Colin / Vimeo
PARACHUTING INTO CROKE Park is not for the faint-hearted – but even the not-so-courageous of us would find this video fascinating.
Colin Curran (31) was the second jumper to parachute into the GAA stadium for the Croke Park Classic yesterday.
Curran jumps with the Irish Parachute Club in Co Offaly, and first started jumping eight years ago.
Having already jumped into the US ambassador’s residence for an event (again featuring American football), and racking up thousands of hours of jumping time, he was perfectly suited to yesterday’s jump.
He had the Penn State flag attached to his left leg, and had been practicing his accuracy jumps in the run-up to the game.
“There are so many different variables,” he said. “There’s a steel cable behind the goal post that you have to avoid. ”
Curran was nervous before he got into the aircraft, but said “once you put your foot on the step and you look down, you are committed 100%”. Once you make the jump, he said, you are “focused 110%”.
[image alt="jump 1" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2014/08/jump-1-630x349.gif" width="630" height="349" title="" class="alignnone" /end]
You’re going to make it or nothing else.
He had a toggle in each hand to steer him onto the pitch. On his way down, he saw the other parachutist, carrying the second team’s flag, who had landed on a nearby railway line.
Luckily, the man was unharmed. “I saw him out of corner of my eye,” said Curran. “It’s not something that he would normally do – it was a freak thing.”
As Curran approached Croke Park, he could hear the noise of the crowd, which he described as “really awesome”.
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