Red Bull Bridge Bars: the South African OCR world champion crossed the longest monkey bars ever built, beneath Africa’s highest bridge, in 47 minutes and 37 seconds
Bloukrans Bridge, Garden Route, SOUTH AFRICA, Monday 26 October 2026
Key Facts
- Event: Red Bull Bridge Bars
- Date: Monday 26 October 2026
- Location: Bloukrans Bridge, Garden Route, South Africa. The bridge carries the N2 and links the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape
- Athlete: Thomas van Tonder (South Africa), Red Bull athlete, obstacle course racing (OCR) world champion and Guinness World Record holder
- The feat: World’s first crossing of the Bloukrans arch on monkey bars, by hand, in one continuous attempt
- Course: 600 monkey bars, over 280 metres, suspended beneath the arch. The longest monkey bars ever built
- Course profile: A 45-degree climb, a short flat stretch near the top and a controlled descent
- Height: 216 metres above the river. The Bloukrans Bridge is Africa’s highest bridge and home to Africa’s highest bridge bungee jump
- Start time: 10:21, under a light breeze
- Completion time: 47 minutes and 37 seconds
- Rigging and safety: Richard Lievaart, Head of Rigging and Safety Director, Vertical Safety Systems (VSS), and his team. Two independent points of safety, no permanent fixings, nothing bolted or drilled
- Also on site: Stefan Glowacz, Red Bull athlete, German climber and extreme alpinist, who taped Thomas’s hands before the start
- Broadcast: Livestreamed, with Thomas mic’d up throughout. Replay on YouTube and Red Bull TV
- Assets: High resolution imagery and video free of charge for editorial use at Red Bull Content Pool. Hashtag #RedBullBridgeBars
What happened at the Bloukrans Bridge on 26 October 2026
The Bloukrans Bridge does not give much away. It hangs 216 metres above the river, and for 47 minutes and 37 seconds on 26 October it did everything it could to keep Red Bull athlete Thomas van Tonder on the wrong side of it. The South African obstacle course racing (OCR) world champion crossed it anyway: 600 monkey bars, over 280 metres of them, suspended beneath the arch, all by hand.
Linking the Western Cape and Eastern Cape on South Africa’s N2, the Bloukrans Bridge is one of the country’s most iconic landmarks, and home to Africa’s highest bridge bungee jump, one of the highest commercially operated in the world.
“I just completed one of my biggest dreams and missions for the last two years,” Thomas said. “We actually made it to the other side.”
The 45-degree climb: the hardest part of the crossing
The arch starts at 45 degrees, so steep that Thomas can’t face forward. He turns his back to the bars, pulls himself up and reaches for the next one, over and over, while the bridge does nothing but get higher. He began at 10:21 under a light breeze, the whole crew taking a collective breath. “All that is left to do are the bars.” His heart rate was already at 150. By 10:34, his hands were done talking. “Hands are not feeling great.”
As Thomas expected the climb was always going to be the hardest part. “It over-delivered,” he said. “We simulated and trained as much as we could, but nothing can really compare to just the continuous beating that that incline puts on the same muscle group.”
The crown of the arch: the mentally toughest section
At the crown, the arch flattens and the bridge changes tactics. Thomas hangs at his highest, with the rest of the course laid out in front of him. “I’d say that was, to me, the mentally toughest part,” he said. “I found it really difficult to get any rhythm. The hands just didn’t do what I in my mind thought they would be able to, just keeping them closed was so hard.”
Looking ahead made it worse. “If you look at the finish, it’s so far out of reach and there’s so many bars in between. It seems undoable.” So he chopped the course into small pieces, telling Richard Lievaart, head of rigging and safety, over comms, which point he was aiming for next. In one of his shake outs, upside down, his head began to throb. “I knew I had to turn myself back around. I need to get upright. Because if I stay like that, I would faint.” His hands had to carry him back up. “Just trusting myself that they would, and they did.”
Fellow Red Bull athlete, Stefan Glowacz, the German climber and extreme alpinist, taped Thomas’s hands before the start, then watched the crossing unfold. When the middle section turned, his reaction was instant. “Wow, this is getting tough now,” he said. “The angle change made a big change, for sure.” By the descent, worry had set in. “I was a little bit worried because it didn’t look very, very solid there.”
The descent and the final 20 metres
Then the bridge tried to throw him. On the descent, gravity does the pulling, and Thomas has to do the opposite: slow down, catch every bar and refuse to let the speed rip his hands off. “The fatigue was way past what I expected it to be.” Thomas was mic’d up for the livestream, so viewers heard him talk to Richard and to himself the whole way across.
Belief only came late, once the finish became his next piece of bridge. “The rest of it was a fight.” In the last 20 metres, one thought ran on repeat. “Make sure, make sure, make sure, make sure every single bar.” He was afraid of a slip, a glitch, a missed bar. The tape on his fingers was ripped right through. “At least I can close them again now. Yeah, they hurt.”
What the crossing meant to Thomas van Tonder
Thomas walked in confident. The incline took care of that. “I came in a bit cocky. I came in a bit confident, and that incline humbled me for sure.” He had chosen the arch because he didn’t know if he could do it. “This is by no means something I know I can do, which means it’s the right challenge.”
On being the first to cross it, he kept it simple. “I have finished what I started. I set the big, crazy goal, and we actually get it done.”
How Richard Lievaart and the rigging team built and secured the course
The bridge set its own terms. Nothing could be bolted or drilled. Richard Lievaart and his team rigged the course with two independent points of safety and not a single permanent fixing. Thomas says the team is where the real value lies. “Some people rigged through the night to make sure this bridge is ready for me this morning. And then they stayed up there to keep me safe.”
Lievaart watched Thomas’s hands the whole way, and the slack in the safety line between them. “It is an absolute relief to know that Thomas is safe, and absolutely everything we did worked,” he said. What amazed him most came when the attempt hit a snag. “He had the power to just stop, pause, sort it out and carry on.”
About Red Bull Bridge Bars
Red Bull Bridge Bars saw OCR world champion Thomas van Tonder cross 600 suspended monkey bars, about 280 metres of them, beneath the arch of the Bloukrans Bridge on South Africa’s Garden Route. The course followed the bridge: a 45-degree climb, a short flat stretch near the top and a controlled descent, in one continuous attempt. It was the longest monkey bars ever built.
About Thomas van Tonder
Thomas van Tonder is a South African obstacle course racing (OCR) world champion and Guinness World Record holder. He became OCR World Champion over 100m in 2019, signed with Red Bull the same year, and won the inaugural Red Bull Rancher Strong in 2025.
Media and notes to editors
- Date: 26 October 2026
- Location: Bloukrans Bridge, Garden Route, South Africa
- Watch: Replay on YouTube and Red Bull TV
- Imagery and video: High resolution imagery and video are available free of charge for editorial use at RED BULL CONTENT POOL
- Hashtag: #RedBullBridgeBars
- Course and safety: The course and safety system were designed and built by Richard Lievaart, Head of Rigging and Safety Director from Vertical Safety Systems (VSS), and his team
Images free of charge for editorial use.
Available here: RED BULL CONTENT POOL
Contact: Fabian Ress
fabian.ress@3mpg.ch / +49 173 248 8404
