Industry News
An invitation at a friend’s birthday party has turned into a world record for Stan Friedberg: It’s not officially official yet, but Stan Friedberg, 91, is probably world’s oldest heli-skier, reports the Vail Daily.
The last weekend in March, Stan Friedberg took his son, Steve, and three of his granddaughters on a heli-skiing trip in the Canadian Rockies. There were no thoughts of setting a record when planning the trip, but when Friedberg happened to be visiting his office at Research Underwriters, an insurance brokerage in Pittsburgh, the office manager mentioned that the Guinness Book of World Records’ current record-holder for oldest heli-skier was 88. Stan Friedberg is retired but still visits from time to time.
While this wasn’t Stan Friedberg’s first heli-skiing trip, it had been some time, perhaps 20 years.
Steve Friedberg acknowledged that his father seemed pretty nervous before going out this year.
“He wasn’t sure he was going to do it,” Steve said, adding that the light was flat on the first day. “But the sun popped out and we got lucky.”
On the helicopter trip, Stan Friedberg made perhaps six runs, Steve Friedberg said. And skied like he always has, with power and confidence — and, on this day, on new, borrowed skis.
“He’s a good skier,” Wiegele said. “But then, he skis regularly.”
As required by Guinness, those runs were captured on film, with photographers sent by the brewing giant, and Stan Friedberg wore a GPS device to document exactly where he started and finished.
Stan Friedberg isn’t your normal man in his 90s. He works out every day, he can often be found running the stairs at high school football stadiums in the Pittsburgh area, and he didn’t get on the mountain a couple of years ago since he’d broken his neck trail running.
