Basejumper.com - archive

...BD Video footage of you and Russ and Tom is awesome...

Thanks for the clarification Tom. BTW was that a "catch and release"?

More or less, yes.

I don't think this could be a Gary Vs Miles thing. Gary mentioned doing this a few months earlier...

Miles' hiking out

Let's not let this turn into a flame fest over Miles' hiking out vs. Gary taking the elevator.

One is simply for the numbers and the other is an attempt to keep it somewhat related to real base jumping...

Any word on how this is going? I believe it's been going on for 11 hours and 29 minutes so far.

I hammered out 60 jumps from midnight to 6am. Then we just took it easy relaxed for the rest of the day. I completed 120 jumps by 5:30pm. It is raining now but when it stops my packers and I will do a few more jumps tonight finishing with a nice NYE jump at the stroke of midnight as the clock ticks over to 2006. It has been a nice way to spend the last day of the year but it has also been hard work.

After the rain finally stopped I did another 13 jumps for a total of 133 base jumps in 24 hours.

Monday, January 02, 2006
Australian marks New Year with ups

Australian Gary Cunningham rang in the New Year by jumping off a Malaysian telecoms tower — 133 times. Out to set a record for the most BASE jumps performed in 24 hours, the-34-year-old engineer started at midnight as December 31 began and finished up as fireworks exploded in the sky to mark the new year.

“We were in freefall as it ticked over to 2006. You could see the fireworks all over the city. It was amazing - a great way to end a long, hard day,” he said. Cunningham had a team of 12 people packing parachutes for his leaps off the 421-metre Menara Kuala Lumpur tower in the Malaysian capital. The jumps, which included aerial backflips that delighted the crowds below, came at regular 10-minute intervals with only stops for short breaks and intermittent rain. The previous high number of so-called BASE jumps - named for Building, Antenna, Span, Earth - was believed to be 57 in a 24-hour period.

“I woke up this morning and I was pretty stiff and sore,” Cunningham said on Sunday. “But I feel surprisingly good.”

Towering jump into record book
By a Correspondent

Gary Cunningham, an Australian engineer, left, rang in the new year by jumping off the 421-metre (1,381ft) Menara Kuala Lumpur tower 133 times.
Cunningham, 34, who set out to break the record for the most BASE jumps performed in 24 hours, started at midnight as New Year’s Eve began and finished as fireworks exploded in the sky above the Malaysian capital to mark the new year. The previous BASE jump record is believed to be 57.

Gary's record was shown for about 3 minutes on Dutch TV, youth news. Very nice indeed.

Maybe make it a 'BASE Recored'. Most BASE jumps in a day off a 'B', 'A', 'S', 'E'?

Go, Gary Go

Australian Man BASE Jumps 133 Times in 24 Hours

By Devon Pendleton

January 5, 2006 Perhaps no one can boast of celebrating the New Year in high style as truthfully as Australian Gary Cunningham. Cunningham, 34, rang in New Year's 2006 by throwing himself off Malaysia's 1,403-foot Menara Kuala Lampur tower 133 times in 24 hours, a first for BASE jumping. Cunningham and his nine-person team began the endeavor at midnight December 31st and finished up exactly 24 hours later as fireworks lit up the night sky. "For the final jump there was a huge crowd at the exit point giving us the countdown to 2006," Cunningham told Outside Online via email. "Visuals in freefall were excellent with all the fireworks going off all around the city."

For BASE jumping, a fringe extreme sport that involves using a parachute to jump from fixed objects, (the acronym BASE—buildings, antennae, spans, and earth—stands for the four types of objects a jumper can use as a launch pad) the concept of formal records is quite new and even scorned by some members of the growing BASE-jumping community.

Cunningham's new record supposedly supplants a record set by American Miles Daisher who made a total of 57 jumps in just under 24 hours from the Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls, Idaho, on September 16, 2005. Technical differences between the two feats abound however, and with no formal governing body or fixed BASE jumping regulations, what constitutes a "record" is debatable. Some jumpers are quick to point out that while Daisher hiked back up to the bridge after every jump, Cunningham took the elevator, thereby allowing him a short breather and the ability to jump in consistent ten-minute intervals. Public discussions on BASE jumping Web forums center around whether these two records deserve separate categories and the merits of the "Jumped vs. Climbed" ratio.

Tom Aiello, head of the Snake River BASE Academy in Twin Falls, Idaho, stresses that the important accomplishment doesn't have anything to do with numbers, but rather the contributions Cunningham makes to the sport. "Gary is truly a role model, not because he is on television or on magazines, but because he genuinely cares about the sport and other jumpers," Aiello told Outside Online.

Either way, personal style and individual artistic flair is considered equally important as sheer jump volume to diehard BASE fans. Daisher, a former child gymnast, is known for his athletic prowess in the form of double and triple flips, while Cunningham is similarly respected for the mental discipline demanded by so many consecutive jumps.

According to Aiello, "Staying focused to make so many injury-free jumps in one day is a staggering feat of mental endurance." Real or imagined, one thing is for certain: this controversy-cum-rivalry is bringing the eccentric sport a lot closer into the public eye.