Extreme stilts

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Spencer Gillen, right, and Chance Pearson, above, both of McCook, Nebraska, bound across Norris Avenue's bricks on "powerizer" extreme jumping stilts. An advertisement for the stilts -- popular in Japan, Chance said -- explains that the jumping stilts store energy wasted in a normal walking step, running stride or jump, and bounce the user's foot back up into the air on the next step, stride or jump, making the user feel as if he or she has "super-human" power to "run faster and jump higher." The stilts are also called ultra jumpers, fly jumpers, spring stilts, velocity stilts, power runners, powerBocks, power stilts and kangaroo boots. Jumping stilts were patented by Alexander Böck of Germany on July 2, 2003, and were used in the closing ceremony of the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, China.

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