Bird’s Nest tightrope walker sets record

A Chinese tightrope walker Adili Wuxor secures a place in the record books for longest time walking on a wire, suspended high in the National Stadium in Beijing (aka Bird’s Nest stadium). In order to break the record, Adili had lived in a 9-square-meter cabin on the roof of the Bird’s Nest stadium during the past 60 days, walking five hours per day on the 3cm thick steel cables, which were hanging a perilous 60m in the air.

But his Guinness world record claimed last week was not actually recognized by the London-based Guinness World Records. Instead, the certificate he so proudly received came from Shanghai Great World, which is not part of Guinness World Records.

Guinness said the record was held by Jorge Ojeda-Guzman of the U.S. state of Florida, who spent 205 days on a wire 11 meters (36 ft) long and 10.7 meters (35 ft) above ground between January 1 and July 25, 1993.

The Bird’s Nest was the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies and the track and field events for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Wuxor, an ethnic Uighur from the far western region of Xinjiang, says he’s ready to take on a new challenge in October: to walk on a tightrope from an island off the southern city of Xiamen to the shore.