The Hispano-Venezuelan Ernesto Gainza acknowledges that he still has not overcome the fear that happened when he achieved in Dubai last spring a daring world record: jumping from a plane with the smallest parachute ever made.
"I was wearing a black visor because I did not want people to see my face ..." admits this expert parachutist of 35 years in an interview with Efe.
On April 5, it dropped from 4,500 meters to 140 kilometers per hour with a parachute of 3.1 square meters and came to withstand a force of gravity of 6.5 G, similar to that faced by aircraft pilots in acrobatic flights .
"There are many things that really could have gone wrong despite being equipped with the best of the best, even with a computer that opened the reserve parachute in case I fainted in the air," says Gainza.
However, everything went well. As soon as a representative of the Guinness Book of Records gave the parachutist the corresponding certificate with his mark, which was previously in the hands of Brazilian Luigi Cani, who helped him to pass the test.
Gainza, deputy manager of the Skydive Dubai center, which allows jumping on the impressive artificial island of La Palmera, has practiced skydiving since 2003, when, after launching into the void and verifying that "there was nothing superior in the world", he left the table Of surfing.
"I always liked the speed and I dreamed that I was falling very fast, I was surfing in Venezuela and a friend recommended skydiving, so I lived in England, and one of the times I was good I tried it and I really liked it. Immediately falling in love, "he says.
Just as he thinks many of the fans (there are about 100,000 in all the planet) with which he jumps as an instructor, especially the women, who - he says - touching the ground the first thing they say is that the experience is "a lot Better than sex. "
Gainza is a friend of Crown Prince Sheikh Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohamed bin Rashid Al Maktum, owner of Skydive Dubai, who could not help throwing him an "Ernesto, you're crazy" when he opened the parachute he broke the record, built professionally By a specialized factory in New Zealand.
The parachutist was born in the Venezuelan city of Valencia of Basque father and resided during six years of its life between Madrid and Barcelona.
Despite studying Law in Maracay (Venezuela), he chose to dedicate himself to what he truly loves: to confront the space between an airplane and the earth with a small piece of cloth.
Today he maintains that he can enter what is necessary to live well thanks to the high professional level he has achieved, which has even allowed him to be a military instructor in Venezuela, Spain and the Czech Republic.
For three years he has been living in Dubai, a city he considers "the most suitable for people who are looking for opportunities and want to invest" in the medium or long term, and although he does not forget Venezuela, he would like to return to Spain or to Slovenia, the land of his woman.
"Venezuela is my country, I love it and it hurts me.My mother was two days ago four hours in a queue to get toilet paper and when it came to the counter it was over.This situation is truly regrettable," he confesses.
Now Gainza, who has come to land on a hot air balloon and to star in other feats he can not count "because they are illegal," already has its sights set on a new record.
"It is possible to lower the mark by training, with great effort and being aware of the danger that is assumed." For every 2 square feet (0.18 square meters) the surface is reduced, the risk increases by 15 percent. Is possible, but before I try I will have to ask my wife for permission ... ", he concludes. Marta Pérez Cruzado