Daredevil Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk on a tightrope across the Niagara Falls, taking steady, measured steps on Friday night for 548.6m across the mist-fogged brink of the roaring falls separating the US and Canada.
“I feel like I’m on cloud nine right now,” an exuberant Wallenda told reporters after accomplishing what he said was his childhood dream before an estimated 112,000 people crowding the shores of both countries and millions more who watched a live TV broadcast.
He described wind “coming from every which way,” mist so powerful he had to blink it away to maintain his vision and a breathtaking view during the nighttime walk illuminated by spotlights that “compared to nothing.”
Photo: Reuters
“There was no way to focus on the movement of the cable,” said Wallenda, 33. “If I looked down at the cable there was water moving everywhere. And if I looked up there was heavy mist blowing in front of my face. So it was a very unique, a weird sensation.”
He said he accomplished the feat through “a lot of praying, that’s for sure, but, you know, it’s all about the concentration, the focus and the training.”
The seventh-generation member of the famed Flying Wallendas had long dreamed of pulling off the stunt, never before attempted. Other daredevils have wire-walked over the Niagara River, but farther downstream and not since 1896.
“This is what dreams are made of, people,” said Wallenda, who wore a microphone for the broadcast, shortly after he stepped off from a platform on the US shore.
Along the way, he calmly prayed aloud.
After passing the halfway mark, Wallenda expressed fatigue.
“I’m strained, I’m drained,” he said. “This is so physical, not only mental, but physical.”
Toward the end, as he neared the Canadian shore, Wallenda dropped to one knee and pumped his fist while the spectators cheered. He broke into a playful run about 4.6m from the finish line, where his wife and three children waited.
“I am so blessed,” he said later. “How blessed I am to have the life that I have.”
ABC televised the walk and insisted Wallenda use a tether to keep him from falling in the river. Wallenda said he agreed because he was not willing to lose the chance to perform the walk it took him well over a year to win permission from two countries to do. Such stunts are normally illegal. ABC’s sponsorship helped offset some of the US$1.3 million cost of the spectacle.
Wallenda said he thought about the tether, which was secured at his waist and dragged behind him, at several points along the 30 minute walk, but was not hindered by it as he had feared.
“Awesome! The whole thing is awesome,” eight-year-old William Clements of Dresden, Ontario, said after watching the walk with his family from the Canadian side, adding he would not want to walk “even over something not high.”
“He was meant to do it. The weather was perfect,” Glenda Rutherford of Ontario said. “It was amazing.”
For Wallenda, who has grown up on the high wire and holds six Guinness records for various stunts, the Niagara Falls walk was unlike anything he had ever done. Because it was over water, the 5cm wire did not have the usual stabilizer cables to keep it from swinging. Pendulum anchors were designed to keep it from twisting under the elkskin-soled shoes designed by his mother.
The Wallendas trace their roots to 1780 Austria-Hungary, when ancestors traveled as a band of acrobats, aerialists, jugglers, animal trainers and trapeze artists. The clan has been touched by tragedy, notably in 1978, when patriarch Karl Wallenda, Nik’s great-grandfather, fell to his death during a stunt in Puerto Rico.
Wallenda said that at one point in the middle of the walk, he thought about his great-grandfather and the walks he had taken: “That’s what this is all about, paying tribute to my ancestors, and my hero, Karl Wallenda.”
About a dozen other tightrope artists have crossed the Niagara Gorge downstream, dating to Jean Francois Gravelet, aka “The Great Blondin,” in 1859. However, no one had walked directly over the falls, and authorities had not allowed any tightrope acts in the area since 1896. It took Wallenda two years to persuade US and Canadian authorities to allow it, and many civic leaders hoped to use the publicity to jumpstart the region’s struggling economy, particularly on the US side of the falls.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in