Update:
Estonian athlete Jaan Roose completed the first crossing of the Strait of Messina on a slackline on Thursday.
Estonian athlete Jaan Roose achieved this Thursday the first crossing of the Strait of Messina by slackline.
This discipline – of which Jaan Roose is a three-time world champion – differs from tightrope walking by the absence of a balance beam and the use of an elastic polyester strap.
The performance was carried out on a 3.6 kilometer long slackline, suspended more than 250 meters above the strait that separates Sicily and the Italian peninsula.
The Estonian athlete unfortunately fell 80 meters from the finish line, which means that his performance cannot be officially recognized as the new world record. It is therefore still held by the Frenchman Augustin Moinat, who covered 2.7 kilometers on a slackline between two volcanoes in Auvergne, in 2022.