Extreme athlete known for performance with Madonna dies in Base jumping accident in Utah

A weekend Base jumping accident in a Utah canyon killed two people, one of them a daredevil athlete best known for performing onstage with Madonna at the 2012 Super Bowl, authorities said. The sheriff’s office in Grand County, Utah, confirmed one of the dead was Andy Lewis, an extreme athlete known for feats in Base jumping, a dangerous sport that involves parachuting to the ground after jumping from a tall fixed object such as a building, a bridge or a desert cliff overlooking a deep canyon. Lewis was also a prominent figure in the niche sports of slacklining and tricklining, which combine elements of high-wire walking with aerial acrobatics – sometimes at perilous heights. Lewis went from obscure athlete to overnight celebrity when he appeared onstage in Madonna’s 2012 Super Bowl half-time show. Dressed in a Roman toga, Lewis bounced and executed tricks on his inch-wide line like it was a trampoline while Madonna sang behind him. “My phone actually rang itself to death three days in a row,” Lewis said soon after in an appearance on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show. Emergency responders were dispatched Sunday to a report of people injured in a Base jumping attempt at Mineral Bottom, a remote desert area near the Utah-Colorado line, according to the sheriff’s office. Lewis and an unidentified 50-year-old man died at the scene, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. Sheriff’s Lt Al Cymbaluk confirmed to the Associated Press that it was Lewis who died. …