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In the Ticino hamlet of Ponte Brolla, daredevils from all over the world have been meeting since 1992 to throw themselves off twenty-metre-high rocks in a competition. The occasion also attracts shrill figures and colorful dogs – the winner appears as a professional pirate.
Who doesn’t know the trick when there’s no changing room nearby? Large bath towel around the hips, and with one hand underpants off, swimming trunks on. Martin Bollier, 29 years old, self-employed masseur from Aeugst am Albis, is so good at it that he even gives the reporter an interview without batting an eyelid. Anyone who, like him, jumps from rocks up to twenty meters high into the glacier water of the Maggia in Ponte Brolla has used the trick dozens of times.