two different agencies. A solution has to be found.”
DSV sports director Hüttel promises “passion and energy”
But the DSV also has great interest in this, “because that would have the advantage for us that we could offer potential partners a TV advertising space of two and a half to three hours for both genders instead of just one and a half to two hours for men. That would be for “all more attractive,” said the 56-year-old.
The second (still) proverbial, but perhaps in the future also literal, construction site is the still missing floodlights in Innsbruck. “The situation has still not been finally clarified,” said the DSV World Cup sports director, but it is essential that the only remaining facility without floodlights also receives this.
The FIS also requires this in its “Matrix for the infrastructure of ski jumps”, which can be viewed on the association website. With the exception of the ski flying hill in Planica, the Bergiselschanze is the only exception to the list of World Cup venues.
He has already had a first, intensive conversation about the two major outstanding points with tour president Manfred Schützenhofer in Oberstdorf. “Of course I can’t promise that it will work. But we from the DSV up to the board level are working on it with passion and energy,” assured Hüttel. However, we will have to be patient until the next water level report after the meeting in May.