Four Hills Tournament 1968/69

17th Four Hills Tournament
winner
Tour winner	Bjørn Wirkola
Oberstdorf	Bjørn Wirkola
Garmisch-Partenkirchen	Bjørn Wirkola
innsbruck	Bjørn Wirkola
Bischofshofen	Jiří Raška
Attendees
Nations	14 (AUT, FIN, FRA, FRG, GDR, HUN, ITA, NOR, POL, SWE, SUI, TCH URS, YUG,)
athlete	76
← 1967/68	1969/70 →

At the 17th Four Hills Tournament 1968/69 the jumping took place in Oberstdorf on December 30th, on January 1st the jumping in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and on January 3rd the jumping in Innsbruck followed . The event in Bischofshofen took place on January 6th.

Nominee athletes

The post-Olympic tour promised high tension again, as Jiri Raska and the surprise winner Vladimir Belousov both competed at the start. In addition, there was the two-time tour winner Björn Wirkola from Norway, who, to the surprise of the professional world, remained medalless in Grenoble. Other top jumpers were the Norwegians Grini and Tomtum as well as the Olympic runner-up on the normal hill Reinhold Bachler from Austria. Then there was the strong Czechoslovak team, which caused a sensation on the last tour. The Soviet jumpers Napalkow and Scheglanow were also good for a surprise. There was also news from a German perspective. On the one hand, Ralph Pöhland, a GDR jumper who fled shortly before the Olympic Games, started on the West German side. On the other hand, the GDR team suffered severe setbacks. Last year's third Dieter Neuendorf was seriously injured, could not take part in the tour and ended the competitive sport after the tour. Last year, the second best GDR jumper, Wolfgang Stöhr, was injured at home. Coach Hans Renner therefore spoke of rebuilding the national team, which accordingly had three twenty-year-old athletes in its ranks, Rainer and Heinz Schmidt and Clemens Walther.

nation	Athletes
BR Germany	Walter Lampe , Henrik Ohlmeyer , Wolfgang Schüller , Günther Göllner , Friedhelm Klapproth , Oswald Schinze , Franz Bisle , Alfred Grosche , Alfred Winkler , Ralph Pöhland , Sepp Schwinghammer
GDR	Rainer Schmidt , Clemens Walther , Manfred Queck , Heinz Schmidt , Horst Queck , Bernd Karwofsky
Austria	Max Golser , Willy Schuster , Reinhold Bachler , Albert Heim , Ernst Kröll , Franz Salhofer , Sepp Lichtenegger , Erich Schwabl , Helmut Diess , Janko Zwitter , Ernst Wimmer , Heinz Jölly , Franz Kuchlbacher , Walter Schwabl
Finland	Topi Mattila , Juhani Ruotsalainen , Keijo Laiho ,
France	Alain Macle , Gilbert Poirot , Nicolas Gaide , Jannie Arnould
Yugoslavia	Stanko Bogataj , Janez Jurman , Peter Štefančič , Marjan Mesec , Ludvik Zajc , Branko Dolhar
Italy	Mario Ceccon , Albino Bazzana , Giacomo Aimoni
Norway	Björn Wirkola , Knut Kongsgaard , Jan Olav Roaldseth , Lars Grini , Bent Tomtum
Poland	Ryszard Witke , Andrzej Sztolf
Sweden	Ole Martinsson , Tord Karlsson , Torbjörn Hedberg
Switzerland	Hans Schmid , Sepp Zehnder , Richard Pfiffner , Urs Schöni
Soviet Union	Vladimir Belousov , Alexander Ivannikov , Gari Napalkow , Vyacheslav Shcherbakov , Anatoly Scheglanov
Czechoslovakia	Jiří Raška , Rudolf Höhnl , Zbyněk Hubač , Josef Matouš , Ladislav Divila , Karel Kodejška , František Rydval
Hungary	Janos Taffener , László Gellér , Mihály Gellér

Oberstdorf

• Date: December 30, 1968
• Country: BR Germany 
• Hill: Schattenbergschanze

With the onset of heavy snowstorms, Wirkola already showed in the first run with the daily best distance of 78m that the day's victory had to be fought with him. The closest to him came Heinz Schmidt with the same width and the Czechoslovaks Matous with 77.5 m and Raska with 76.5 m. After the run-up length was shortened before the second round, hardly any jumper placed in front could repeat his first distance. Only Manfred Queck was able to move up to fifth place with two jumps of 74m each. In the end, Wirkola won ahead of the Czechoslovaks Raska and Matous. With fourth place, Heinz Schmidt achieved his best single placement on his tour participations. With Divila and Höhnl, a total of four Czechoslovak jumpers came in among the top ten.

Item	Jumper	country	Points
01	Bjørn Wirkola	Norway	218.7
02	Jiří Raška	Czechoslovakia	215.7
03	Josef Matouš	Czechoslovakia	210.5
04th	Heinz Schmidt	GDR	210.1
05	Manfred Queck	GDR	209.9
06th	Rudolf Höhnl	Czechoslovakia	205.4
07th	Ladislav Divila	Czechoslovakia	199.9
08th	Vladimir Belousov	Soviet Union	199.7
09	Reinhold Bachler	Austria	199.3
	Ludvik Zajc	Yugoslavia	199.3

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

• Date: January 1, 1969
• Country: BR Germany 
• Hill: Large Olympic hill

After the New Year's competition, a small preliminary decision had already been made. With standing jumps of 94 and 92.5 m, Wirkola also won the second jump by some margin. Jiri Raska jumped 97.5m in the first round, but could not stand the jump and therefore only took 21st place, which ruined all opportunities for him to win the tour. Since only four of the ten best jumpers in the opening event in Garmisch ended up in the top ten, including Heinz Schmidt, the Zella-Mehliser suddenly found himself in second place after two competitions after finishing fifth. Olympic champion Belousov finished third after half-time.

Intermediate result after 2 jumps
Item	Jumper	Points
01.	Wirkola	459.9
02.	Schmidt	442.4
03.	Belousov	433.3

Item	Jumper	country	Points
01	Bjørn Wirkola	Norway	241.2
02	Anatoly Scheglanov	Soviet Union	235.4
03	František Rydval	Czechoslovakia	233.8
04th	Vladimir Belousov	Soviet Union	233.6
05	Heinz Schmidt	GDR	232.3
06th	Zbyněk Hubač	Czechoslovakia	228.4
07th	Ladislav Divila	Czechoslovakia	226.5
08th	Gari Napalkov	Soviet Union	222.1
09	Horst Queck	GDR	221.8
10	Lars Grini	Norway	221.2

innsbruck

• Date: January 4, 1969
• Country: Austria 
• Ski jump: Bergisel ski jump

Before the jumping, the organizers had to struggle with heavy snowfalls, so that after more than half a meter of fresh snow, a first training session could only be carried out three hours before the jumping on the day of the competition. The jumping competition itself turned into a duel between the two-time tour winner Wirkola and the Olympic champion Raska. After the first round, the Czechoslovakian led thanks to the T with the daily maximum distance of 94m with a wafer-thin 0.2 point lead over Wirkola, who jumped 93.5m with a better posture. With a shortened run-up, Wirkola was able to use his jumping safety and his finer jumping style in his favor in the second round: with the same distance of 89m, he made up one point compared to Raska with better posture marks and thus also won the third jump of the tour in a row, albeit only with a wafer-thin lead. Raska catalpulted himself to second place in the overall standings with this daily placement, even though he had no more chance of winning the tour with more than 30 points behind Wirkola. This pushed him in front of Heinz Schmidt, who with his fifth place in the daily standings still held a respectable third place in the overall standings. However, the competition, especially from the Czechoslovak team, was already on his heels with only small point differences.

Intermediate result after 3 jumps
Item	Jumper	Points
01.	Wirkola	696.2
02.	Raška	665.8
03.	Schmidt	652.1

Item	Jumper	country	Points
01	Bjørn Wirkola	Norway	236.3
02	Jiří Raška	Czechoslovakia	235.5
03	Anatoly Scheglanov	Soviet Union	225.9
04th	Lars Grini	Norway	222.6
05	Zbyněk Hubač	Czechoslovakia	219.9
06th	Rudolf Höhnl	Czechoslovakia	214.1
07th	František Rydval	Czechoslovakia	212.4
08th	Horst Queck	GDR	212.2
09	Gari Napalkov	Soviet Union	210.8
10	Heinz Schmidt	GDR	209.7

Bischofshofen

• Date: January 6, 1969
• Country: Austria 
• Hill: Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze

As in Innsbruck, the duel in Bischofshofen was Raska - Wirkola, although the Norwegian did not have to take the last risk with his lead in the overall standings. Raska, on the other hand, went full on attack and showed with the daily best of 101m in the first round that the day's victory should be his this time. In the end he won the jumping by a good seven points. At first only jumpers from Czechoslovakia, whose team brought four jumpers into the top ten, came from Norway and the Soviet Union. This also named the strongest teams on this tour. Heinz Schmidt was unable to build on his performance in the first three competitions. After a fall in the second round, he was only 30th in the daily standings.

Item	Jumper	country	Points
01	Jiří Raška	Czechoslovakia	235.4
02	Bjørn Wirkola	Norway	228.3
03	Lars Grini	Norway	222.6
04th	Anatoly Scheglanov	Soviet Union	219.2
05	Zbyněk Hubač	Czechoslovakia	218.8
06th	Vyacheslav Shcherbakov	Soviet Union	211.4
07th	Ladislav Divila	Czechoslovakia	211.0
08th	František Rydval	Czechoslovakia	209.9
09	Vladimir Belousov	Soviet Union	208.1
10	Bent Tomtum	Norway	207.0

Total status

Bjørn Wirkola won the 17th Four Hills Tournament and was the first ski jumper to win this prestigious competition for the third time. So far he is the only ski jumper to have won the tour three times in a row. With a lead of 24 points, he relegated the Czechoslovak Olympic champion Jiří Raška to second place. With a good result in Garmisch, he would have had a chance of overall victory. His compatriot Zbyněk Hubač followed him in third place. A total of five Czechoslovak jumpers made it into the top ten. Until then, only the German jumpers had succeeded in doing this on the 1959/60 tour. Heinz Schmidt slipped into eighth place after his poor performance in Bischofshofen.

rank	Surname	nation	Overall rating	Colonel village	Garmisch- Partenk.-	Inns- bruck	Episcopate hofen
01	Bjørn Wirkola	Norway	924.5	218.7 / 01.	241.2 / 01.	236.3 / 01.	228.3 / 02.
02	Jiří Raška	Czechoslovakia	900.5	215.7 / 02.	214.6 / 21.	235.5 / 02.	235.4 / 01.
03	Zbyněk Hubač	Czechoslovakia	866.0	198.9 / 11.	225.2 / 02.	219.9 / 05.	218.8 / 05.
04th	Anatoly Scheglanov	Soviet Union	862.0	181.5 / 23.	235.4 / 02.	225.9 / 03.	219.2 / 04.
05	František Rydval	Czechoslovakia	848.2	192.1 / 14.	233.8 / 03.	212.4 / 07.	209.9 / 08.
06th	Vladimir Belousov	Soviet Union	839.3	199.7 / 08.	233.6 / 04.	197.9 / 19.	208.1 / 09.
07th	Rudolf Höhnl	Czechoslovakia	838.3	205.4 / 06.	218.0 / 15.	214.1 / 06.	200.8 / 14.
08th	Heinz Schmidt	GDR	830.8	210.1 / 04.	232.3 / 05.	209.7 / 10.	178.7 / 30.
09	Lars Grini	Norway	812.5	146.1 / 59.	221.2 / 10.	222.6 / 04.	222.6 / 03.
10	Ladislav Divila	Czechoslovakia	809.3	199.9 / 07.	226.5 / 07.	173.4 / 41.	211.0 / 07.

Individual evidence

1. ^ FIS: Results Oberstdorf, December 30, 1968 (accessed January 24, 2009)
2. ↑ Neues Deutschland, December 30, 1968, p. 15
3. ↑ FIS: Results Garmisch-Partenkirchen, January 1, 1969 (accessed on January 24, 2009)
4. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of January 2, p. 4
5. ↑ FIS: Results Innsbruck, January 3, 1969 (accessed on January 24, 2009)
6. ↑ Neues Deutschland from January 5, 1969 p. 8
7. ↑ FIS: Results Bischofshofen, January 6, 1969 (accessed on January 24, 2009)
8. ↑ Neues Deutschland from January 6, 1969 p. 7
9. ↑ FIS-Ski - Cup evaluation