A Chinese tight-rope walker is bidding to become the first person to cross the Messina Straits on foot.
If it comes off, the feat would be the longest tight-rope walk in history.
Ahdili Wuxieur, 37, famed for daring crossings of Niagara Falls and mountain passes, aims to cross the Straits between Sicily and mainland Italy in about a year's time.
A tight-rope will be stretched across the 3.65km strait from electricity pylons in Calabria and Sicily.
It will be Ahdili's first stunt since a high wire broke in Shanghai last year, plunging him 100m and causing multiple fractures.
Ahdili, whose family has handed down its acrobatic skills for 400 years, is confident despite the swirling winds that often sweep across the channel.
"As long as the wire doesn't give way, I'll do it," said the family man from China's eastern Yengisar province, who has been dubbed 'The Prince of the Air'.
Crossing the Messina Strait in novel ways has become something of a vogue since Italy's new government shelved plans to build the world's longest suspension bridge across it.
Two weeks ago a ten-year-old Sicilian boy became the youngest person to swim across it.
