Skiers In Attempt On Backflip World Record

A group of skiers have performed what they believe is the largest simultaneous backward somersault ever.

The move involved 30 freestyle athletes travelling down a short slope and then performing a backflip before landing on their feet further down the slope.

Videos of the stunt were posted on Facebook and YouTube and it soon had hundreds of re-posts from impressed viewers.

One Facebook user, Genevieve Tougas, commented: "Wow! Good job guys. A great video to keep for your archives."

The attempt took place at the ski resort of Mont St Sauveur in Quebec, Canada, which is considered the home of the region's ski industry.

It was organised by Mogul freestyle skiing world cup champion Mikaël Kingsbury, who also took part.

Another skier, Jérôme Bernèche, 23, said: "Mikaël had this idea a month or so ago and created a Facebook group where he invited the people he knew that could do a backflip easily enough to be confident doing it holding hands.

"When he saw there was interest, he contacted the mountain to see if they could build us a jump wide enough and close a part of a slope for a day.

"They were kind enough to help us with this idea and made it happen."

He said many of those who took part were current or ex-members of the Canadian freestyle skiing team.

Mr Bernache said they trained for two hours alone or in pairs or small groups until they had got the feeling for the jump before getting together to complete the jump in a line.

The group made two attempts. The first ended in failure - but they succeeded with the second.

Mr Bernache said: "On the first try, the line broke, because we had problems with the angle of the slope that was steeper on one side than the other, so some people did not have the same speed.

"On the second try, everyone landed and the line didn't break, everybody landed hand in hand.

"We were pretty stoked, I don't think anybody really expected it to work that well. We went for lunch (and) got a big poutine (typical Canadian dish) to celebrate."

He said Mikael had hoped to get it into the Guinness Book of World Records, but they were too late this time round so would try again next year.

"We're still confident we broke the world record, though," he added.