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After the season, Japanese Olympic champion Ryoju Kobayashi tested the limits of human possibilities in years on skis. On a makeshift giant bridge in Iceland, he tried to break the 300-meter mark and almost succeeded.
The two-time World Cup winner flew to a distance of 291 meters today. Austrian Stefan Kraft’s March 2017 world record from Vikersund, Norway stands at 253.5 meters and still stands, according to FIS.
The Icelandic television station RUV reported on Kobayashi’s attempts. The competitor’s sponsor, Red Bull, which often focuses on extreme sports performance, had a temporary bridge with an extremely long ramp built in the Hlidarfjall ski area near the town of Akureyri.
“I’ve dreamed of such a jump for a long time. I want to keep pushing the boundaries,” Kobayashi said in a press release.
Kobajaši started the two-day event on Tuesday, when his longest attempt measured 256 meters. Today, the twenty-seven-year-old Japanese performed an even longer flight in the area, where only selected TV crews had access. “Finally the season is over,” Kobayashi wrote on the X social network.
In the video, he then poses with a sign that says ‘291 meters, world record’. However, as expected, the FIS will not recognize his performance as a record, as these were not competitive jumps in accordance with its rules. “We hope that the necessary measures have been taken to ensure the safety of the athlete,” the ski federation said.
Last year, Kobayashi won the Tour of Four Bridges for the third time. He finished second to Kraft in the World Cup.
