4 Hills Tournament starts in Oberstdorf

Germany welcomes winter sports amateurs in Oberstdorf. Perhaps, the most famous in the world ski jumping tournament - Four Hills Tournament - starts on 30 December 2010 in Oberstdorf. The venue for the first phase of the tournament will be the main hill of the famous ski resort of Germany - Schattenberg.

Four Hills tournament is a competition in ski jumping, which is held at ski resorts in Austria and Germany since 1952. Apart from Oberstdorf the stages of the tournament are held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany and Innsbruck and Bischofshofen in Austria. The tournament will be won by the athlete, who will be able to score the maximum number of points in all three tournaments.

Scoring in the tournament is different from the conventional system. In the Four Hills Tournament 50 jumpers are divided into 25 pairs. The winner of each pair and 5 lucky losers have the opportunity to continue participation in the second series of jumps.

This season on Oberstdorf hills are expected the strongest jumpers in the world. At the same time the tournament have some losses. Thus, twice winner of the tournament, the best jumper of Austria, Gregor Schlierenzauer, will miss at least two stages of the tournament this year. According to the athlete’s coach the Austrian have to miss the tournament due to the preparations for the Ski Jumping World Cup, which will be held in February 2011 in Oslo, Norway. One of the reasons for not participating in the tournament Schlierenzauer’s coach calls injury of the athlete. Nevertheless, Schlierenzauer plans to recover till the tournament, which will be held in Innsbruck, and maybe even perform a couple of "training" jumps.

To date, the legend of the Four Hills Tournament is the Finnish athlete Janne Ahonen. He is a five-time winner of the tournament.

The official record of the tournament - 143.5 meters - was established in 2003 by the Norwegian Sigurd Petersen and repeated in 2010 by the Swiss Simon Ammann.

After Oberstdorf the next stages of the tournament will host another ski resort in Germany - Garmisch. Here, the competition will start on January 1, 2011.