Nick Wallenda attracts worldwide attention with high profile tightrope stunts, but he’s got nothing on Frenchman Nathan Paulin who has broken the world highlining record not once, but twice this month.
While Wallenda’s tightropes are fixed, Paulin’s line moves around with a huge sag in the middle. Highlining, similar to tight rope walking and slacklining, involves walking across a slack line between two points at great height.
Paulin broke the first record on June 26 on a wire spanning 403 meters across Gorges de la Jonte in Cevennes National Park at the Natural Games. The slackline hung more than 800 feet above the ground with 25-30 meters of sag in it.
“The oscillations of a looser line are smaller, and not as quick,” Paulin told Red Bull. “It’s easier to make the crossing when the line is loose.”
Then, as if that feat was not enough, less than a month he broke his own record with a slackline 469 meters long across two cliffs in eastern France at the European Marmotte Highline Project in Lans-en-Vercors near Grenoble. The event brought together the world’s best slackliners.
