i still had 40 meters to go at least 40.
i was way out of my comfort zone that
last 40 meters
i tried to set something that's out of
my comfort zone i tried to
find something that i have to push
myself to be able to achieve
so when thomas came to me and said he
wants to climb a vertical rope
as high and as fast as possible
the thought process goes you want okay
well that can't be that difficult today
is the first day
we get to set up this i'm thomas
fontonder
professional obstacle course racing
athlete ocr for short
[Music]
yes
i'm going to be climbing a 90 meter rope
suspended vertically between the two
sweater towers
straight up from the bottom continuous
vertical
rope climb for 94 meters this is
not only going to be the fastest 50
meter guinness world records attempt
but also unofficially the longest
continuous vertical
rope climb ever done
you know what we do we buy a rope we go
and set it up in the gym somewhere and
and we practice and see if it's possible
the question is is is how fast can you
climb a hundred meters
and and nobody knows it's not been done
before
this is a element of ocr like a road
climb we've done this before but
maybe four meters five meters taking
this element
and isolating it to this magnitude
it's something that i've personally
never attempted
i don't think as anyone else has
on the first attempt already we had
problems coming up with not only the
physical side but
how do you rig this up to be safe and
then to be doable and
where it's actually going to be possible
i know that climbing a rope is tough
he's basically doing a pistol squats on
his on one foot
over and over again it's going to be
hard work and i don't think it's going
to be something that anyone can do
and do
[Music]
after 50 meters of climbing i was
completely naked and broken and i'm
gonna have to do
double that to summit this
oh i know my feet's dying
managing the swing of the rope you know
once you're at 10 meters you've got this
rope beneath you that's moving but once
you're at 80 meters
that rope is turning yeah see how this
rope's hard
like physically just hard
oh it burns finding a hundred meter rope
to to climb um just that has been a
challenge in itself but finding the
correct one
56 millimeter finding a rope that sits
nicely in your hand
this is called a texturized
polypropylene
rope let's just call it rope
this vertical is gonna be crazy
shut
driving into that that road looking at
the towers the first day i was like
geez it's huge it's 100 meters
no way this is 100 meters like 400
meters
yes
is that the kink you want me about
okay people usually jump down and
they'll have a hard time
coming down you know and we have to
convince them no that's it
you can do it and now i have to convince
someone no you can go up
solid keep me solid solid
this guy who's about to do this uh
world record breaking you know it's
insane i can't
who does that do you
it's been hard to find ways and places
to train for this and to rig for this
stuff i've gathered
the whole rigging team and everyone's
kind of excited for just a crazy mission
out to the mountains
the mchalleysburg is actually the oldest
mountain range in the world
um it's this quartzite
mega vast expansive range of just
of just beauty and and harsh beauty
the idea was to put him in big wide open
space
and see how he copes in an environment
that's unfamiliar to him
in comparison to the actual project at
soweto towers where you'll be 100 meters
off the ground this is just that step
up yes dudes this
is insanity
are you getting used to it looking good
you
it's actually here it's so weird like
the build-up to this has been so long
that i never really like almost
almost like real last game they would
actually
would actually come it's weird it's the
pinnacle day of this
extremely long buildup for this this
rising with the sun this
project this thing that i've set out to
do and
i'm always feeling grateful just just
for reaching this point
[Music]
no no
reset reset
down this is
this is an enormous challenge for for
anyone all right
it was just obviously the trailing rope
too close so i will call
when you need to start lifting that
trailing ripper right i had to break the
five minute mark to claim the
the fastest 50 meter rope climb and from
the training setups we saw that
it's not going to be easy months ago my
fastest time was 5 15.
[Music]
we've traveled a long journey and
initially with the attempt
getting up not having a clean first 10
meters dropping down just the immense
technical detail that we had to process
over the past four months to get it to
the stage where we could
make it happen and make it happen right
and then we started going up the rope we
just knew it was going to be crazy
yo
[Applause]
hey meters
the first 50 was fire like i was i could
feel
everything burning my lung was burning i
literally put every ounce of energy i
have
into that first 50. come on
bottom half that's the goal get to that
timing box
try to like watch the markers 10 meters
at a time
and stick to what we simulated
moving i saw that time box coming ten
meters to go
i had this huge pinnacle moment but in
the same breath
i realized like i'm literally just over
halfway
i still had 40 meters to go at least 40.
i was way out of my comfort zone that
lost 40 meters
up to about 60 70 went well but from
there
i really had to truly dig deep to to
complete that last
10 20 meter segment
[Music]
i don't know where it came from the last
bit of energy just trying to push push
through push through the burn in your
feet
[Music]
three meters and getting to the top
i feel that you've got the guinness
world record in the bag
for the 50 meter the foster fifty year
old time
but
we'll see you on the ground all the hard
work i think we put in
time the german the time getting prepped
the time we had
in the mountains i think all of that
just paid off
you