Ski jumpers typically reach highway speeds as they launch off the ramp.

Typical Speeds

  • On normal and large hills , ski jumpers usually hit around 85–95 km/h (about 53–59 mph) as they leave the takeoff table.
  • On ski flying hills (the biggest hills used for record jumps), speeds can climb to about 100–105 km/h (62–65 mph) just before takeoff.
  • During the landing phase , they are still moving at roughly 90–100 km/h as they touch down.

In other words, they’re going about as fast as a car on a motorway, but doing it on ice tracks, crouched in an aerodynamic tuck, and then flying hundreds of feet through the air.

Mini breakdown: where that speed comes from

  • Steep in-run: The ramp is angled roughly in the mid-30s degrees, letting gravity do most of the work.
  • Aerodynamic tuck: Jumpers make themselves as small as possible to reduce drag and keep accelerating down the track.
  • Hill size: Bigger “flying” hills give more distance to accelerate, so the top speed is higher.

Quick forum-style angle

If you’ve seen clips shared ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan- Cortina, those “flying at 55–60 mph” tags on videos are pretty accurate for elite jumpers on Olympic hills today. They aren’t breaking car-racing records, but the mix of that speed plus altitude and exposure is what makes ski jumping look—and feel—so extreme.

TL;DR: Ski jumpers generally go about 90 km/h (55 mph) on standard Olympic hills and up to roughly 100–105 km/h (65 mph) on the biggest ski flying hills.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.