Acrobat Nik Wallenda completed his longest high-wire walk on 11 August, above the Milwaukee Mile racetrack during the Wisconsin State Fair. He finished the walk by giving a 'thumbs up' to the crowd below, who responded with a wild ovation, a fair official said. Wallenda took 33 minutes to walk 1,560ft across a wire just a little wider than a one pence piece, 10 stories above the racetrack, near the state fair grounds.

Wallenda, the self-proclaimed King of the High Wire, has several records listed with the Guinness World Records organisation. His feats have included high-wire walks above the brink of Niagara Falls, between two Chicago skyscrapers while blindfolded, and across the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Wallenda is part of the seventh generation of the famed Flying Wallenda family of acrobats. His great-grandfather, Karl Wallenda, slipped and fell to his death from a high wire in Puerto Rico in 1978.

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