Ski jumping in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on January 1 has a long history.
Classical music fans traditionally celebrate the start of the year with the New Year’s concert by the Vienna Philharmonic, which first took place in 1939. It has an even longer history New Year’s ski jumping in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The tradition started on January 1, 1922, when the Partenkirchen Ski Club organized a ski jumping competition.
This took on an extra dimension when the IOC entrusted the 1936 Winter Olympics to the German Empire in 1931. Later the decision was made to hold it in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Originally these were two separate villages, but on the orders of Adolf Hitler, the ‘patron’ of the Winter Games, they had to merge in 1935. Both mayors initially resisted, but when they were threatened with deportation to the Dachau concentration camp, they gave in. Earlier, in October 1933, construction of the new Olympiaschanze on the Gudiberg had already started. Birger Ruud won Olympic gold there in 1936 in front of 130,000 spectators. The Norwegian would be imprisoned in a concentration camp ten years later because he had expressed anti-Nazi views.
Four ramps
Four years after the Second World War, the ski clubs of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck, Austria, came up with the idea of holding a ski jumping competition at four different locations. Only after sanctions against German ski jumpers were lifted was the Deutsch-Österreichische Jumpertournee founded on December 14, 1952. The first competition took place on January 1, 1953: in Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the Olympiaschanze, followed by heats in Oberstdorf, Germany, and two in Austria, in Innsbruck and Bischofshofen. The first overall winner of what was later officially called the Four Hills Tour was the Austrian Sepp Bradl.
The following year the order of the races changed, with a first stop in Oberstdorf on December 29 or 30. Garmisch-Partenkirchen kept its New Year’s date. From now on, the heat in Innsbruck followed on January 3 or 4, the one in Bischofshofen traditionally on Epiphany, January 6. The popularity of the Four Hills Tournament increased exponentially when ARD broadcast the New Year’s competition in Garmisch-Partenkirchen live on TV for the first time in 1956. Today, around six million Germans, and many more abroad, still watch the ski jumpers soar through the air on January 1.
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