Jeff Hamilton is a Speed Skiing World Champion with a top speed of 151 mph. An Olympic bronze medallist in the 1992 Albertville Olympics, Jeff was the first man to break the 150 mph barrier on skis.
1. Try Speed
2. Practice your tuck.
3. Enter a race
4. Get aero
5. Get a hold of some speed skis
6. Finish your aerodynamic set-up
7. Try speed again (only this time, more speed)
8. Train.
9. Have respect for speed
10. Commit!
Speed Skiing Tips by Jeff Hamilton
Not everyone who wants to experience speed can afford all the equipment at one time, so your best bet is to come out to the only public speed skiing venue in the U.S. (Snowmass, Colorado) and try speed with your normal ski equipment. The public can speed down The Jeff Hamilton Sector No Limits Center for only $15.00 a day. I'm there daily to give you speed tips and sign a certificate of speed.
I always say, "Everyone can have a good living room tuck, but once the speed is trying to blow you apart, can you hold it?" Still, play around with your tuck; find what position is comfortable. Do tucks during commercials! Ask your local ski area if there's a time and place for you to tuck. (Most resorts will allow you to ski with speed in the early morning on designated runs.)
If you decide speed is your thing and you want to put your tuck to the test, enter one of the races held at Snowmass by the Rocky Mountain Speed Skiing Association. My first competition was a race similar to this and within a year and five races, I found myself in the Olympics. Careful, you get hooked on this sport. You can enter the "production class" and still wear all your downhill gear. A lot of great guys and women enter this race and it's fun. You can begin to network for the next important step…which is to…
An aerodynamic set-up is the single most important thing about your speed skiing, other than your tuck. One, get yourself a speed helmet. They can be about $1000 but they make all the difference. One of a few regulations to consider: the helmet needs to fit through a 40 cm hoop. With the push toward bigger speeds, this size limit might increase. Two, get a speed suit. The suit will cut way down on resistance and will cause you to slide (as opposed to tumbling) when you fall. As the guy who holds the record for the world's fastest fall (151 mph), I get to say, "There are three kinds of speed skiers: those who have fallen, those who will fall, and those who will fall again" It's part of the deal: You go fast, you fall sometimes. What you want to make sure of is that you slide when you do fall! A rubberized suit will make you faster and it will ensure (most of the time) that you slide (I slid five hundred yards in my biggest fall)! You can get these suits a couple of places. I get mine in France for about $500. The French suits (the company is called Jonathan Fletcher) are very custom built. You can also get them from Richard Landingham of Landingham Aerosports Products. He designs both helmets and suits.
Now that you have the aerodynamic basics, you need a pair of speed skis. They are 240 cm long. They are definitely a trip to get used to; they're heavy and long and you really have to want to be on them. They're nearly impossible to find new. Your best bet is to find a speed skier who wants to unload his for probably between $500 and $600. They're so scarce, people can get a lot of money for them. New, they're about $900. But, they are what will take you to a new level. They'll make you more stable, therefore, faster.
So…you're dialed in with the big stuff but you still need boots, poles and most importantly, farings. Farings are the wings behind your calves, the things that direct the air; make the air slide easily past you. Basically, you can't find these at Wal-Mart. You have to make them. I use very dense Styrofoam material and cut the foam precisely so that each faring extends off the boot cleanly. The faring should be no more that 35-cm from the front of the boot to the back of the faring.
Now that you've got your equipment (and you're psyched but close to broke), you get to do the fun stuff—ski fast. You have a couple choices: Be a speed skier who skis in America only or one that goes to France, too. France has got the world record tracks and so if you're loving this sport, you've got to try training at awesome speeds. But, the good thing is, you get to ski with the big boys and girls in America this year—in Snowmass. I'm holding the first stop on the World Tour from February 22nd through the 26th. Everyone who's anyone in speed skiing will be there: Philippe Billy of France, Harry Egger of Austria, Kazunaga Kazumi from Japan, Bengt Johnnson from Sweden. Everybody. We'll get up to speeds of 120 mph and anyone can enter the race. Yeah, even you. There are elimination runs as we move up the hill, so you won't go any faster than you can (whatever that means) For info, check out the web-site speedski.com. Sponsored by Red Bull and aired on ESPN2, this race will be incredible. $15,000 in prize money and definitely a wild ride.
I train all the time, but not in ways you might expect. I free ski as much as I can in the winter to be solid on my skis and because I love to ski. A good skier usually has great potential to be a good speed skier. And I do yoga three times a week. Yoga works on everything a speed skier needs: flexibility (to help you get lower and be comfortable in a contorted position), strength (both mental and physical—to want to stay in your tuck during the tough seconds, and to fight the ripples in the track and the burn in the legs as you go from zero to 100 in 6 seconds) and finally, balance (a tuck is not necessarily the most natural of body positions—you need to be able to maintain balance in this position). Highly recommended. I do Bikram's Yoga (Yoga College of India).
Speed Skiing is not for adrenaline junkies and speed freaks. This sport for
people who truly love speed and respect its power. This is a mental sport, requiring you to think not just about "speed" but about all the minute aspects of the sport, from your aerodynamic set-up to race-specific conditions and your own abilities. You've got to be a thinker.
As I just mentioned, this is a mental sport; however, after you've considered everything there is to consider, it comes down to complete commitment to the run. At the top of the run, you can't second-guess yourself or you're asking for trouble. You have to be ready to ski fast and have the desire to ski fast. When I stand at the top of Vars and know that within a couple seconds I'll be skiing faster than I've ever skied, I know the only thing that really matters is committing to the run. I have to commit to my abilities and trust that they will take me successfully into the unknown realms of speed.
Speed Skier Harry Egger
France Ski de Vitesse
Vars.com
VelocityChallenge.com
wikipedia.org
SpeedSkiing.se
Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS)
British Speed Ski Team
Fédération Suisse de Ski de
Vitesse
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