Domen Prevc dominated the opening half of the Four Hills Tournament with two wins in Oberstdorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Austrians got back in form after a disappointing opening of the year, as Daniel Tschofenig, Jan Hörl and Stephan Embacher got one podium each, with the 18-year-old securing the hill record of Große Olympiaschanze in Garmisch. One of the pre-tournament favourites Timi Zajc meanwhile, got disqualified twice in two competitions, ending his Four Hills campaign.
by Maciej Jackiewicz
Oberstdorf
The 2025–26 Four Hills Tournament began with qualifying in Oberstdorf on 28 December, held in difficult wind conditions. Persistent backwind forced the jury into several gate adjustments, moving from gate 13 up to gate 16 within the first 18 jumpers. Despite this, distances remained modest early on, with no jumps beyond the K-point. That changed with Bib 26 Sandro Hauswirth, whose 121.5-metre effort marked the first significant distance of the session.
From there, conditions improved and the lead changed hands frequently, with Rok Oblak, Maciej Kot, Jason Colby and Gregor Deschwanden all taking turns at the top as jumps regularly exceeded 130 metres. Before Bib 50 Manuel Fettner, the gate was lowered back to 15, but it did little to stop Timi Zajc, who produced the longest jump of the session to move into first place. Last year’s Four Hills winner Daniel Tschofenig briefly overtook him, before Philipp Raimund moved ahead. However, qualification was ultimately decided by Domen Prevc, whose dominant 139.5-metre jump secured victory by over 10.7 points.
The next day Oberstdorf hosted the first competition of this year’s Four Hills Tournament, with the famous KO system. The competition started with the pair of Kacper Tomasiak and Niko Kytösaho, before Maximilian Ortner jumped to the lead. In the meantime, Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal had to wait longer for his jump in the pair against Ren Nikaido because the wind conditions were getting too good, which caused the jury to lower the gate. Ironically, the wind got stronger again after lowering the gate, but it did not stop Stefan Kraft from taking the lead, as he had beaten Colby in a very interesting duel.
In the next pair, we could see the KO system in action, as Vladimir Zografski won over Marius Lindvik by only 0.1 points. After the Bulgarian-Norwegian pair, Jonas Schuster jumped 138.5 metres and took over the lead. Despite a lot of good jumps from the likes of Felix Hoffmann or Ryoyu Kobayashi, he stayed at the front for a very long time. Only Jan Hörl in the 21st pair was able to move ahead of Schuster. Similarly to qualifying, none of them came close to Prevc, who after jumping 141.5 metres had a 8.3 point gap over Hörl coming to the second round. The top three heading to the second round were Prevc, Hörl and Schuster.
The second round began with Robin Pedersen jumping only 113 metres, but with every next performance the jumps got longer and longer. Halvor Egner Granerud, who jumped just after Pedersen, was able to climb up nine positions compared to the first round. Around the halfway point of the final round, the lead changed repeatedly, with jumpers such as Naoki Nakamura, Kacper Tomasiak, Anže Lanišek and Stephan Embacher all taking turns in first place. The same thing started happening after the jump of Philipp Raimund, who was classified in seventh after the first round. He led the competition, but it was short-lived as his countryman Felix Hoffmann overtook him.
The next two jumpers – Timi Zajc and Daniel Tschofenig – jumped 138 and 134 metres respectively, but due to different wind conditions in their jumps they were classified in first ex aequo, tied on points. Both Schuster and Hörl did not handle the pressure of podium positions after the first round, and their jumps put them outside of the podium. Not surprisingly, Prevc ended the competition with an amazing 140-metre jump, winning the first Four Hills event by over 17 points over second Tschofenig and Zajc. This was the provisional situation, but after the jumping concluded, Zajc was disqualified because his suit legs were 3mm too short. This promoted Felix Hoffmann to third place – scoring his first podium on his home soil.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen
New Year’s Eve in ski jumping is traditionally associated with the Garmisch-Partenkirchen qualification. Unfortunately, the year didn’t start well for Artti Aigro, who after falling in training, might miss the Olympics due to an injury.
The qualification started a lot better for the Germans than in Oberstdorf, as Ben Bayer with his 131-metre jump, despite the gate moving up, led for quite a long time. His time at the top ended with Robin Pedersen’s same distance jump. After that, Sandro Hauswirth, Maciej Kot and Maximilian Ortner all took over the lead for a shorter period of time. First impressive jumps came with Kamil Stoch and Timi Zajc both jumping 136 metres and, as a result, leading tied on points. Just after Zajc, however, Manuel Fettner did an impressive 142.5 metres and overtook the Polish-Slovenian duo at the front.
After Fettner’s jump the gate was lowered, but it didn’t stop Stephan Embacher from producing a mind-blowing 145.5-metre jump, which was the new hill record. He didn’t lead for long though, as the jury decided to lower the gate by two levels after the record, and Jan Hörl despite jumping 138 metres beat Embacher. All of this didn’t matter in the long run, as Domen Prevc again showed dominance and won the qualification with a 139.5-metre attempt. All in all, the top three was Prevc, Hörl and Embacher. A big story of this round was also the disqualification of Halvor Egner Granerud – the second disqualification of a top jumper in this Four Hills Tournament.
The New Year competition started with a disappointment, as one of the favourites Stefan Kraft won his pair, but jumped only 123 metres. The first attempt over 130 metres came in the second pair, as Robin Pedersen beat home-hero Andreas Wellinger to take the lead. The Norwegian didn’t stay at the top for the longest time, because Vladimir Zografski jumped 131 metres to go first. In the ninth pair a little bit of a surprise took place, as the Olympic champion Lindvik was beaten by Maciej Kot. Around this time, Timi Zajc was disqualified for a second time in the tournament, this time his suit legs were 4mm too short. With that, he received a red card which excludes him from the rest of the Four Hills. Thanks to this, Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes scored his first points of the season.
Next jumper to take over the lead was the 18-year-old Kacper Tomasiak after a 130.5-metre jump. He stayed in this position until the German hero Felix Hoffmann jumped 132.5 metres. Just after that Ren Nikaido achieved an impressive 137.5 metres. There were some good jumps after, for example from Stephan Embacher or Philipp Raimund, but the ones to beat the Japanese jumper were firstly Jan Hörl and then the Four Hills leader Domen Prevc, who after jumping 143 metres led the competition by 3.2 points.
The start of the second round was delayed, as the lift broke down with the jumpers inside. It was fixed after a few minutes and the competition went ahead. Jumpers in the places from 20th to 30th jumped mostly around the 130-metre mark. The more impressive jumps came firstly from Anže Lanišek, and then Maximilian Ortner, who both achieved 135 metres. Gregor Deschwanden also joined the party, and after his 134-metre effort he led tied on points with Ortner. Although, the star of this part of the competition was Ryoyu Kobayashi, who jumped 141.5 metres and overtook the Austrian-Swiss duo by whopping 22.7 points.
The conditions deteriorated dramatically after the jump of Kobayashi, and because of that jumpers like Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal and Manuel Fettner did not get good results in the second round. Later, the conditions changed rapidly which caused the jury to move the gate down from gate 17 to gate 16. It didn’t stop Embacher from jumping 141.5 metres, which caused the jury to again lower the gate. Hörl achieved 131.5 metres but thanks to the points added to his note because of the lower gate he overtook Embacher. The competition was won by none other than Prevc, who again showed his magnificent form with a 141-metre attempt in the second round.
After the first four counting jumps Prevc leads the Four Hills Tournament, 35 points ahead of Hörl and 41.5 points ahead of Embacher. Last season’s winner Tschofenig sits in eighth overall with a 63.2-point gap to the leading Slovenian.
Results
| Session | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Full results |
| Oberstdorf individual | Domen Prevc, 150.9 points | Philipp Raimund, +10.7p | Daniel Tschofenig, +11.3p | Here |
| Oberstdorf individual | Domen Prevc, 316.7 points | Daniel Tschofenig, +17.5p | Felix Hoffmann, +19.4p | Here |
| Garmisch qualification | Domen Prevc, 150.6 points | Jan Hörl, +4.4p | Stephan Embacher, +7.4p | Here |
| Garmisch individual | Domen Prevc, 303.1 points | Jan Hörl, +15.4p | Stephan Embacher, +16.0p | Here |
| Four Hills overall after Garmisch | Domen Prevc, 619.8 points | Jan Hörl, +35.0p | Stephan Embacher, +41.5p | Here |
Header photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
Leave a comment