The German team manager Horst Hüttel can imagine a kind of Four Hills Tournament in summer. “The places where we jump are also summer tourist resorts: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Oberstdorf, Innsbruck. Why shouldn’t you use that?” Said the 54-year-old to the “t-online” news portal.
It is said that there have already been talks with representatives of the tour locations. A combination of the jumping competitions with concerts could make the event even more attractive. Unlike many other winter sports, ski jumping competitions can be held at any time of the year. In the summer, athletes land on mats instead of snow.
“Ski jumping is a bit of entertainment and show without neglecting top-class sport,” said Hüttel. “The ski jumps have already been built for the summer for millions of euros. The Fis already has the Summer Grand Prix, but it can be significantly improved in many respects.”
refinancing given?
Referring to the world association Fis, Hüttel said: “The only question is whether it can be refinanced. This would be significantly higher if Fis could decide to call the whole thing the World Cup. That would be an important point in the public image.” He added: “Whether we then have a separate summer and a separate winter World Cup has to be discussed, but you should think about it in this direction.”
Hüttel compared it to another sport that is also played on different surfaces. “It would be like in tennis, there you play on sand, grass and hard courts. In ski jumping you would sometimes jump on mat and sometimes on snow.”
The Four Hills Tournament is held every winter around the turn of the year in Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen. The event is a crowd puller at the ski jumps and has many millions of television viewers. Also because of climate change, ski jumping has recently given more thought to adapting the competitions and the competition calendar.
