Society

High-wire stuntmen to challenge China cableway

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-20 17:35

ZHANGJIAJIE - Two world-known high wire stuntmen will challenge the steepest section of the Tianmenshan Mountain cableway in Zhangjiajie, in central China's?Hunan province on March 20.

Freddy Rock, a tightrope walker from Switzerland, and Saimaiti Aishan, the seventh-generation Dawazi (high-wire) stuntman from China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, will compete in speed, distance and difficulty of high wire walking.

The cable, which is used to carry tourist cable cars, is 7.5 kms in total length.

The two will stage a spectacular performance on the last portion of the steel wire which runs at a 42-degree gradient and is more than 500 meters away from the bottom of the valley at the highest point.

They are expected to scale a total of 1,800m cable wire supported by five brackets. The distance between the first two brackets is 690 meters and reaches 1,110 meters among the last three.

Nock and Saimaiti will start from the same position one after the other with a safe distance. The winner will be decided on his timing as well as the distance he will walk.

Nock conquered the 995-meter-long cable car line on the Zugspitze mountain, the highest in Germany last year, while Saimaiti succeeded in walking through the over 700-meter-long wire with a gradient as steep as over 39 degrees last April.