SPORTS
Daredevil pensioner Peggy McAlpine leaps into the sky aged 104 to become world`s oldest paraglider
Baku, April 30 (AZERTAC). A daredevil centenarian has become the oldest person to take part in paragliding after taking to the sky aged 104. Peggy McAlpine, who has two children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, leapt from a 2,400ft peak in northern Cyprus. She is now about to enter the Guinness Book of Records for the second time in five years as the oldest person to take part in the sport. Mrs McAlpine only took to the skies because the same record she set five years ago was broken by a 101-year-old American.
Mrs McAlpine, who uses wheelchair, is now awaiting for the record to be confirmed by Guinness Book officials.
The latest record attempt - to reclaim the title taken by 101-year-old Mary Allen Hardison, from Utah, back in September - took place on April 14 on the Kyrenia mountain range next to St Hilarion castle. Peggy said she `loved heights` from a young age and recalled her first time on an aeroplane was as the passenger of aviation pioneer Sir Alan Cobham in the late 1920s. The pensioner, whose husband Thomas died of cancer in 1980, said she first got a taste for extreme sports at the age of 80 when her grandchildren talked her into trying bungee jumping at the Essex Show. Angela Gokasan, of paragliding company Highline Air Tours, told the Sunday Express: `Peggy completed her second flight with pilot Ozgur Gokasan, who was also her pilot the last time. `They were gliding above the clouds and landed to a crowd of family, friends, and the three witnesses required by the Guinness World Records. `We are over the moon to have flown her again. The stress was all worth it having seen her and Ozgur`s faces after landing. She is such an amazing woman.`