A pioneer of the Dangerous Sports Club at Oxford University, he jumped off Clifton Suspension Bridge in 1979
The man who performed the world’s first ever modern-day bungee jump, while wearing a top hat and tails and holding a bottle of champagne, has died aged 78.
David Kirke, one of the pioneers of the Dangerous Sports Club at Oxford University, jumped off Clifton Suspension Bridge on 1 April 1979.
Continue reading...Friends and family fly in and Buddhist monks light pyre at funeral in Nepal of extreme skier
A famed extreme skier from the United States who was killed after falling from one of the world’s tallest mountains was on Sunday given a traditional funeral at a Sherpa cremation ground.
Buddhist monks officiated at a ceremony attended by family, friends and government officials.
Continue reading...Local reports say man’s parachute failed to open in time after jump from cliff during holiday with friends
A British Base jumper has died after his parachute failed to open in time during a cliff jump while on holiday with friends in the south of France.
The 34-year-old man succumbed to his injuries at Grenoble university hospital after Tuesday’s accident, according to the Dauphiné Libéré newspaper.
Continue reading...From jellyfish in the Caribbean to hypothermia in the English Channel, swimming hasn’t been easy for Chloë McCardel – but can feel ‘so wild and free’
We’re not off to a good start. I’m fumbling with my cap, the rubber clinging to my head lopsidedly, my hair straggling out. I take it off to start again and the woman who has swum the fickle English Channel more times than any other human, the “Queen of the Channel”, instructs me in how to correctly apply a swimming cap.
Chloë McCardel and I are going for an ocean swim at Bondi. She dives into the foamy sea ahead of me – more slender mermaid than broad-shouldered Amazonian. Knee deep, I feel the current suck at my flesh. It’s not one of Bondi’s better days. Chest deep, I realise I’m being dragged out and my very amateur ocean-swimming abilities are no match for this surf. Panic rises. McCardel is an impatient white-cap in the distance. What was I thinking, suggesting a swim with superwoman?
Continue reading...Peter Dennis was one of the hundreds who descended into the 43-mile underground network to save injured caver George Linnane
It was when the text message suggested volunteers bring a sleeping bag that Dr Peter Dennis realised he might be in for what he politely refers to a “protracted operation”. But little did he know he would not return home for three nights after the longest rescue mission in Welsh history.
The ecologist from Aberystwyth University had heeded the call last Saturday to join the search for an injured caver in the Brecon Beacons who had fallen a mile into the 43.5-mile (70km) “intestinal” network of Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, which translates as Cave of the Black Spring.
Continue reading...Everyone needs some novelty right now, so our writer is tackling a new activity each week. First, he gets dragged perilously quickly around a lake
I used to ride bendy buses without holding on to the poles, pretending I was in Point Break. Pathetic. Yet the fantasy returned recently, after I decided to stop taking life for granted and try something new every week. To kick off, I wondered if it was possible for a hapless urbanite to learn to surf, ideally in less than an hour. No, said a few professionals, suggesting I try wakeboarding instead. I didn’t know what that was. Neither did anyone I know. “Is that when they pour water over your face to extract information?” asked my girlfriend, with insufficient concern.
“No, but it is an extreme sport,” chuckles Dave Novell, the water sports manager at Liquid Leisure in Windsor, the largest aquapark in Europe. Banana boats zip around us at a large freshwater lake set in lush countryside. How so? Wakeboarding involves being strapped to a plank, then towed by what looks like a coat hanger, attached to either a speedboat or an overhead cable system that whips you around at 19mph (30km/h).
Continue reading...Hail, freezing rain and high winds hit runners at high-altitude, 100km race in Yellow River stone forest in Gansu province
Twenty-one people have died after hail, freezing rain and high winds hit runners taking part in a 100km (62-mile) ultramarathon in a mountainous part of northern China.
More than 700 rescuers and army personnel used thermal-imaging drones and radar detectors to try to find runners caught by the storm in the race in Yellow River stone forest near Baiyin in north-western Gansu province, officials said.
Continue reading...Jean Andre Quemener, 32, from Jersey, is killed in jump from 2,239-metre Sass Pordoi
A British Base jumper has died in an accident in the Italian Dolomites.
Jean Andre Quemener, 32, was reportedly unable to activate his wing suit after jumping from the 2,239-metre Sass Pordoi in Canazei, a mountain resort popular with Base jumpers in the Val di Fassa area.
Continue reading...Briton Tom Ballard and Italian Daniele Nardi disappeared on Nanga Parbat
A search for the missing British climber Tom Ballard and his Italian climbing partner, Daniele Nardi, who disappeared on the Himalayan peak Nanga Parbat, has been called off.
The decision involved Pakistani and Spanish climbers from nearby K2, a Pakistani mountaineering official told the Associated Press.
Continue reading...There’s a whole new craze in east Africa, fuelled by secondhand inline skates – and a desire to unite
Photos and story by Duncan Moore
Nairobi’s traffic congestion is notorious. Minibuses known as matatus battle for space with cars, motorbikes and hand-drawn carts, causing excruciating gridlock.
Through this automotive battleground dart the daring members of the Kenyan city’s inline skating community, deftly weaving between moving vehicles, holding on to buses for speed and jumping over potholes.
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