World Record - fastest 1 km crossing in slackline history

In 2025, the first long distance (1 km) highline race has been organized in Zhangjiajie, China. Athletes from 10 different countries raced against the clock to prove their mastery of balance, endurance and speed. Although I didn't win the entire competition, failing to keep my usual pace in strong winds of the final day, during the precedent phases of the competition I set a world record for the fastest 1 km crossing in two categories: Clean (no falls): 14 mins 48 sec Dirty (with falls, in this case one catch and one leashfall): 14 mins 29 sec The event inspired people from other countries to organize similar long distance races. Year 2026 may well see multiple 1 km competitions, with a plausible repeat of the Zhangjiajie event and a 1 km race in Colombia planned for mid-December. The first one of the year already happened though, and I am proud of the community in my home country for pulling off the organization of the second competition at such a scale in highline history, coupled with a freestyle highline world cup taking place at the same venue. Due to a bad turn in the weather the 1 km Speedline Masters in Poland had only one phase, coming back to the original concept of whoever is fastest wins and that's it. In the evening on the 3rd of September Benoît Brume from France broke my record from China, performing a clean crossing of 1 km in 14 minutes and 13 seconds. Four athletes - Stijn, Vidal, Archie and me - remained for the next day to do their crossing, but the wind forecast was daunting. In order to avoid the heaviest gusts, we chose to start the competition at 6 in the morning. Still, the wind was already very intense, resembling the conditions during last year's final in Zhangjiajie. I started my session with little hopes of reclaiming my record, and although Witek initially planned to record my entire crossing with the drone with hopes of capturing this exact feat, he almost abandoned the idea as it seemed equally unlikely to him. Well, good thing he did not, because despite the fact that the wind picked up a notch just as I was starting the timed run, my leash getting stuck on the backup twice, in one case causing me to fall, and several occasions where I had to stop and fight against the wind to keep the balance, I still managed to snatch almost two minutes off of Benoît's time! The new record stands at 12 minutes and 18 seconds, once again with one leashfall and one catch. Although the time is crucial in speed highline and in this regard I clearly dominated the field of the 1 km category, I would still advocate for discerning between the clean and dirty record, acknowledging Benoît as the fastest human so far to cross 1 km without falls. It shows another level of control and it seems likely that the two subcategories will continue to diverge until a truly cutting-edge level will be reached. Once we go below 10 minutes for 1 km beating the world record will likely require absolute perfection and optimal conditions, and a leashfall or even catch will imply too much of a time loss to make up for by intensifying the speed. This would be the right point to discontinue the "clean vs dirty" distinction in 1 km world records. Anyways, this is just my personal opinion, it is up to the ISA to decide how these records should be treated. In any case, I hope that my record, which is not only set in an official event but also fully recorded and published here, will receive official recognition. #higline #speedhighline