Patrick Thorne
Swedish freestyle skier Jesper Tjäder has set a new Guinness World Record in the category “Longest rail grind on skis” by completing 154.49 metres (506 feet, 10.3 inches) down a long metal pipe in Åre, Sweden.
It took him three days and 127 attempts to land the new Guinness World Record of 154.49 metres (506 feet, 10.28 inches). Tjäder jumped on the rail at a speed of about 77 kilometres per hour (47.85 mph) and landed with the leading ski on the rail eight metres in.
The idea for this project was born six years ago when Tjäder found out that the American freeskier Tom Wallisch had set a new world record in riding the longest rail at 129.2 metres (424 feet).
“I have done a lot of tricks on rails before, but never near such a long rail as this. I felt like that would be a good mission to have, and when Tom Wallisch set the record it looked insane to me. So I thought, ‘I have to try and do that’.”
It’s the latest accolade for Tjäder who took slopestyle bronze at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing last winter and was the 2013–14 FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup slopestyle overall winner.
However Tjäder is even better known for his films including Unrailistic, Unrailistic 2.0 and most recently The Game Show, which all pushed new freeskiing boundaries.
Earlier in May, work began at Stendalen in Åre, Sweden, to build and implement the world’s longest rail with the just over 162 metres (531 feet) long metal rail eventually put in place for Tjäder.
“Being the official Guinness World Record holder feels pretty cool. I have dreamt about it since I was a kid. This rail was a hard challenge, and my guess was that it would take about 525 attempts, but it went way easier than I expected,” Tjäder added.
