In March 2023, French speed skier Simon Billy pointed his skis straight down a steep run in the French Alps and let go. By the bottom, the timing gun read 255.5 km/h - 158.8 mph. That made him the fastest person ever to slide down a mountain on a pair of skis. The previous record (158.4 mph) had been held by Italian Ivan Origone since 2016.
Speed skiing isn’t like the slalom races you might watch in the Olympics. The track is almost straight, dropping at angles steeper than 40 degrees. Skiers wear streamlined helmets, suits coated to slip through the air, and very long, very heavy skis to keep them stable at top speed.
The biggest danger isn’t crashing into something - it’s wind. At 158 mph, the air pushes back so hard it tries to lift the helmet off your head. The smallest bump in the snow becomes a launch ramp. Billy’s record run lasted only a few seconds, but he had been training for it for years.
