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Thomas Van Tonder, a Red Bull athlete and world champion in obstacle course racing (OCR), a sport in which competitors race through courses of physical obstacles, has finished the world’s longest monkey bar course at 280 meters.
Van Tonder reached the finish in 47 minutes and 37 seconds, moving along a 600-bar monkey bar course set up beneath the arch of the Bloukrans Bridge in South Africa, 216 meters above the Bloukrans River.
The South African athlete reached the highest point of the bridge after a 45-degree climb and completed the course with a controlled descent.
Saying he started the challenge with confidence, Van Tonder said, “The first climb showed me what a tough course I was facing. That was the hardest part for me mentally. I really struggled to find a rhythm. My hands were not moving the way I imagined them in my mind. Even keeping them closed was very difficult. I finished what I started. I set myself a big and crazy goal, and we really achieved it.”
The bridge, which spans 451 meters in the Eastern Cape, is recognized as Africa’s highest. Van Tonder chose to follow the bridge’s full arch rather than attempt a straight crossing along its upper section, a route that required him to adapt his technique to changing gradients.
The attempt was scheduled for Oct. 26, with Oct. 27 set aside as a weather backup date.
The course used two independent safety measures: a rail system secured to the bridge truss and a separate safety line attached directly to Van Tonder. The structure was built by the Cape Town-based company Vertical Safety Systems, and it did not involve drilling or bolting anything to the bridge.
Van Tonder spent six months preparing on a purpose-built rig at his home, where he installed almost 50 meters of monkey bars to simulate the challenge. The attempt was streamed live on Red Bull TV and YouTube.
Van Tonder previously set a Guinness World Record with a rope climb between Soweto Towers in Johannesburg in 2020.
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