Sunday, July 05, 2009

[fastest human being] non power-assisted

Fastest woman on earth, Sanna Tidstrand [Sweden], downhill skier, 242,590 km/h

Sailing

In line with what was said in the last post, water really does cut down on speed. The current speed record holder is Alexandre Caizergues [France], on a kiteboard, at 93.66 km/h. Hydrofoils have not bettered this.



Ice sailing

The highest confirmed speed is 135 km/h although a vastly higher speed was claimed at the turn of the century. This needs to be regulated and measured.

Land sailing

The world record is by Richard Jenkins [Great Britain], in a craft called Greenbird, at 203.09 km/h.



Skiing

The downhill record is held by Simone Origone [Italy], at 251.40 km/h. I just can't conceive of that speed and how the legs are kept together without suddenly shooting apart. The girl in the pic above was not that far away either and look at her slight bodyform.



Bicycle

I'm not sure this should be included. On a bicycle treadmill indoors, Bruce Bursford [Great Britain] peddled at enough revolutions to do the equivalent of 334.6 km/h.



Personal

The fastest I've gone on water, in the A Class cat, might possibly have been around 44 km/h, which sounds so slow but I can tell you that when you're controlling an 18 foot boat with a 30 foot mast, it's no picnic. On snow, an Austrian lady once said, as a put down, that I'd been doing about 50 km/h and that was difficult enough. I did do luge in Finland, in 1989 but have no stats. They said it was 1km and I know I did 53 seconds on the run before I broke my wrist. The world record in luge is 139.37 km/h .

250 km/h though? The mind just can't get round that speed.

5 comments:

  1. I read it as 250 thousand km per hour!

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  2. I think the figure you quote under the pic needs validating 242,590 km/h is too fast for someone to survive in that skimpy outfit.

    Most of these are powered. Wind is a power source.

    The downhill skier only counts if she climbed the hill herself therefore giving her the kinetic energy by her own power.

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  3. Right, I've been puzzled by this 250 thousand thing and then I realized - Brits don't know about the continental system of numbers, do they? It reads 242 point whatever. A comma is a decimal point outside Britain.

    Pedantic £$%^&*!!!, Lord T :)

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