Tightrope walker Nathan Paulin broke his world distance record at Mont Saint-Michel on Tuesday on a 2,200-meter-long slackline connecting a crane to the abbey, claimed his team.
Nathan Paulin, 28-year-old “highliner”, fell on the strap a few meters from the finish “for safety reasons”, said those around him.
“He couldn’t walk to the end,” Alexandre Gomez de Miranda, the event’s security manager, told AFP.
“He hit the stop mark and therefore the record was broken,” said Laura Zhang, press relations officer for the tightrope walker.
Nathan Paulin set off at 5:30 p.m. from the top of a crane located 114 meters above the ground, near the Couesnon dam, according to AFP journalists.
Attached by a harness and secured by a lifeline, he advanced step by step, barefoot, on the two centimeter wide strap, before reaching the abbey shortly before 7:30 p.m.
In 2017, he had set the previous length record by crossing 1662 meters at 300 meters high in the circus of Navacelles (Gard and Hérault).
The weather finally turned out to be rather mild: despite a few gusts at the start of the afternoon, neither the rain nor the wind disturbed the crossing, which took place under a bright sun.
The choice of Mont Saint-Michel imposed itself, “simply because it is a magnificent place which attracted me”, but also because “it is important to show this heritage in a different way”, had explained Nathan Paulin to AFP before his feat.
He was to give a press conference in the early evening.
Mont Saint-Michel and its bay have been classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site since 1979.
Nathan Paulin is used to spectacular crossings. He set his first length record in 2014, covering 601 meters in the Lyon region. His second record was set in 2015 when he cleared 403 meters in Reunion: a feat increased to 1020 meters in length in 2016 in the Alpes-Maritimes.
On two occasions, Nathan Paulin had also linked the Eiffel Tower to the Trocadéro in 2017 and in 2021.
