With a three-kilometre-long natural ice rink and a Dakar Rally car with a “wind catcher” behind it to keep him out of the wind: the perfect conditions were in place for Nuis and his quest for 100.
I was literally flying over the snow… This is really the maximum that is possible on skates
“I was literally flying over the ice. Every little bump felt like a threshold. Sometimes I even got really loose from the glaciers. Skating that fast is technically challenging and requires precision. ” Nuis said after his successful record attempt. “Moreover, I skated more than 2km on each attempt, which I never do in competition. So today’s tactic was to skate as far as possible into the wind catcher, so that I had enough energy left to make the acceleration from 92 to over 100kph. It was very hard on my body. This is really the maximum that is possible on skates. ”
Nuis set the world record four years ago in Sweden, with 93kph. However , the Dutchman knew that he could go faster and was determined to break his own record.
“That 100kph limit kept gnawing at me, ” Nuis confessed. “And how nice is it to do that exactly 4 years after the last Games? I’m in great shape and so I had to skate that 100kph. ”
The need for speed
© Daniel Tengs
Perfect alignment
© Jarno Schurgers
Kjeld Nuis and coach Erben Wennemars
© Daniel Tengs
Kjeld Nuis skating into the record books
© Jarno Schurgers
Coach Erben Wennemars saw how difficult it is to align athlete, rider and windshield. “Four years ago we had a dream about how fast we could go, ” Wennemars revealed. “Maybe 100kph, but that was not based on anything. Through improvements in terms of ice, preparation and communication, we succeeded. But 100kph is so hard! When you see how fast you go on the ice, it really is bizarre. It was exciting. We couldn’t go any faster. ”
Teenager Quintero is clearly just as talented at driving on the ice as he is in the deserts of the Dakar. “The biggest challenge for me was to accelerate in the right way, ” Quintero explained. “I’ve also never felt so much tension at such a low speed. On the other hand, while riding on the snow, I couldn’t imagine anyone achieving that kind of speed with their own legs. inch