The overall winner of the 2008/09 World Cup was Gregor Schlierenzauer of Austria, who won 13 of the 27 individual competitions, breaking Janne Ahonen's single-season record of 12 wins in a season. Schlierenzauer's 20 podiums in a single season is also a new record. Early leader Simon Ammann of Switzerland finished second in the overall standings, while Four Hills champion Wolfgang Loitzl of Austria finished third. Harri Olli of Finland finished fourth in the overall standings after a late-season run that gave him the first three World Cup wins of his career. Russia's Dimitry Vassiliev rounded out the top five, while defending champion Thomas Morgenstern of Austria finished in a, by his standards, disappointing 7th place overall, failing to win a single individual competition this season.
The Nations Cup, which is determined by adding all points gained by the participants of a country, in both individual and team competitions, was won overwhelmingly by Austria with 7331 points, more than three thousand points ahead of second-placed Finland (4270 points).
Simon Amman was the leader of both the World Cup and the Four Hills Tournament. Due to him wearing the yellow World Cup-leader shirt, no one wore the golden FHT-leader shirt.
Wolfgang Loitzl's first career World Cup victory, and his 10th podium finish.
Harri Olli's first podium finish in the World Cup.
Noriaki Kasai finished on the podium for the first time since 1 January 2007 at Garmisch-Partenkirchen and is also the oldest jumper to reach a world cup podium, aged 36.
The Nordic Ski World Championship was held between 18 February and 1 March 2009 in Liberec, Czech Republic. It does not count in the World Cup standings.
The competition was scheduled to take place on 28 November, but was moved to the day after due to bad weather. The team event was held after the individual event. Because there was much delay in the individual event and some time concerns by the officials, only one run was competed in the team event.[1]
The FIS Team Tour was held between 7 February and 15 February 2009. The results of this competition is determined by adding the overall points totals gained in the team competitions at Willingen and Oberstdorf, and also adding the two best individual scores for each nation in the individual events at Willingen, Klingenthal and Oberstdorf to the final combined score.
Norway won the Team Tour, with an overall score of 4083.8 points. Austria finished second with 4032.2 points, while Finland took third place with a combined score of 3960.4 points.[2]
Harri Olli equalled the hill record of 219.0 m set in 2004 by Austrian Roland Müller in a Continental Cup event. Olli's jump is the longest-ever at Vikersund in a World Cup event.
Gregor Schlierenzauer jumped further than the hill record at 224.0 m but because he fell it does not count as an official hill record.