Nik Wallenda completes tightrope walk across Niagara Falls

(Video)

Mark Blinch / Reuters

Tightrope walker Nik Wallenda walks the high wire from the U.S. side to the Canadian side over the Horseshoe Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario, June 15, 2012. 

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Daniel S Levine
 

6/16/2012

Daredevil Nik Wallenda tightrope-walked his way into the history books Friday night. He became the first person in history to cross Niagara Falls on a wire.
ABC News, which broadcast the event during a special Friday, reports that tens of thousands of people were on the Canadian side of the falls to greet him when he arrived 25 minutes after he started. The two-inch wide wire allowed him to walk 200 feet in the air over Horseshoe Falls, the largest of the three falls. His feat fulfilled a lifelong dream of his and honored his great-grandfather, Karl Walleda, who fell during a tightrope-walking stunt in Puerto Rico in 1978.

“This has been everything that I’ve worked for, for a long time,” Wallenda, 33, told the media at a press conference after the feat, reports The New York Times .“And you know what? It’s as real as it gets now, isn’t it? There’s no turning back. It’s done, it’s official, it’s in the history books.”

The Times notes that Wallenda comes from a family of daredevils and first walked across a tightrope at age 2. Five of his ancestors have died trying to finish a tightrope stunt. In Friday’s stunt, he crossed 1,800 feet.

The Associated Press reports that the Sarasota, Fla. native and father of three has his own tactics to stay calm during his tightrope-walking feats. As a Born-Again Christian, he prayed, talked to God and quoted scripture as he walks across the tightrope.

People have walked across the Niagara Gorge in the past, but none since 1896 as all tightrope acts have been turned away. Wallenda, who spent two years convincing U.S. and Canada officials to let him do it, was the first to walk directly over the falls.

The event was sponsored by ABC, which invested $1.3 million in the spectacle, notes the AP. The network insisted that he have a tether that will keep him from falling into the water if he falls off the wire.

He did tell the media after it was over that it was hard to focus on the wire, but he still felt peace. “It’s breathtaking...It was absolutely amazing to have that view,” he said, reports the NY Times.

Geoff Robins / AFP - Getty Images

Tightrope walker, Nik Wallenda the first walk across Niagara Falls in over a century, braving winds and heavy spray in his historic feat.