Four Hills Tournament with women: Innsbruck turns on the lights

Celebration among the partner clubs and the organising committee of the Four Hills Tournament after the great news from Innsbruck: Now that the Austrian Ski Association (ÖSV) and the Tyrolean province have agreed to finance floodlights for the Bergisel Stadium, the way is clear for a Four Hills Tournament in which the world's best female ski jumpers can compete too, according to Manfred Schützenhofer (Ski Club Bischofshofen).

“These are fantastic news and exactly the signal we have been waiting for. This will make the 75th Four Hills Tournament 2026/27 truly historic. It’s wonderful that this last remaining question mark has now been resolved. Many thanks to everyone who made this possible,” said Schützenhofer.

All hills equipped with floodlights
With all four hills of the tournament soon to be equipped with floodlighting, those responsible, including FIS Race Director Sandro Pertile and the local organising committees, will have significantly more flexibility when integrating the women’s competitions into the tournament schedule.

Women's competition on the men's qualifying day

Now, plans can be intensified. As things stand, women's competitions are scheduled to take place on men's qualifying days at all tour locations, a format that has already been successfully implemented in Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the past two years. This winter, the world's best female ski jumpers will once again take to the Olympic ski jump in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the qualifying day. They will compete on 31 December from 1 p.m., before the men's qualifying round, which begins at 4 p.m.

Already last winter, Sandro Pertile had announced during the Four Hills Tournament that from the 2026/27 season onward, the men’s and women’s Ski Jumping World Cups would take place in parallel at the same venues. “It’s excellent that we are now able to deliver on these plans,” said Michael Maurer, Chairman of the Ski Club Partenkirchen (SCP). Women and men will then jump during the Four Hills Tournament in the same order familiar from the men’s event: Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen.

2-Nights-Tour as a pioneer

Together with the Ski Club Oberstdorf and the German Ski Federation, the SCP helped pave the way for a joint men’s and women’s Four Hills Tournament through the introduction of the 2-Nights-Tour, now taking place for the third time this winter.