The first recorded speed skiing record was in 1867 in La Porte, California by a woman with the provocative name of Lottie Joy, who traveled 48.9 mph/79.003 kph. The length of her run and the method of timing are unknown, making hers one of several unofficial but significant world speed skiing records. The second was also in La Porte by Tommy Todd who traveled down a 1230 foot track in an average speed of 87.7 mph/141.001kph in 1874. If Todd’s timing was anywhere near accurate, it is not unreasonable to speculate that he was traveling near 100 mph during that last part of his run. Joy and Todd were part of sizeable ski crowd in northern California in the 19th century, many of them Norwegian gold miners who introduced skiing to the area and who passed the long Sierra winters organizing social and competitive events around skiing. They used hand crafted wooden skis up to 12 feet long and one long pole for balance. Each racer’s secret formula for wax in these races was closely guarded, but persistent reports indicated that human sperm was a key ingredient of the best recipes. These concoctions were called “dope.”
It needs mentioning that while Joy was the first speed queen and Todd the first speed king, they are only the first we know about. People have been skiing for thousands of years, and it is inconceivable that they have not always pursued pure speed for the sake of the speed. It is in the nature of man to do so, and that we do not have speed skiing records prior to 1867 only indicates the relative and incomplete scope of recorded history itself. It is not too much to imagine that buried in some obscure ancient Scandinavian piece of writing is a description of skiers schussing the steepest, longest hill hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, just to see how fast they could go; their ‘time’ perhaps measured by some method we have forgotten.
As it is, the first official speed skiing record was set by Gustav Lantschner in 1930 in St. Moritz. He was timed at 65.588 mph/105.675 kph. The following year Leo Gasperl moved the speed up considerably by going 84.692 mph/136.600 kph also in St. Moritz. Gasperl accomplished this by attaching hay hooks to the front of his skis which he held onto with his hands and having a rudimentary aerodynamic cone strapped to his butt.
Gasperl’s record held until 1947 when the great Italian skier, Zeno Colo, who would be World and Olympic champion in the next few years, went 98.761 mph/159.292 kph in Cervinia. This record maintained until 1959 when Edoardo Agraiter went 99.307 mph/160.174 kph in Sestriere.
In between these two records, a significant and seminal and extremely bold speed skiing event took place in Portillo, Chile. Under the guidance of Emile Allais, and with the participation of American racers Ron Funk (who fell at nearly 100 mph with bear trap bindings and long thongs and was seriously injured), Bud Werner and Marvin Melville, the American Ralph Miller went 108.7 mph/175.402 in Portillo. Miller was timed by Allais over 50 meters with a hand held stop watch. At 100 mph a tenth of a second difference over 50 meters is about 18 mph, and anyone who has ever used a hand stop watch knows that two timers timing the same thing will always have a tenth of a second or more difference. For that reason Miller’s run is considered unofficial. He may have only gone 99 mph, but it is just as likely he went 112 mph. People who have raced on the Portillo track and know where he started tend to believe Miller was the first to go over 100 mph.
But officially that distinction goes to Luigi DiMarco who in 1960 traveled 101.224 mph/163.265 kph in Cervinia. DiMarco, the dominant speedster of the early ‘60s, set another record of 108.349 mph/174.757 kph in 1964, also in Cervinia. In between, however, in July 1963 Alfred Plangger went 104.298 mph/168.224 kph in Cervinia, and two months later Americans C.B.Vaughan and Dick Dorworth tied for a record of 106.520 mph/171.428 kph in Portillo in an event organized by Ron Funk.
The ‘60s saw the first real technological breaks (and breakthroughs) from those of traditional downhill skiing, starting an evolution of speed skiing technology and techniques that continues to this day. Some of these found their way back into traditional ski racing. The first bent ski poles designed to fit around the body of a skier in a tuck were bent to form in a Cervinia blacksmith shop. The first non-porous speed suits were developed; these suits are now made of polyurethane coated polypropylene, a long way from Lottie Joy’s woolen skirts. The first silver dollar size ski pole baskets and the first low profile, flat tip skis were made. Cervinia’s annual Kilometro Lanciato was the premier speed event in the world from which came most of the world records from the early ’60 until the late ’70 when it was discontinued because it was held on a glacier on the Plateau Rosa and its crevasses grew too large to safely bridge.
Eighty nine years after Lottie Joy raced in California, the first official women’s record was set by Emanuel Spreafico in 1963 in Cervinia at 78.82 mph/127.138 kph. The following year Kristl Staffner pushed it up to 88.802 mph/143.230 kph, also in Cervinia.
Japan’s first speed skier, Yuichiro Miura, competed in the KL in 1964. He had trained for the event on Mt. Fuji, using a parachute to slow down in place of the run out Mt. Fuji lacks. Though he never held the speed record, Miura finished seventh with 172.084 kph, more than respectable. He fell eight times that week while traveling over 100 mph and walked away from every fall, bruised but unbowed. The experience inspired him to go to Mt. Everest a few years later to take advantage of less air resistance at higher altitudes and attempt a world speed record on the tallest mountain on earth. Though finding terrain and building a track on Mt. Everest suitable for skiing over 100 mph is unreasonable and the actual skiing he accomplished there was minimal, Miura did make a name for himself as “The Man Who Skied Down Everest,” and the documentary film of that expedition won an Academy Award. In 2002 Miura, at the age of 70, became the oldest man to climb Mt. Everest. He accomplished this in the company of his son, the first father/son team to climb the tallest peak. He climbed Everest again when he was 75 and then again in 2013 at the age of 80 but says he won’t try again.
On a more somber note, the first (but not the last) speed skiing death occurred in 1965 when Walter Mussner skied off the Cervinia track at 105 mph. The helmets of that time were the same ones used by downhillers, and the most aerodynamic position using them was to put the head down and essentially to ski almost blind. One element in Mussner’s fatal accident was that he had put his head down and was unaware his line was taking him off the prepared track.
Within a few years a big revolution in helmets, poles, fairings, speed suits and skis was occurring in the world of speed skiing. Helmets were both more aerodynamic and allowed better visibility. The ski equipment manufacturing companies, working with the best speed skiers, began developing drastically new and better equipment. Tuck positions and equipment were tested and adapted in wind tunnels used by automobile and airplane manufacturers. In time, a few racers (notably Sean Cridland, Kalevi Hakkinen and Kirsten Culver) mounted their skis on the tops of cars and practiced their tuck positions at over 150 mph on the roads of Finland and the Salt Flats of Utah. Techniques improved and racers’ expectations of themselves and of the boundaries of the possible continued to expand. By 1970 speed skiing was ready to begin a rapid push into velocities that would have been unimaginable only a few years earlier.
In 1970 the Japanese skier Morishita Masaru broke DiMarco’s six year old record by a hefty margin, traveling 113.703 mph/183.392 kph in Cervinia on a pair of Yamaha skis and beginning a remarkable decade in speed skiing history. Cathy Breyton became the first woman to ski over 100 mph when she went 103.300 mph/165.000 kph in Portillo in 1978. That decade was dominated by the American Steve McKinney who set four world speed records on three different tracks (Cervinia, Portillo and Les Arcs) and was the first skier to travel over 200 kph. McKinney was the leader of an era of speed skiing and was instrumental in several significant changes in the sport. One of them was the formation of International Speed Skiing (ISS) the organizing body of the first professional speed skiing circuit which for a few years in the early 1980s staged professional races all over North America. The most significant of these races were in Silverton, Colorado where in 1982 and 1983 Franz Weber set two records, the latter at 129.017 mph/208.029 kph, and Marti Martin-Kuntz set a woman’s record of 111.114 mph/179.104 kph.By the late ‘80s the professional circuit had come unraveled and the FIS was sanctioning speed races in preparation for speed skiing to be a demo event at the 1992 Olympics in France. That event was a huge success, with Michel Prufer setting a record of 142.165 mph/229.299 kph for men and Torja Mulari going 135.931 mph/219.245 for a women’s record. However, a Swiss speed skier was killed the morning of the final race while warming up. He was free skiing and was not on the track when he collided with a snow machine and died. This tragedy which was not connected to speed skiing contributed to the IOC’s decision to not include speed skiing in the Olympics.
Whether or not speed skiing is included in the Olympics, it continues to evolve and grow in response to the natural human curiosity about the question every skier asks: “How fast can I go?” A modern speed skier needs some special equipment the normal recreation skier does not have. In addition to a polyurethane coated suit, racers use aerodynamic helmets that look like something from a Star Wars film, 240 cm skis, the narrowest boots available and foam fairings to fit them, bent poles filled with lead, gloves that are leather on the inside and rubber on the outside, and a fire retardant high density foam back protector to cut down on burn injuries in a 140 mph fall. Also, speed tracks are groomed to near perfection by winch cats guided by lasers to make a nearly impeccably smooth surface.
At this writing (April 2014) the fastest skiers in history are an Italian man and a Swedish woman. Simone Origone has gone 156.8 mph/252.450 kph, and Sanna Tidstrand has traveled 150.74 mph/242.590 kph. Michael Milton of Australia holds the record for one-legged skiers at 132.76 mph/213.650 kph. While these speeds seem to be close to the limits of the possible, that is how it has seemed since the days of Lottie Joy and Tommy Todd. More than 300 skiers have traveled faster than 200 kph. It is impossible (and thankless) to predict the limits of the possible in skiing, but one thing Tidstrand’s speed makes clear is that women are closing the gap on men in the world of speed skiing.