My 試みる／企てる to travel at 100mph... on SKIS: Robert Hardman 攻撃する，衝突するs the slopes with rising 星／主役にする Ben Hedley

By Robert Hardman for the Daily Mail
Updated: 08:13 BST, 31 January 2011

There are only two ways to experience the sensation of 速度(を上げる）-skiing. One is to do it. The other is to jump out of an aeroplane.

The only difference is that 速度(を上げる）-スキーヤーs go marginally faster. It is the fastest unpowered sport on earth and it is 極端に hard to comprehend why anyone should want to do it.

Competitors 加速する at 類似の 速度(を上げる）s to 決まり文句／製法 One drivers ― 0 to 100mph in five seconds ― but without the seatbelts, the 炭素 fibre 団体／死体 爆撃する or the £10?million salary.

Bonkers: UK 速度(を上げる） スキーヤー Benja Hedley (権利) races past 新聞記者／雑誌記者 Robert Hardman (left) on the slopes of Courchevel, フラン

If these people are lucky, they might earn enough to cover their travel costs.
Could there かもしれない be a いっそう少なく 控訴，上告ing sport? I suppose it just pips 水球 at an alligator farm.

But here’s the funny thing. The British are 現実に rather good at it. Over the years, we have won the 半端物 race and, one year, even produced a 支持する／優勝者. And now we have a new 速度(を上げる）-skiing sensation, Ben Hedley.

Until 2009, he had never even tried this insane sport. Yet after just one year of 競争 he is 階級d eighth in the world. And the new season ぼんやり現れるs just a few weeks from now.

Ben’s 業績／成就 would be impressive enough if he were some yodelling mountain man from Heidi country. What makes him even more 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の is that he’s from flat-as-a-pancake Suffolk. What’s more, he bought his skis off eBay for £150.

He is a latter-day Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, the goggle-注目する，もくろむd Cheltenham plasterer who became a 全世界の hero at the 1988 Calgary Olympics. Except that Eddie was famous for coming last. Ben is 井戸／弁護士席 on his way to the podium.

And, 権利 now, he is travelling so 急速な／放蕩な that I barely 登録（する） him in the corner of my 注目する，もくろむ. One moment he is far behind me, the next he is a blur of aerodynamic plastic 狙撃 past me and 負かす／撃墜する the mountain.

Ben and I are in the French アルプス山脈 and having a little 競争 負かす／撃墜する the World Cup downhill course in Courchevel. I have a 長，率いる start and he has to （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 me.

I’m not 正確に／まさに 吊りくさび Hamilton on skis, but I can get 負かす／撃墜する most slopes the 権利 way up.

So I 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う Ben has underestimated my talents when he gives me a 長，率いる start which seems to consist of, 井戸／弁護士席, most of the mountain. If this was the 100??metres, I would be starting at around the 90??metre 示す.

But it’s no contest. As I weave 負かす／撃墜する the middle of the course, Ben swooshes 負かす／撃墜する the outside like a human 雪崩／（抗議などの）殺到 and is waiting for me at the 底（に届く）. This little 陳列する，発揮する is 完全に 誤って導くing, though. Ben ― known in the sport as ‘Benja’ ― has barely topped 60mph on this run.

スキーヤーs 飛行機で行くing 負かす／撃墜する a slope in Austria. But 速度(を上げる） スキーヤーs compete on precipices and 法外な slopes, reaching 速度(を上げる）s of up to 150mph

Real 速度(を上げる）-skiing does not take place on anything approaching a slope where mere mortals go skiing. 競争s are 行う／開催する／段階d on carefully-selected precipices, slopes so 法外な that you cannot stand on them. The 裁判官s 粘着する on with ?crampons and ropes.

Just think of it this way. Olympic downhill スキーヤーs have to be the fastest 負かす／撃墜する a meandering mountain 跡をつける. 速度(を上げる）-スキーヤーs just have to be the fastest in a straight line 負かす／撃墜する a course which is twice as 法外な again.

Put another way, if 90 degrees is vertical, downhill スキーヤーs race at 30 degrees. 速度(を上げる）-?スキーヤーs are の近くに to 60 degrees.

And because every 速度(を上げる）-skiing 跡をつける has to level out into a 抱擁する, run-off area at the 底（に届く）, there are very few slopes 世界的な which 会合，会う the stringent 必要物／必要条件s.

The International Olympic 委員会 did 含む 速度(を上げる）-skiing in the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics in フラン as a demonstration sport, but then 除去するd it from the Olympic schedule soon afterwards.

This was partly a political 問題／発行する ― some 影響力のある members of the mainstream skiing ロビー regarded the whole idea of travelling at 150mph as bonkers ― and partly 予定 to 悲劇. On the penultimate day of the Games, スイスの 速度(を上げる）-sk ier Nicholas Bochatay was killed while practising.

In 2007, Britain’s fastest 女性（の） 速度(を上げる）-スキーヤー, Caitlin Tovar, 32, was killed in the French 訴える手段／行楽地 of Les Arcs. She had not even reached the actual course. She was 辛勝する／優位ing her way to the start line when she slipped and fell to her death.

If you can be killed just getting to the start, then what on earth is the attraction? Ben Hedley is a 有望な bloke, a Cambridge 工学 卒業生（する） and entrepreneur. Can’t he calculate 危険?

‘It’s the greatest thrill of the lot. It’s like nothing else,’ he says. ‘I’ve done skydiving but, up in the sky, everything looks miles away. With 速度(を上げる）-skiing, the whole world is going in 逆転する. Everything you see in 前線 of you is suddenly behind you.’

A 落ちるing human will 減少（する） at around 130mph 反して the world recordfor 速度(を上げる）-skiing is held by Italy’s Simone Origone, who clipped 157mph and lived to tell the tale.
Ben Hedley’s best time so far is 114mph ― somewhere between the take-off 速度(を上げる） of a Spitfire and a 乗客 jet. But he has high hopes for the season ahead.

Daredevils: Eddie the 'Eagle' Edwards (left) became a 全世界の hero in 1988, while James 社債 films often 含む a daring ski scene (権利). Ben Hedley tried 速度(を上げる）-riding like 社債, but 速度(を上げる）-skiing is the one that 麻薬中毒の him

So what happens when he 落ちるs over? ‘I 港／避難所’t,’ he says with a grin. His coach, Scottish ski 指導者 Millar Reid, was a 最高の，を越す-flight 速度(を上げる）-スキーヤー for 20 years from 1987 to 2007 and fell only three times. ‘You just make sure you don’t stick anything out and wait until the ground starts levelling out,’ he says.

‘People say it’s dangerous but the only bones I’ve ever broken were playing rugby,’ says Millar. Even so, he still walks with a limp に引き続いて a 落ちる in 2004.

Ben himself has broken 27 bones in a 冒険的な career which has spanned almost everything. He broke all the toes in one foot while barefoot waterskiing in Corsica a few years ago. It 明白に didn’t put him off, because he broke all his toes in the other foot doing the same thing a year later.

Other 傷害s 含む a broken arm (mountain biking), a broken wrist (cycling through Cambridge) and four 割れ目d ribs 加える a dislocated hip (rugby). He nearly broke his neck doing tricks on a snowboard ten years ago.

Now 33, his 転換 to 速度(を上げる）-skiing has come late in lif e. The ?Ipswich-educated dentist’s son had only had the 時折の skiing holiday in his 青年 and later spent a couple of student seasons working in the アルプス山脈 for a chalet company. Then, in 2009, he was between 職業s when he decided to spend a few weeks ?trying out a few ‘extreme’ sports.

He had a go at the Cresta Run, the famous St Moritz ice 跡をつける. He also tried 速度(を上げる）-riding ― skiing over clifftops with a パラシュート（で降下する） in James 社債 fashion. Then he 始める，決める off to try a 速度(を上げる）-skiing 競争 in Verbier.

It’s a chicken-and-egg 肉親，親類d of sport. You can only do it if you have a licence from the International Ski 連合 (FIS ). And you can only get a licence if you have done it.
Ben told a few white lies and did a lot of begging. The FIS 結局 gave him an 入ること／参加（者） card and a bib with a number on it.

スキーヤーs at Courchevel, where Robert Hardman raced against Ben Hedley on the World Cup downhill course

‘I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to practise before my first race but there wasn’t time.’ So, he entered his first race in a sport which he had never even tried. To his 救済, he did not 落ちる over. To his astonishment, he did not come last.

What ma de the 業績／成就 even more remarkable was that he was on a pair of old downhill racing skis he had 設立する on eBay. He borrowed everything else. And yet he managed to 攻撃する，衝突する a 速度(を上げる） of 94mph.

And it was there he met Millar Reid, who was so impressed that he agreed to 追加する Ben to the British squad ― all two of them. ‘He （機の）カム from nowhere, he’s as keen as 情熱 and he’s not 脅すd,’ says Millar.

Ben was 招待するd to compete in the 2010 World Cup. It is divided in to two different 部類s, the mainstream 速度(を上げる） Downhill class and the more technical S1 event. Come the end of the season, his 全体にわたる position was 8th out of 32, just one place behind British 退役軍人 and former 速度(を上げる） Downhill world 支持する／優勝者 Marc Poncin.

Ben is all 始める，決める to 改善する on this when the 2011 season kicks off in Canada すぐに, 供給するd he can take time off from his 職業 running a cereal 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 商売／仕事. And unlike the other members of the squad, Ben does not live in the mountains. In fact, until we 会合，会う in Courchevel, he has not 始める，決める foot on snow all winter.

His coach 収容する／認めるs it’s a 障害（者）. ‘Ben’s biggest problem is 簡単に getting enough time on the snow,’ says Millar Reid. To get 速度(を上げる）-skiing 負かす／撃墜する to a 罰金 art, you need to perfect a crouching position rather like a 今後-直面するing limbo ダンサー then lock yourself into it for a heart-stopping half a mile.

But Millar points out that training can only get you so far. ‘It’s 60 per cent mental and 40 per cent physical ― you just have to let your mind go and be in 中立の, even at 150mph.’

One could almost call it mindless, then. At least if you jump out of a 計画（する）, you have a パラシュート（で降下する）. At least if you are a downhill racer, or a 決まり文句／製法 One driver, you can always stop if you don’t li ke the lo ok of it. In this game there are only two 方式s ― flat out or flat on your 直面する.

Ben is not bothered. He does this because he loves it. And he has a secret 武器 for the new season. He has just got himself a ‘new’ pair of skis ― and not from eBay either. When former British downhill racer Roger Walker heard Ben’s story, he 申し込む／申し出d him his 道具 for nothing.

Ben now hopes to 会合，会う another former 勇敢な Brit. ‘What Eddie Edwards did was amazing. I’d love to 会合，会う him and have a 雑談（する）.’

About 速度(を上げる）-skiing? ‘No. I’m やめる keen to have a go at ski jumping next?.?.?.’