'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.