In Hot Pursuit of the World Skiing Record

Harry Egger wants to ski faster than anyone before him. Emma, with a weight of 12 kilos, will help him in doing so.

Harry Egger comes from the Austrian province of East Tyrol, is 41years old, 192 centimeters tall, weighs 105 kilos, and has been working towards his big goal for the past years. He wants to ski faster than anyone before him. His best speed so far is 248.28 kph, and the current world record, set in 2006 by Simone Origone of Italy, is 251.40 kph.

First testing on the roof of a car

Egger grew up with foster parents and left secondary school to begin an apprenticeship where he learned to sell sports equipment. He also started training to be a downhill racer. But instead of heading into a typical racing career and skiing for the Austrian Ski Association, he chose something more exceptional: speed skiing. He began his training on the roof of a car: mounted on a ski rack, Harry had friends drive him around his hometown of Lienz in south-central Austria. “Way too dangerous”, he says now, “and not really necessary: the turbulence created by the windshield is not at all like it is on the slopes.”

These impetuous, youthful experiments now belong to the distant past, and no one today has a more professional, solid and comprehensive approach to speed skiing than Harry Egger: “What makes the sport fascinating is more than just the physical and mental challenge”, he says. “It’s also the preparation and the scientific aspect.” Harry Egger is the first person to have his body measured using laser technology, resulting in a three-dimensional model with aerodynamic data that are more precise than ever before possible.

"It really makes me feel good"

Not only have his sense of purpose and professionalism changed over the years but also his motivation. “When I started out”, he says, “I was trying to impress people.” These days he’s doing it for himself and his own sense of satisfaction: “When I can see that the system is stable and I’m getting faster and faster, it really makes me feel good. The feeling I get during a perfect run is simply sensational; you can’t compare it with anything else.” It’s a feeling that lasts for a maximum of 16 seconds: that’s how long it takes to reach top speed from a dead stop.

Then the difficult part begins. Because it’s not the high speed alone that concerns the speed-skiing pro; it’s the question of how to slow down once you’ve reached speeds beyond the 250-kph mark. Aerodynamic experts say that at a speed of 200 kph, the pressure on the body is like a 120 kg weight. “You can imagine”, says Egger, “what it’s like when you’re going considerably faster than 250 kph.” Or to be more precise: one can’t imagine. Because no one has ever gone faster than 251.40 kph on skis. “I am heading into a dimension that no one before me has ever entered. I have no idea what awaits me there.”

At the mercy of nature

Entering a borderline zone means running risks. Egger is well aware that he risks falling and the injuries that go with it. But he doesn’t say “if I should fall” but rather “if a fall should occur.” He never says the words “I” and “fall” in the same sentence. Is he afraid? “I am preparing myself so well that it won’t happen”, he says. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if it did.”

Harry has fallen before. In 1995, while he was competing at Vars, France, a small patch of uneven snow pulled his left ski to one side before the clock had even started. He fell and slid more than half a kilometer down the mountainside – for some 15 or 20 seconds. He passed the timekeeping device on his back, sliding along at more than 180 kph. “I can remember every single detail. At moments like that you feel tiny and helpless, because you are at the mercy of the powers of nature.” Harry got back to training as soon as the burns had more or less healed.

Progress in the spirit of the pioneers

It bothers him that his sport is subject to the strict rules and regulations of the International Ski Federation. It bothers him so much that he hasn’t taken part in one of their competitions since 1999. He feels the regulations simply get in the way of the original intention and spirit of the sport: to get down the mountain as fast as possible.

Harry is familiar with the stories of the speed pioneers of the 1930s, such as Gustav Lantschner and Leo Gasperl, who made himself an aerodynamic backpack and reached 136.6 kph, an incredible speed for the conditions of the time. Egger’s current attempt to break the record remains true to the spirit of the past – in part because his eye is fixed on the future. “If everyone obeyed all the rules that other people have drawn up, there would be no progress.”

Egger, who was the world champion in speed skiing in 1994 and set a world record in 1999 at 248.105 kph, compares his recent attempts to the first automotive speed races more than a century ago and the first record-breaking attempts by Lantschner and Gasperl.

Only that he now is using modern high-technology. His body is protected by a suit in the form of a carbon-fiber shell, which he has nicknamed “Emma”. It weighs 12 kilos, is more than a meter long, is aerodynamically perfect, and was fitted to his body down to the last tenth of a millimeter by the Swiss Formula One engineer Charles Bienz.

His next attempt - and it will come for sure - will be on a sunny, warm and completely windless day, when the outer layer of snow has been softened by the sun – conditions that are absolutely necessary for a successful attempt.

Harry Egger will push off and drop several hundred meters in altitude over a course of just about one kilometer before the two parachutes stowed in his shell deploy to slow him down.