Jan Farrell wins Speed Ski World Cup in Grandvalira

Jan Farrell reports on his win the Speed Ski World Cup this weekend in Pas de la Casa/Grandvilara. Congratulations Jan!

The race day couldn’t have started better, comfortably winning the first run ahead of an experienced field of Austrians, Swedes, Swiss, French and Russians. The semifinal was tighter; a small error in the line I chose set me back to 3rd place, but I recovered the pace for the final, winning with a speed of 166.74kmh, over 100 miles an hour. A huge thank you to the organisers at GrandValira, they put together a fantastic show, organised to perfection on a new track they built over the summer.

I had arrived in Andorra a week early to clock in as many training runs as possible, accumulating on race day 63 days on snow since the preseason started in the summer. Apart from the specific on-snow training and hard work at the gym during the whole pre-season, I’ve carefully studied and prepared every detail of my ski equipment thanks to Ski-Clinic Lienz (Austria), Atomic and Leki. I had extra training on the track in January, as I inaugurated the track (and broke the Iberian peninsula record!) in parallel with Guy Martin’s Speed show on Channel 4 which I helped organised there.

This victory places me in a strong position for the overall World Cup title, with 177 points; just behind Austrian Markus Münzer (200). I am focused for the next 4 races in Canada and Sweden, where I hope to be fighting for the 23 points needed to put me in the lead and widen the close gap with the 5 racers behind me. At the end of March we have a World Record attempt in Vars where I hope to be to fight for a new record. Next year the FIS World Championships are held on the same Andorran track, where I will be racing in SDH for the last time, fighting for the title of World Champion.

I race in Speed Downhill category in the FIS Speed Ski World Cup, in which we use standard WC downhill FIS equipment. This differs from the latex wrapped S1 category in which we can use spoilers, aerodynamic helmets and 20cm longer skis (2m38). The SDH World Record is 210.773kmh (130.968mph) set in Les Arcs, France. My personal best is (on a shorter track in Verbier) 194.17kmh (120.65mph)