Barefoot walker breaks world record in 246m-high slackline stroll

A tightrope walker in Mexico City has broken a dizzying world record after walking barefoot between two high-rise buildings.

Alexander Schulz, 25, from Germany, walked 217 metres (712 feet) along a wire between the Bancomer Tower and the Reformer Tower, 246 metres (807 feet) above the city, making it the the longest urban highline walk.

He filmed the treacherous tightrope walk using a head-mounted camera, leaving us with a vertigo-inducing first person view of his achievement.

In a nail-biting moment, Mr Schulz fell at one point – luckily, he was wearing a safety harness – but wasn’t deterred and got back onto the tightrope to retrace his steps and complete the challenge.

Clemens Agustin, the climber’s manager and the director of the One Inch Dreams of which he is a member, said it was the longest urban highline walk ever completed.

He told a press conference that Schulz had smashed the previous record, of 170 metres (558 feet), which had been set by a friend of his.

The jet-lagged German had only been in Mexico City for two days when he completed the walk.

That didn’t give him much time to prepare, but Agustin said that Schulz was up against a deadline so he just cracked on.

Mr Shulz also holds the world longline record for a 610-metre (2,000-foot) walk he completed in China and the world highline record with a 375 metre walk, also in China.