The Real [French] Spiderman

He may or may not have been bitten by a radioactive spider, but Frenchman Alain Robert is making the movie Spiderman look like an earthbound mortal.

In October, Robert – who wears a Spiderman suit for his feats – climbed the exterior of the 614-foot headquarters of the Total oil company in Paris. A month earlier, he had also climbed the 689-foot Montparnasse Tower, also in the French capital.

Robert uses no ropes or safety equipment, and has become the world’s best-known exponent of socalled “urban free climbing” or “buildering.” He has also climbed the Eiffel Tower, the Sears Tower, the Empire State Building and the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge. In 1997 he climbed 60 stories of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur — then the world’s tallest building — before he was arrested.

Robert is now paid by companies to promote them by climbing buildings. His critics, though, claim that while his climbs may be spectacular, they’re nowhere near as difficult as climbing a mountain.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 10:18 pm and is filed under Under-reported. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.