Canadian wire-walking genius Jay Cochrane has expressed his strong willingness to do skywalk over China's Great Wall for a children's hospital charity of Beijing and the protection of the world cultural heritage.
The organizers of "Mid Autumn Festival 2008 Walk Across the Great Wall" event told Xinhua on Friday that Cochrane had sent them a letter in which he said, "I am glad to present a skywalk for the Chinese people again."
Cochrane spent 55 minutes performing a 640.75 meters skywalk over the Three Gorges of China's Yangtze River on October 28, 1995, which was the Guinness world record at that year. He also did a skywalk over China's Shanghai Pudong New Area later.
In his letter, Cochrane thanked the organizers of the festival for inviting him to give a performance and backed the idea of getting more world attention and awareness of 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
"While doing the performance, I also want to do this for a children's hospital charity of Beijing. I always do that wherever I perform around the world." he said.
"I also want to start a 'Protection of the Great Wall by Children' fund. All the money will be raised by children to protect and maintain the world cultural heritage -- the Great Wall." he added.
However, Cochrane wished to be the only person to do the walk for the assurance of safety.
Illustrating his point, the Canadian said, "If there are any other wire-walkers participating in the event, it will definitely bring the sense of competition among the performers as well as the media. Thus, it will push the performers to 'out do' their walk and eventually cause an accident."
"I do not want to see that happen," he noted.
(Xinhua News Agency August 10, 2002)