The "fearless" Viking who has broken the world record for death diving by jumping from a 40-meter cliff

There are nine worlds in Norse mythology and Ken Stornes (Harstad, Norway, 1988), like the rest of the humans, is in Midgard, although who would have thought?. Stornes is not a Viking, but he looks like one. Its appearance is fierce, imposing and its lifestyle is similar to that of the ancient civilization that terrified the world from Norway, totally nomadic and reckless.. “I like to be uncomfortable, if I'm comfortable for too long, I get depressed,” he said in a recent interview.

Martial arts and MMA fighter, one day a friend suggested that he join the Norwegian Army Special Forces after a year of military service.. Stornes, accustomed to hard training, managed to enter and his friend failed. He did it in January, in Norway, at -25 degrees Celsius, with all that that entails. “I fell in love with the cold,” he confessed.

He thereafter served five years in the military, including a 2011 tour of duty in Afghanistan, until a car accident broke his back and forced him to leave a profession he loved and, according to doctors, abandon a lifestyle based on fitness and gymnastics. But he had other plans. “The day I left the hospital I went to the gym to do weightless leg curls,” he revealed.

Stornes in an ice water bath. instagram

So, willing to find a new path that would fill “the void” that the army had left him, he dedicated himself to extreme sports.. Jiujitsu, gymnastics and tricking, a kind of parkour, are your usual and most normal dose of madness, Death Diving or Døds is what will take you to Valhalla (the Norse sky) without passing through the famous Bifrost protected by the god Heimdall.

Stornes has just broken, again, the record for Death Diving from a cliff in his native Norway. The 35-year-old former soldier jumped from a rock 40.5 meters high. To do so, he had to throw a stone first to break the surface of the water so that it would not have the consistency of a layer of cement when he crossed it at more than 100 kilometers per hour.

“Again, we bring the Death Dive record to Norway, where it belongs,” he wrote in his Instagram post in which you can see this superman's jump.. Stornes recovered the brand that had been taken from him by the Frenchman Côme Girardøt this summer. Girardøt launched from 34.25 meters when Stornes' previous height was 31.3.

Philosophy

“My goal is to be better every day. I didn't expect to have so much attention on this Death diving thing,” Stornes said in a previous interview.. But the attention he receives, more than 500 thousand followers on Instagram, is not only because of the sport he practices, but also because of the philosophy of life he preaches based on exercise.. “We can all do everything, we just have to move,” he says.. In his case, it is the soldier who continues to inhabit him that “pushes him to do things.”

It is curious that the sport he chose is a variation of a discipline that was born as something absolutely trivial.. The Døds appeared in the 70s Frognerbadet, a swimming pool complex, where different young people from Oslo gathered to do pirouettes from the 10-meter diving board to impress the girls present.. One of the pioneers was Erling Bruno Hovden, guitarist of the Raga Rockers.. Today there are national championships in Norway in which the Bruno Prize is awarded to the best jumpers.

The Norwegian in a natural waterfall. instagram

Jumps can contain pirouettes in the air or simply fall with arms and legs stretched, as if you were going down in free fall, only without a parachute.. Of course, they have a condition that is to put themselves in the fetal position just before entering the water, introducing their hands and feet first.. To understand each other, like when we are standing and we try to touch the tips of our feet.

Ken Stornes says that Death Diving has transformed his life. The Viking without vertigo and without fear makes pushing limits a way of life. It must be taken into account that their records are in Norwegian waters which, at this time of year, must be around five degrees Celsius. But, as Stornes himself writes on his Instagram: “Always do, what you are afraid to do.”

P.S.. Kids, don't do this at home.

The fearless Viking in a waterfall. instagram