The first jump was made by Rožle Žagar, who jumped 169 metres to put his name in the history of Planica in front of several hundreds spectators who gathered in the iconic ski jumping valley.

Three jumpers managed to clear the 200 metre mark, with Slovenia's Ernest Prislič landing at 227 metres, Slovenia's Andraž Pograjc at 213 metres and Austrian Nordic combined athlete Fabian Steindl at 201 metres.

With the first individual competition scheduled for Friday, the overhauled hill is expected to provide plenty of excitement with competitors able to fly to around the world record of 251.5 metres in the event of favourable weather conditions.

Slovenia's Peter Prevc, who recently became the first person ever to jump 250 metres only to see Anders Fannemel of Norway surpass him the following day, is still in play for the overall World Cup title. He currently trails the in-form Severin Freund of Germany by 94 points.

On Thursday, the Planica hill will see practice jumps and the qualifying round, followed by an individual events on Friday, a team event on Saturday and the final individual event of the 2014/2105 season on Sunday.