2010 Zhangjiajie Tianmen Mountain Tightrope Walking Cableway Competition
On March 20, a peak duel that attracted worldwide attention made a stunning appearance on the Zhangjiajie Tianmen Mountain cableway. China's Xinjiang Dawaz inheritor Saimaiti Aishan and Switzerland's "High-Altitude Prince" Freddy Nock launched a breathtaking high-altitude tightrope walking extreme challenge on the Tianmen Mountain cableway. The person in charge of the Tianmen Mountain Scenic Area introduced that this high-altitude steel wire extreme duel would be conducted on the steel rope of the latter half of the Tianmen Mountain cableway, with a total length of 7.5...
On March 20, a peak duel that attracted worldwide attention made a stunning appearance on the Zhangjiajie Tianmen Mountain cableway. China's Xinjiang Dawaz inheritor Saimaiti Aishan and Switzerland's "High-Altitude Prince" Freddy Nock launched a breathtaking high-altitude tightrope walking extreme challenge on the Tianmen Mountain cableway.
The person in charge of the Tianmen Mountain Scenic Area introduced that this high-altitude steel wire extreme duel would be conducted on the steel rope of the latter half of the Tianmen Mountain cableway, with a total length of 7.5 kilometers, walking upward from support No. 9B at least to the next support, with a steel rope length of 690 meters; if continuing to the next support, the total steel rope length would reach 1,000 meters; the entire steel rope has a slope of 42 degrees, with the highest point over 500 meters above the valley floor below.
Saimaiti Aishan is the nephew of "High-Altitude Prince" Adili, and the seventh-generation inheritor of Xinjiang "Dawaz." "Da" in Uyghur means "suspended in the air," and "waz" refers to a person addicted to doing something. The word "Dawaz" is borrowed from the Persian "Darbari," meaning high-altitude walking on a large rope performance, called "walking the rope," "plateau sacrifice," "treading the soft rope," etc. in ancient times. He has already created multiple high-altitude tightrope walking records.
On the afternoon of October 18, 2008, Xinjiang "Dawaz" inheritor Saimaiti Aishan had an accident while challenging the world's largest slope high-altitude tightrope walk at Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie City, Hunan. Fifty meters from the finish line, he fell sitting on the steel rope and was forced to give up the challenge. After the accident, ground safety personnel promptly launched rescue operations, taking 1 hour and 16 minutes to successfully rescue Saimaiti, who was hanging sitting on the steel rope 400 meters above the ground. This failure did not make him give up the idea of challenging.
On April 25, 2009, at 2:28 p.m., Xinjiang Dawaz seventh-generation inheritor—Saimaiti Aishan once again successfully challenged the Tianmen Mountain extreme slope high-altitude steel wire, with thunderous applause on site. Today Saimaiti successfully challenged a 700-meter-long, over 300-meter vertical height, 39° slope mid-air steel wire. Thus, a new world record "longest distance walk on the largest slope high-altitude steel wire" was successfully born.
Introduction to Freddy Nock:
Freddy Nock, 46 years old, from a Swiss acrobatics family, began learning all acrobatics related to balance under his father's influence from the age of 4. He can walk high-altitude tightropes, ride a motorcycle with five other motorcycles spinning rapidly inside a large steel ring, and walk freely in a constantly rotating steel wheel. Currently, he has become the most outstanding seventh-generation member of his family.
In 1999, Nock set the world record for the longest high-altitude tightrope walk on a 743-meter-long, 150-meter-high steel wire at St. Moritz Mountain in Switzerland;
In 2000, in Füssen, Germany, he successfully challenged an 80-meter-long, 56° slope high-altitude steel cable in 2 minutes and 27 seconds;
In 2009, at Zugspitze in Germany, he challenged a 995-meter-long, 56° slope high-altitude cableway rising directly from 2,000 meters to 3,000 meters in altitude in 50 minutes, successfully creating the world record for the highest-altitude tightrope walk. The $19,000 in charity funds raised from this challenge, Nock donated entirely to education in Africa; at the same time, Nock also set a world record for 24-hour non-stop walking on a steel wheel known as the "Wheel of Death."
Saimaiti and Nock arrived at the starting point. The on-site audience looked at the steel cable reaching into the clouds and could not help but be dumbfounded. Which of the two warriors could reach the finish line fastest? Who would be the true king? All suspense awaited them to reveal with their strength.
At 13:03, Saimaiti, holding a balance pole, stepped onto the steel cable and walked as if flying, with wind at his feet, swishing swiftly on the cable in the biting cold wind. When he had taken about 10 meters on the steel cable several hundred meters above the canyon floor, Saimaiti's body shook, and with a whoosh his legs leaped up, elegantly performing a difficult split with both legs on the cable and waving to the reporters, then got up and continued walking. At over 40 meters, Saimaiti frowned slightly because the wind was too strong; he accidentally slipped, causing a leg strain, and ultimately had to return with regret.
At 13:45, Nock took the stage. At this point, how far he could walk and what limit he could challenge became the sole focus of the on-site audience. At first, Nock walked fairly smoothly, but at 200 meters on the cableway, due to the strong wind causing the steel cable to keep flipping, plus thin air and other factors, he also had to stop and terminate the challenge.
Although neither of them reached the finish line in this challenge, their extraordinary courage and superb skills still deeply impressed everyone. At the media meeting held after the challenge, both said that next year they would meet again at Tianmen Immortal Mountain to continue challenging the extreme peak.
2011, worth looking forward to!