Herminating world record attempt

An Austrian ski school has set a new world record in “Herminating” after 840 people joined former world champion Hermann Maier to copy his ski racing position on a snow-covered field at Saalfelden.

“Herminating” aims to offer a winter alternative to planking –  inspired by the trend of mimicking a plank by lying face down often in an unusual location and then photographing the picture to post on social media sites.

The Alpine equivalent involves people adopting the ski ace’s racing pose in equally unlikely positions, or in the case of the Saalfelden skiing school involving 840 “Herminators” forming a picture of the ski ace as they adopted the race position on the school’s playing field.

A local architect firm had managed to sketch out the image of the ski ace on the field so that people knew roughly where to stand and it was then photographed, after which those that had taken part got the chance to speak to the skier himself.

The idea for the project came from schoolboys Patrick Unterrader and Fabian Ulmer who said they wanted to beat the previous record for 170 people set by a skiing school at Stams, also in Austria.

“Herminating” was originated by two friends from Tirol who were on holiday in the skier’s hometown of Flachau and who decided to post pictures of them in the race pose on Facebook – which sparked a craze that now has hundreds of people sending in pictures every week.