Fearless Lunatic Breaks Slackline Record at Mandalay Bay
It makes us a little woozy to even type these words.
Slackline madman Andy Lewis broke a world record for the longest urban highline walk at Mandalay Bay on Oct. 16, 2013. He did it a dizzying 63 floors up, and he made it seem like a stroll in the park.
Four lines were strung atop Mandalay Bay, just outside the hotel’s House of Blues Foundation Room. Lewis’ slackline was 360 feet long.
Let’s put it in perspective.
Andy Lewis is perhaps best known for performing on a slackline during Madonna’s halftime show at the 2012 Super Bowl, with an estimated audience of 114 million people.
At Mandalay Bay, Lewis was joined by three equally insane friends, Gabriel Amaral, Hayden Nickell and Mickey Wilson, each walking their own slackline.
Here’s video of the gathering of fools. Yes, the video is jittery. We were shaking more than the guys actually risking death.
As if walking a line that high up wasn’t freaky enough, the guys stopped frequently to show off and dangle precariously from their safety lines, 480 feet above the Las Vegas Strip.
Slacklines used for “urbanlining” are typically just two inches wide.
Andy Lewis is a superstar in the world of slacklining, or “tricklining,” and has been the overall world champion of competitive tricklining since 2008.
Slacklining is a relatively new sport, an offshoot of tightrope walking. As the name implies, slacklining differs from tightrope walking in that the line isn’t taut, allowing for more bouncing and other tricks this Las Vegas blog would not attempt even for upwards of a bajillion dollars.
Useless trivia: The highest slackline ever was 3,281 feet high, walked by Christian Schou in Norway in 2006.
The record-breaking stunt accompanied the 2013 World Slackline Federation World Cup Finals, also held at Mandalay Bay.
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