Audi Arena Oberstdorf (from 2004 to 2017 Erdinger Arena, until 2004 Skisprungstadion am Schattenberg) is a complex of five

ski jumping hill A ski jumping hill is a sports venue used for ski jumping. They vary in size from temporary handmade snow structures to permanent competition venues. At the top is an in-run where the jumper runs down to generate sufficient speed, before reaching ...

s, located in the German town of

Oberstdorf Oberstdorf ( Low Alemannic: ''Oberschdorf'') is a municipality and skiing and hiking town in Germany, located in the Allgäu region of the Bavarian Alps. It is the southernmost settlement in Germany and one of its highest towns. At the&nb ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

, on the northwestern slope of the Schattenberg mountain (1845 m). On the largest hill of the complex, the Schattenbergschanze (meaning "Hill on Shadow Mountain"), with its K-120 and HS137, the first competition of the 4-Hills-Tournament takes place every year since 1952. The hill has held three

FIS Nordic World Ski Championships The FIS Nordic World Ski Championships is a biennial nordic skiing event organized by the International Ski Federation (FIS). The World Championships was started in 1925 for men and opened for women's participation in 1954. World Championship eve ...

– in

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; " Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discover ...

and

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

. It is equipped with artificial lighting and stands for 27,005 seats. There is also one normal hill K-95 (HS106), one middle hill K-56 (HS60) and two small hills K-30 (HS30) and K-19 (HS20). The venue should not be confused with another one in Oberstdorf, the Heini Klopfer ski flying hill, about 7 kilometres to the south.

History

The construction of the ski jump according to a project of Hans Schwendiger started in 1925 and was finished on 27 December 1925. In 1930 the German championships were hosted on this hill (from 1901 to 1973 these were only held on large hills). The facility fell into decline during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, as the last competition here took place in 1941. The jump was renovated at the end of 1945 and on 1 January 1946 an occasional New Year's competition took place. A new stage in the history of the Schattenbergschanze was the invitation of the club SC Oberstdorf to host the 4-Hills-Tournament and on 4 January 1953 the second competition of the premiere edition was held on this hill. At the end of 2003, the facility was extensively expanded at a cost of €16.6 million. The K-Point was moved from 115 meters to 120 meters and new stands were built for 27,005 people. On 26 December 2004, the official name of the complex was changed to Erdinger Arena and on 1 December 2017 to Audi Arena Oberstdorf. Both changes had to do with acquiring title sponsors for the venue – the Erdinger Weißbräu brewery and the

Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. ...

car manufacturer. Schattenbergschanze was one of the first venues in the world to have an ice track cooling system.

References

Ski jumping venues in Germany Four Hills Tournament Sports venues in Bavaria {{skijumping-venue-stub