World Record for Longest Rail Slide

25th May 2022

Last modified on May 28th, 2022

He competed the feat at the ski resort of Are in Sweden.

He jumped onto the rail at 77 kms/hour and slid a distance equivalent to the length of 15 double decker busses – that’s one a half times the length of the Wembley football pitch.

Swedish freestyle skier Jesper Tjäder landed a new Guinness World Record for the longest rail grind on skis pic.twitter.com/AG97rQZGeM

— Reuters (@Reuters) May 25, 2022

The previous record was 128.7 metres  and was set in 2016.

It took Jesper Tjäder 127 attempts over a 3 day period before he nailed it.

RECORD BREAKER: Swedish freestyle skier Jesper Tjäder has set a new world record for the longest rail grind on skis by completing a distance of approximately 506 feet down a long metal pipe. https://t.co/ixJeMVAmHR pic.twitter.com/DbT0F3bSHP

— ABC News (@ABC) May 24, 2022

– Tjäder has enjoyed a prolific career in competition with a 2022 Olympic slopestyle bronze medal from Beijing and a 2013–14 FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup slopestyle title to his name.

– 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).

– The 28-year-old from Östersund said “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’.”

– 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.

– It took him three days and 127 attempts to land the new Guinness World Record of 154.49 metres (506 feet, 10.28 inches) on May 9 at 5:23pm CEST as he 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.

– Tjäder added: “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.”

The evidence for the new Guinness World Records consisted of:

– A full video of measuring process

– Proof of the surveyors qualifications

– A comprehensive surveyor report after the attempt

– Two independent expert witnesses on location at all attempts, and their individual witness statements, plus certificates within their expertises.

– Video evidence

– Cover Letter

– Photographic Evidence

Image c/o PlanetSKI