Two of the jumpers who took part in the trial jump.
SIBU: Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah expressed the hope that Sarawakians will take up extreme sports like BASE jumping considering that the ongoing International BASE Jump has managed to place Sibu town on the global map.
Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah
“We hope to see a successful show again this year from the BASE jumpers. Come to Sibu on Sept 20 to 23 and see a thrilling show by these participants,” he said yesterday when asked to comment on the Sibu International BASE Jump, which enters its 10th year.
Meanwhile, jumpers from 14 countries conducted trial jumps from Wisma Sanyan, Sarawak’s tallest building, at 8am yesterday watched by spectators who took advantage of the fine weather to watch them in action.
Out of the 34 jumpers featured in this year’s event, seven are women.
The BASE jumpers are from the US, UK, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Ireland, New Zealand, Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Australia and Malaysia.
According to Sibu Resident Charles Siaw, all safety measures have been put in place to ensure jumpers’ safety during the event.
“The most important criteria to ensure safety is that for those who are jumping, they must have between 100 and 150 hours of skydiving before they can jump from buildings.
A jumper nears the landing point.
“They are all very experienced because we don’t allow any novice to jump from the building,” Siaw said of the participants.
A safety briefing was held for all BASE jumpers on Wednesday.
Night jumps are scheduled for today (Sept 21) and tomorrow (Sept 22), subject to weather condition.
BASE is an acronym for four categories of fixed objects from which a person can jump, namely building, antennae, span (bridge) and earth (cliff).