A bird? A plane? No, a Wingsuit champion

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A wingsuit flier from South Africa won the first World Wingsuit Championship in Hunan province on Thursday.

South African Julian Boulle, won the championship with a result of 23.49 seconds after completing an obstacle course on Tianmen Mountain, a tourist attraction in Zhangjiajie city.

Wingsuit flying is the sport of flying through the air using a special jumpsuit, called a wingsuit, which adds surface area to the human body to enable the wearer to "fly".

The contest on Tianmen Mountain was the first of its kind and featured 15 athletes wearing wingsuits jumping off a cliff and then completing a 1.2-km-long obstacle course while flying, according to the World Wingsuit League, one of the organizers of the contest.

Boulle said he greatly enjoyed the contest and the chance to compete with top wingsuit fliers in the world.

He also set a world record with 23.01 seconds in the preliminary contest on Wednesday. Eight people took part in the final contest on Thursday.

Norwegian Espen Fadnes took second place with 23.55 seconds and Briton James Boole won the third place with 23.84 seconds.

After the contest, all the contestants performed a demonstration of their flying skills to visitors on Tianmen Mountain.

The original schedule for the competition was Oct 12 to 14 but it was postponed to Oct 17 and 18 because of cloud and rain in the region, which made flying dangerous.

In order to ensure the safety of the wingsuit fliers, the Zhangjiajie city government assembled a team to overlook safety, logistics and emergency plans.

Questions:

1. Which province held the wingsuit event?

2. What was the name of the mountain?

3. What was the world record set?

Answers:

1. Hunan.

2. Tianmen.

3. 23:01.

About the broadcaster:

Lee Hannon is Chief Editor at China Daily with 15-years experience in print and broadcast journalism. Born in England, Lee has traveled extensively around the world as a journalist including four years as a senior editor in Los Angeles. He now lives in Beijing and is happy to move to China and join the China Daily team.