Jeremy Smith
Rio de Janeiro - A thrill-seeking Austrian parachutist leaped from the outstretched hand of Rio's famed Christ statue this week in a dawn jump that he described as "spiritual," organisers of the daredevil stunt said on Friday.
"As I was standing on the hand, no more than 20 centimetres wide, looking into the rising sun I realised that I would never feel anything like this in my life again," Felix Baumgartner, 30, said in a statement.
"This was real hard-core and now I know why none of my colleagues has tried this before.... Apart from the extreme experience for the body balancing between life and death like that, this time the aura of the statue added a exceptional spiritual dimension," he said.
Baumgartner, who has performed similar jumps from high buildings around the world, managed to hide overnight in the security area at the base of the statue that is visited by hundreds of tourists every day.
Just before dawn on Wednesday, Baumgartner fired a cable from a crossbow over the right arm of the 30-metre statue and climbed up to the outstretched hand. Before jumping, he left flowers on the giant's shoulder as a mark of respect.
Baumgartner, who trained on a crane for weeks at his Salzburg home before travelling to Brazil to make the James Bond-style jump, then opened his parachute and steered over shantytowns to a parking lot where a getaway car was waiting.
Police and administrators of the national park where the Christ statue is located were not immediately able to confirm the report.
"It was really early in the morning ... and we got out of the country the day after," said Stefan Aufschnaiter, organiser of Baumgartner's jump, speaking by telephone from Austria.
The fledgling sport, known as "base" jumping - an acronym for "Building, Antenna, Span, Earth" - involves parachuting off fixed structures or landmarks and has a reputation as a particularly thrilling, if risky, activity.
The parachute is only pulled open at the very last moment. Base jumping is illegal in most countries.
"It was the first time (for the Christ statue) and I think it's the last time. It's the lowest base jump in the world. Normally you need 50 or 60 metres. It's extremely dangerous," Aufschnaiter said.
"(Baumgartner) is world champion, the craziest in the world and only had two and a half seconds from top to bottom. The parachute opened in the last possible second," he added.
A former mechanic and motocross driver, Baumgartner managed to sneak his base-jumping equipment through Brazilian customs by saying he was an archer travelling to a sports tournament.
He even carried a plastic bottle "in case of urgent needs" during his brief stay on the statue, the statement said.
In April Baumgartner jumped from the 452-metre Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the highest man-made structure in the world.
In July he was sponsored to leap from the 137-metre Pirelli skyscraper in the centre of Milan. - Reuters