A French ski instructor by the name of Mahé Freydier has set a new world record for the fastest speed ever reached skiing…on sand. If Freydier’s new mark checks out, then he’ll have surpassed the 15-year-old record by a significant margin.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, a man named Henrik May reached 92.12 kilometers per hour (57.24 mph) on a massive sand dune in Namibia on May 31, 2010. Freydier’s recent attempt went down on Peru’s Toro Mata, which is a popular destination for sand dune skiing and boarding, thanks to its ridiculous 6,000-foot vertical drop. He was able to reach a top seed of 121 kph (75 mph) with all that runway, shattering May’s previous mark by a signficant margin. It’s also worth noting he only had one swing at this one because, of course, skis and sand don’t work well together and Freydier’s equipment was literally cooked after his one and only run.
“I only got one try because my skis burned up, so it was impossible for me to try again! That makes this record even more special, because it was during the first run,” he said. “Above 100 km/h, it became very difficult to maintain speed, as the wind destabilized me considerably, and falling on sand can be very dangerous. The pressure inside me was intense.”
That first part wasn’t a misunderstanding. Freydier’s skis really did burn up. The ski instructor posted images from the accomplishment and one of them shows Freydier still decked out next to a speed gun and his skis turned over to show the number all that friction did on the base. As you can see, a whole started to burn straight through one part of the base material.
“We like the snow, but we love the sand,” he says.
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