There is a discipline that is as spectacular as it is not very widespread, which has less than a hundred practitioners in Italy and which is struggling to reach three thousand worldwide. And the basic jump, the extreme sport of jumping with a wingsuit and sliding for several kilometers. “The feeling the Wingsuit gives is hard to describe. This means flying without pressing buttons or pulling levers, using only your body. It’s the purest feeling of flight,” he explains. Corriere della Sera Marco Milanese, 36 years old and author of the book Steal the mountains. In Italy, the basic jump – which consists of jumping from buildings, towers, bridges or mountains – is mainly practiced on Mount Brento, in the province of Trento, or in Forcellino, near Lecco.
Costs and accidents
If in Italy there are less than 100 practitioners of this extreme sport, there are essentially two reasons: cost and the risk of accidents. Regarding the economic question, we must take into account that a Wingsuit costs between 1,500 and 2,000 euros, to which we must add around 3,500 euros for the parachute. But the characteristic that makes this extreme sport less attractive is undoubtedly the risk incurred by those who practice it. “In other disciplines, if you make a mistake, you have time to stop and fix it. Not in this one,” Milanese tells Mail. And in fact, from 1981 to today, there have been 473 basic jumpers who lost their lives practicing this sport. The latest in Italy is Alessandro Fiorito, 62, who died jumping from the Forcellino wall. Before you can practice basic jump, you must have at least 200 parachute jumps under your belt, but even among the most experienced, fatal accidents are not that rare. “Skydiving has a whole regulatory and bureaucratic chain. THE basic jump It’s more like Russian roulette,” says Milanese.
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