'Spider-Man' scales 25-story building
'Spider-Man' scales 25-story building
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
French 'Spider-Man' Alain Robert amazed thousands of Jakartans
when he climbed on Sunday the 25-story Indosat building on Jl.
Medan Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta, without any safety
equipment.
Using only his bare hands and feet, the 42-year-old urban
climber finished his stunt within only 25 minutes, to the cheers
of spectators. Starting from the bottom at 9:45 a.m., he swiftly
moved in his red-and-black outfit and reached the roof at 10:10
a.m.
His agile ascent fooled children among the audience into
thinking that he was the real Spider-Man. They screamed his name
and begged their parents to let them meet the comic hero.
Robert is a professional climber who has scaled 70 giant
structures across the globe, including the Eiffel tower, Paris,
the Petronas twin towers, Kuala Lumpur, the Empire State
Building, New York, the Sydney Opera House and the Crown Plaza
Hotel, Montreal, Canada.
He is the only extreme climber in the world who performs his
act without the help of either equipment or safety gear.
Others, such as George "the Human Fly" Willig, who climbed the
South Tower of the World Trade Center in 1977, or "Spider Dan"
Goodwin, who climbed the glass of the Sears Tower in Chicago in
1981, used clamping devices and suction cups, respectively.
Robert arrived in Jakarta last Friday after training for three
weeks for the event, which was organized by Indosat to launch its
Star One fixed-wireless product. He inspected the building when
he came to Jakarta a month ago.
As to the challenge of climbing the National Monument (Monas),
adjacent to the Indosat building, Robert said the challenge would
have to wait.
Monas was too flat, he said, without any slits from bottom to
top. "I need a little slit for my fingers to get some purchase,"
he added, as quoted by Antara news agency.
His interest in the sport sparked at the tender age of 12,
when he forgot his house keys and, instead of waiting for his
parents, climbed eight stories to his apartment. Since then, he
sought higher buildings all across France and went international.