Lost Sports of the Winter Olympics: Speed skiers burning snow and skin
By Jack Bantock, CNN
January 20, 2022
(CNN)At the now infamous Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix in December, eventual race and championship winner Max Verstappen set the fastest lap with an average speed of 220.8 kilometers per hour (about 137.2 mph).
Granted, brakes and turns will have capped the highest possible speed of the car, but Verstappen — and F1 — embodies the pinnacle of motorsport speed in a multibillion dollar industry.
And yet armed with nothing but two skis, skeleton fabrics and a helmet fit for a Daft Punk comeback tour, there are humans hurtling down the sides of mountains faster than an F1 car.
Blink and you’ll miss them, some of the fastest non-motorized humans on the planet — speed skiers.
Falling with style
In 2016, Italy’s Ivan Origone flashed down a run of the La Forêt Blanche resort in France, clocking an average of 254.958 kmph (158.42 mph) across his last 100 meters to set a new world record.
For perspective, the World Air Sports Federation states that the terminal speed of the human body freefalling in a stable, head down position is between 240 and 290 kmph (149.13 and 180.2 mph) — speed skiers are effectively plummeting through the sky.
Unsurprisingly, such descriptions dictate that, though skiing generally is wildly popular, speed skiing is very much a niche vocation — especially for British skiers, given the relative lack of snowy mountain peaks.
Yet Jan Farrell, Great Britain’s most successful speed skier of the century, is the exception to the rule.
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