A French man has set a new world record for the most bungee jumps in a 24-hour period.
Francois-Marie Dibon made 765 jumps in Pitlochry, Perthshire, easily beating the previous record set by New Zealander Mike Heard in 2017, who completed 430 jumps.
Beginning his feat on Tuesday morning, Dibon surpassed the previous world record after just 12 hours of jumping, and after a 50-minute rest he continued to jump throughout the night before concluding on Wednesday morning.
Dibon, who works as an actuary in Sweden, had previously spoken of how bungee jumping helped him to overcome his fear of heights, and said he chose Scotland as his location due to his love of the country and its people.
Each jump was from a 40-metre height, and was overseen by Highland Fling Bungee based in Killiecrankie, Pitlochry.
Joanne Brent, the Guinness World Records judge who verified the record, said Dibon’s effort was “inspiring”.
Speaking to the Guardian on his victory, Dibon said he felt “lucky and blessed”, and that he could not have made the achievement without the support of the Highland Fling Bungee team.
He said: “I feel great, I feel very happy. I feel grateful for the team who have been surrounding me for the past 24 hours, who have brought me their energy that’s kept me going until the end.”
Dibon said he had no doubt they would be able to break the record, but he was surprised at how quickly he surpassed the previous mark, and in the end by how much.
He said: “It was our objective to go high, but not that high. We knew what we could do, but we never trained that much or for that long … but we had the mindset. So when we started yesterday, we didn’t ask ourselves any questions, we were just in the moment.”
For Dibon, the hardest moment during the 24 hours was jumping throughout whatever the Scottish climate had to offer.
“I think it was the rain [that was the hardest part] – it was quite cold, but that was expected of course,” Dibon said. “But apart from that, nothing really was tough. Everything went well, we were really lucky.”
Apart from celebrating with his team, Dibon now plans to relax. “My body deserves a lot of rest, so I’m going to do that,” he said. “I’m going to celebrate with my team of course, because they’ve given so much and really deserve this record too, it’s a collective record.”
