It is not known for certain what his inner voice told Jan Ruz while he was walking along a rope stretched at a height of 200 meters between the Katara Towers. Still, one look at this photo gives rise to not only thoughts about the strong nerves of the Estonian extreme sportsman but also a whole series of less strong expressions.
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 attempt 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 an 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. Still, 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 in my life. But as an athlete, I’m used to challenging the impossible and I’m glad I succeeded,” Ian comments on his 150-meter walk, which was completed at an altitude more than twice the height of London’s Big Ben and was the longest and most high city route.