He is the world's most accomplished urban climber. He has scaled more than 85 buildings around the globe; including, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His long list of urban climbing conquests also includes the Taipei 101 in Taiwan, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building in New York, and most of the world's tallest skyscrapers, bridges, and buildings.
To avoid arrest, he usually arrives at the base of the building that will be his climbing target at dawn. Sometimes he is dressed as Spiderman. Often he is not. At times, his climbs are part of a paid commercial venture, although most are done for publicity and the personal thrill of the climbing conquest.
Alain Robert (also known as the French Spiderman) has been climbing since childhood. He is a legendary rock and urban free solo climber who has also become an accomplished motivational speaker. His urban climbs are dangerous and do not include rope or rigging. He uses only his hands, chalk, and climbing shoes. So, small protrusions in buildings, such as windows and ledges, are his climbing friends.
However, the most unusual aspect of Alain Robert is that he has been handicapped because of vertigo while climbing the earth's most difficult rock formations and the world's tallest buildings for the last twenty five years. He is handicapped from serious injuries that occurred from two separate falls of nearly fifty feet when he was around the age of nineteen.
His injuries were diagnosed as multiple fractures to his cranium, nose, wrists, elbows, pelvis, and heels. In addition, the French National Health Organization declared him 60% handicapped with a disease of the inner ear (vertigo). The medical prognosis was that he would never climb again. However, that dire prognosis would be proven incorrect less than twelve months later, as he resumed practicing rock climbing again.
The climbing persistence of Alain Robert would pay off several years later. Robert would be given an award for climbing at the Janssens Festival. In 1993, he achieved a world record for the most extreme solo performance in the gorge of the Verdon in the south of France. He was also given an award by the International Olympic Committee.
It was in 1994 that he began free solo climbing of the world's tallest urban structures that would earn him the nickname of the "French Spiderman". He recently said that his most challenging urban climb was the Sears Tower in Chicago Illinois in 1999. Fog encompassed the glass and metal of the Tower above the 90th floor making the last twenty floors of the climb dangerously slippery with moisture. However, his difficult, slow, strenuous climb ended successfully when he once again reached the top.
Last week the French Spiderman could be seen climbing urban buildings once again. This time he successfully scaled Hong Kong's Four Seasons Hotel, a 45-story building and his third known urban climb in that city. To succeed, he had to escape Hong Kong police, which had been tipped off about a possible illegal ascent in the city. Robert used the climb to promote greater awareness and international action for the cause of global warming. He would be briefly detained by authorities after the climb before being released.
In fact, the French Spiderman has been arrested and fined more than 100 times for illegally climbing the world's tallest urban structures during the last two decades. Last year, in China, he was jailed and then deported after making an urban climb of an 88 story skyscraper called the Jin Mao Tower. He was wearing a Spiderman suit during the climb.
Many would ask why a person would risk the extreme danger of climbing the world's tallest structures? Alain Robert answers as follows : "I am doing it for the thrill, for that feeling of danger and freedom. This is my way of expressing myself... We set ourselves limits, but we are all strong enough to aim higher, to achieve our goals. All we have to do is find such strength within ourselves. Know how to develop it... I do think that sometimes faith can move mountains".
A love for climbing and danger, the physical demands of endurance and dexterity, the mental strength of courage and persistence, but most of all a feeling of freedom by conquering personal boundaries and limits. All of these endearing human qualities become apparent in the French Spiderman's climb to the top.
by James W. Smith
