Domen Prevc won the 74th edition of the world-famous Four Hills Tournament, despite not winning in Innsbruck and Bischofshofen. The first Austrian leg of the tournée in Innsbruck saw the first win of Ren Nikaido, while the last season’s Four Hills champion Daniel Tschofenig won in Bischofshofen.

by Maciej Jackiewicz

Innsbruck

The Austrian leg of the Four Hills Tournament began with the qualification session at the famous Bergisel in Innsbruck (about which you can read here). The round was opened by the Grand Prix sensation Niklas Bachlinger, who after jumping 120 metres led for a very long time. After the first twelve jumpers the backwind took headwind’s place on the Hill, which resulted in jury moving the gate up from gate 12 to gate 13, and few minutes later to gate 14. By far the biggest surprise of this round came with the jump of Roman Koudelka, who with a 124.5-metre effort beat Bachlinger by over 13 points. Koudelka stayed at the front for the majority of the round. Behind him, there were further surprises as both Ilya Mizernykh and Danil Vassilyev achieved very respectable 125 metres. Meanwhile, before the jump of Dawid Kubacki, the gate was moved down as the headwind calmed down.

The biggest negative surprise was Marius Lindvik, who was expected to fight for good points on Sunday, but was knocked out in qualification as, all in all he finished 51st. The one to end Koudelka’s reign at the top was Manuel Fettner, but his lead was brief as three further Austirans – Stephan Embacher, Stefan Kraft and Jan Hörl went into the lead. The last five jumpers had to wait for their jump for a very long time, as the backwind again got too strong, which caused the gate to move up from gate 13 to gate 15. Despite that, none of the best jumpers could outmatch the three Austrians at the top. The season dominator Domen Prevc finished the round in 30th. After the session ended, Paweł Wąsek was disqualified for having fluorinated ski wax, which has been banned for two seasons. According to the Polish team, the wax they used that was certified by FIS has been contaminated with fluorine.

The next day, on 4 January, the competition was held. It started off with the duel between Johann André Forfang and Sakutaro Kobayashi, which the Norwegian won and put himself at the top of the results sheets. In contrast to what we have seen in earlier Four Hills competitions, Domen Prevc did not compete in the last pair, but in fifth one. His coach requested the gate to be moved from gate 12 to gate 11, and despite that Prevc jumped 129.5 metres, putting himself firmly in the lead. It came as no surprise that his position did not change for a long time, although we have seen some good jumps that were just not good enough to beat Prevc. The juniors showed very good form – Kacper Tomasiak jumped 126 metres and Jason Colby outperformed the Pole by 2.5 metres. Philipp Raimund also showed his good form with a 126-metre effort.

In the 11th pair, the biggest upset of the whole competition took place, as Yukiya Sato quite unexpectedly beat Halvor Egner Granerud. In the 18th duel meanwhile, Ren Nikaido showed an incredible 131-metre jump that put him in the lead, ahead of the season dominator. He stayed at the top until the end of the session, despite good jumps of Felix Hoffmann, Daniel Tschofenig and Stephan Embacher. The last one landed on the 130.5-metre mark and was tied on points with the Japanese jumper. The first round ended with Nikaido and Embacher ex aequo in the lead, with Jan Hörl in third, after his 130-metre effort from a lower gate. The tournament and overall World Cup leader Prevc was classified in fourth, just 1.4 points behind Hörl.

Second round began with the jump of Felix Trunz, who briefly led before Valentin Foubert and Vladimir Zografski subsequently took the lead. The Bulgarian stayed at the front for a longer time, as all in all, he gained five places in the second round. His time at the top ended with the 122-metre jump from Sandro Hauswirth. Later, it was Manuel Fettner’s turn to take the seat in the leader’s chair after a 125.5-metre jump. But the one that really showed what he is made of was Ryoyu Kobayashi, who after a disappointing first round achieved 127 metres to take the lead, and eventually a spot in the top 10. In the top 10 Kacper Tomasiak was the first one to steal the top spot from Kobayashi. The Pole, who was classified ninth after the first round, equaled Kobayashi’s result and overtook the Japanese jumper by 1.3 points.

It came as no surprise that Tomasiak did not stay in the lead for long, as Daniel Tschofenig and Felix Hoffmann showed great efforts of 128 and 130.5 metres respectively to lead the third competition of the Four Hills Tournament. Before the jump of Domen Prevc, the gate was lowered, but it did not stop him from achieving 128 metres and gaining the top spot, attacking the podium. The podium was indeed scored by Prevc, as Hörl did not jump good enough. And then, there were two at the top of the hill, both of them never won a World Cup event. Nikaido went first, and with a 128-metre effort he overtook Prevc barely, by 0.5 points. Embacher did not jump good enough, as his 127.5 metres was enough only for P3. With that, Nikaido scored his first ever victory in the World Cup, ahead of Prevc and Embacher.

Bischofshofen

The last qualification of the Four Hills Tournament took place a day after Innsbruck competition. It was again opened by the Austrian national quota team, after which Clemens Aigner was leading after 125.5-metre effort, with Niklas Bachlinger just behind him. The Austrian led for quite some time, as none of the jumpers could get close to his result. The one that ended Aigner’s time at the top was Isak Andreas Langmo, who achieved great 132.5 metres to take over the lead. After his jump, we learnt of two disqualifications – Heung Chul Choi of South Korea and Ilya Mizernykh of Kazakhstan were excluded from the qualification session. This was especially disappointing for the latter, as he showed great form in the Four Hills Tournament and because of this being his second disqualification, he will miss the weekend at the hill the Kazakhs know very well – the Wielka Krokiew in Zakopane.

There were great jumps in the middle part of the qualification, from jumpers like Maciej Kot, Sandro Hauswirth or Kamil Stoch, but the one to dethrone Langmo from the top spot was his compatriot, Halvor Egner Granerud. After a disappointing loss in Innsbruck he was eager to get a good result, and the 135.5-metre jump he performed was definitely one. It was so good, that it was beaten only by the jumpers in the top 10 of the World Cup. The first one of them was Stephan Embacher, who scored 138 metres. Embacher would end the session in second, as it was won by none other than Domen Prevc who was the only one to jump 140 metres. With that, he showed that him not winning in Innsbruck was just an accident and that he is in the form to come out on top in the competition the following day, and in the tournament overall.

The famous Four Hills Tournament finale, held traditionally on the Three Kings’ Day, began with the jump of Pius Paschke, whose pair rival Yukiya Sato did not start because of an illness. Four pairs later, Clemens Aigner, known for his great performances in Bischofshofen, again showed his great form at the Austrian hill with a 132-metre effort. This gave him the lead and first World Cup points this season. Eighth duel saw one of the biggest upset of this year’s Tournament, as Killian Peier beat his favored compatriot Gregor Deschwanden. Coming back to Aigner, he stayed in the lead up until the jump of another Austrian, Manuel Fettner, who made his World Cup debut on the hill 25 years ago. The 134.5 metres of Fettner gifted him the lead.

There were great jumps that followed Fettner’s, including the ones from Anže Lanišek, Felix Hoffmann and Jonas Schuster, but the one that was able to outscore the Austrian was Philipp Raimund, who jumped 133.5 metres to be classified in first. His time at the top was short-lived, as Ryoyu Kobayashi achieved magnificent 137 metres. The round was concluded, as per usual, by Domen Prevc, who jumped a metre further than Kobayashi to lead the first round by 0.8 points over the Japanese jumper. In third was Daniel Tschofenig, who achieved the same distance as Kobayashi.

First jumps in the second round were all around the 125-metre mark and the first one that showed something more was Maximilian Ortner, who after a disappointing first round, jumped 132 metres to take the lead. This situation lasted for three jumps, after which Kacper Tomasiak of Poland jumped half a metre shorter than Ortner, but thanks to his advantage from the first round he was better than the Austrian. Just after, the jumper at the top changed but country did not, as Maciej Kot achieved 133 metres to take the lead. Before the top 10 from the first round, we saw two further lead changes, with firstly Halvor Egner Granerud, and then Ren Nikaido with a magnificent 141-metre jump.

Before the last ten, the jury decided to lower the gate from gate 17 to gate 16. Stefan Kraft, who was sitting in eighth after the first round, was the first one to go into the lead after Nikaido with 137 metres. Next, the jumpers from fifth to third in the first round all took the lead consecutively, this being Stephan Embacher, Jan Hörl and Daniel Tschofenig. As it turned out later, Tschofenig would win this competition with his 140.5-metre jump, as both Domen Prevc and Ryoyu Kobayashi did not jump enough to outscore the Austrian. In the end, it was Tschofenig, Prevc and Kobayashi.

Despite not winning in Innsbruck and Bischofshofen, Domen Prevc won the 2025–26 Four Hills Tournament, exactly ten years after his brother Peter triumphed in the famous Austrian-German competition. Behind him, there are two Austrians – Jan Hörl and Stephan Embacher, and then two Japanese competitors – Ren Nikaido and Ryoyu Kobayashi.

Results

Session	1st	2nd	3rd	Full results
Innsbruck qualification	Jan Hörl, 132.5 points	Stefan Kraft, +0.9p	Stephan Embacher, +3.1p	Here
Innsbruck competition	Ren Nikaido, 276.5 points	Domen Prevc, +0.5p	Stephan Embacher, +0.7p	Here
Bischofshofen qualification	Domen Prevc, 159.2 points	Stephan Embacher, +6.2p	Jan Hörl, +9.3p	Here
Bischofshofen competition	Daniel Tschofenig, 303.9 points	Domen Prevc, +4.1p	Ryoyu Kobayashi, +4.3p	Here
Four Hills overall	Domen Prevc, 1195.6 points	Jan Hörl, +42.3p	Stephan Embacher, +45.0p	Here

What’s next?

After the busy week in Germany and Austria jumpers will come back to the World Cup circuit in Saturday, as the cup goes to the Wielka Krokiew in Zakopane, Poland. On Saturday, we will see the first Super Team event of the season, while the classical individual competition will take place on Sunday. Some of the jumpers might head for the Continental Cup in Sapporo instead, that will also take place this weekend.

Header photo credit: instagram.com/vierschanzentournee