Rudy Omankowski Jr. is a

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

-based highwire walker born in 1937 in

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

into a long line of circus and highwire performers.

Biography

Among his most notable performances is his 1.25 km

skywalk A skyway, skybridge, skywalk, or sky walkway is an elevated type of pedway connecting two or more buildings in an urban area, or connecting elevated points within mountainous recreational zones. Urban skyways very often take the form of encl ...

between two mountain tops in

Gérardmer Gérardmer (; or archaic ''Geroldsee'', and ''Giraumoué'' in local Vosgian) is a commune in the Vosges department in Grand Est in northeastern France. Population Culture The Festival international du film fantastique de Gérardmer (literal ...

, les

Vosges The Vosges ( , ; german: Vogesen ; Franconian and gsw, Vogese) are a range of low mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single ...

. It is the longest skywalk known to have been achieved. Omankowski also traversed the Cheddar Gorge, Cheddar in Somerset England in 1959 and again in 1961. He did not use a net. Omankowski is now a highwire teacher at the Centre Nationale des Arts du Cirque in

Châlons-en-Champagne Châlons-en-Champagne () is a city in the Grand Est region of France. It is the capital of the department of Marne, despite being only a quarter the size of the city of Reims. Formerly called Châlons-sur-Marne, the city was officially renam ...

, France, and has mentored many prominent highwire and

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and uni ...

artists, including

Didier Pasquette Didier Pasquette is a noted French tightrope walker. Pasquette studied with Philippe Petit (famous for his high wire walk between the former Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York in 1974) and in 1989 received his diploma from the Ce ...

Jade Kindar-Martin Jade Kindar-Martin (born February 16, 1974) is a highwire walker and circus performer. Kindar-Martin started performing on the wire at the age of 14 with Circus Smirkus, a youth circus based in Vermont, USA. Following his graduation from Champla ...

and Molly Saudek.

References

Tightrope walkers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{France-bio-stub