Jan Roose is a proven balancing genius who has parlayed his talent into three world slacklining titles. Behind him is not only the conquest of the most difficult slacklining routes in the world, but also many courageous achievements that no one had dared to do before. For example, Ian was the first to walk along the “fangs” of Boszhira — unique rock formations of the Kazakh tract, which was once the bottom of the ancient ocean.
This year, the 31-year-old daredevil’s attention was drawn to Qatar, and specifically to one of the main attractions of Doha — the Katara Towers. The specificity of slacklining is that you need to walk on an elastic “live” tape that responds to the athlete’s every movement, but Roose further complicated his task by decorating the 2.5‑centimeter line with LED lighting, which made it even more unruly.
The problems did not end there: the desert climate of Qatar with its powerful gusts of wind, appearing literally out of nowhere, added to the extreme. “Every meter passed became the most difficult test of my life. But as an athlete, I am used to challenging the impossible and I am glad that everything worked out for me“Ian comments on his 150m walk, which was completed at an altitude more than twice the height of London’s Big Ben and became the city’s longest and highest walk.