Nikolay Pimkin

Nikolay Pimkin is the current Russian record holder in the premier S1 category and has the fastest speed ever by a 50+ racer.

Born in Leningrad (now St-Petersburg) Nikolay started skiing at an age of 3. His parents were both climbers and skiers. He was an alpine racer when he was young and his favourite discipline was downhill. in 1980-1982 he was a member of the USSR National Junior Team. 

In the years 1985 to 2006 Nikolay was very active in alpinism. He is the first person to ski Peak Pobeda (Victoria) at 7439m in 2002. Video He was there already in 1992 but without skis that time. Another of his accomplishments is skiing the North Face of Lenin Peak 7134m.

Nikolays speed skiing carreer started with a bet. Friend and speed ski racer Juhani Laakso told Nikolay and his friend Pavel Nuyanzin to try it. They made a bet that they would, and it ended up with both of them being World Cup S1 Speed Ski racers.

2008 was Nikolays first season. He made his debut in Salla, Finland, in the S1 category from the start. Already his second season he passed through 200 in Verbier, first with a 208,57 km/h, then with a 210,07 km/h race result. He also took his first top-10 World Cup race result in Idre the same season.

Nikolay took the Russian National record  in 2014 at the Speed Masters in Vars with a speed of 240,803 km/h. He raised the bar again in 2016 and set the current Russian record, 247,763 km/h. Watch the run here

2014 marked another milestone when he climbed the podium for the first time in a FIS Speed Ski World Cup race, and took a 3'rd place in Idre.

Nikolay lives in Zelenogorsk, not far from St-Petersburg. When he's not speed skiing, Nikolay is busy with alpinism, rock climbing, paragliding, cross country ski racing, running and sometimes even seeking the calm of fishing.