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AKUREYRI, Iceland — A world-renowned athlete from Japan recently soared to new heights by breaking the world record for the longest ski jump.
One of the most decorated ski jumpers of all time, Ryōyū Kobayashi can now say he also holds the world record for the longest flight ever by a man on skis.
On April 24, he raced down the largest ski jump ever made, flew through the air for almost 10 seconds before landing safely at a whopping 291 meters down the hill, smashing the old record by 37.5 meters.
"It's difficult to put this feeling into words. This is my dream come true," Kobayashi said in this video. "This experience will up-level my career; this record will be my source of strength going forward."
Before this jump, Kobayashi's personal best was 252 meters, just a little more than a meter under the world record. He had a dream to beat the world record and, in order to do so, his team had to construct a bigger ski jump hill.
After researching locations and calculating the perfect slope, angle and length needed to allow for such a long jump, a special kicker was created in Akureyri. Around 120,000 cubic meters of snow had to be removed when they were building it to prepare the hill for the jump.
"Last September, when I first visited this place, all I saw was a rock. It was hard to imagine this place covered in snow then, but I knew this place has the perfect natural slope. I could not have asked for a better ski jump hill. This was an incredible experience," he said.
Kobayashi had to train to adapt to stronger winds, practice the correct posture the long flight and reach a speed of about 105 kilometers per hour by the time he jumped. Due to the speed and time in the air, he had to be especially wary of the weather conditions as it could significantly impact the jump.
The 27-year-old skier attempted the jump several times before his final flight, where he soared past the record.
"This is ski flying," he said in a Red Bull video about his world record.
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