Profile: Alain Robert A.K.A the ‘French Spiderman’
Robert Alain Philippe has always been an avid climber. This ace climber was born in the Digoin commune in Saône-et-Loire, France, on 7th August 1962. His childhood heroes were Bonatti, Rébuffat and Desmaison. They were some of the most famous
rock-climbers of all time and Alain Robert use to idealize them.
He learnt the basics of climbing with ropes and the proper movements, as a boy scout. When he was twelve-years-old, he forgot the keys to his parent’s eighth story apartment and simply climbed the exterior wall to his home and got in through a window. Alain
used to climb cliffs around Valence in France and became a top free solo climber. He used to practice his climbs with ropes and equipment. Once he had become familiar with the routes, he used to climb without any ropes, relying only on his feet and hands.
Falling would have resulted in his demise. He had two serious accidents in 1982. Both times he fell 15 meters and had to have an operation. The second time he fell, he went into a coma for five days. Due to an inner ear injury from the fall, Alain has suffered
from permanent vertigo.
According to the prognosis of his doctors, he was sixty per cent handicapped and was told that he couldn't climb again. Within six months, he was back up and climbing the French Alps, honing his climbing skills before turning to climbing buildings and skyscrapers.
Since then, he has climbed over 100 skyscrapers and monuments all over the world. Authorities in the different countries, where he has climbed buildings, usually don’t mind that he is climbing public buildings without any protection (except a bag of chalk
that he rubs on his hands to absorb sweat and allow for a dry grip) and making a sensation out of every climb.
His climbs draw a large number of spectators at the base of the buildings. Robert has been arrested all over the world, numerous times, usually when he reaches the top of the buildings to find the police waiting to handcuff him. Climbing buildings requires
using the small protrusions in the building walls and window ledges and frames. Over the course of his career, Robert can no longer completely straighten his fingers. His building climbing career properly started in 1994, when ‘Sector’, a specialist in extreme
sports, sponsored him to climb the City Bank building in Chicago. Soon after that he climbed the Empire State Building in New York. He went on to climb other famous buildings in the United States, Europe and Asia. In 1997, he climbed three buildings in Malaysia.
His third climb was the Petronas Towers. He got as far as the 60th storey of the 80 story building, before the police managed to grab him and arrest him for climbing without authorization and for causing a commotion. Alain Robert’s conquest of the
tower made a huge impact on the media and his popularity, for his climbing antics, drew a large fan following all over the world. Getting arrested helped in increasing his support and popularity and he was always released after a court hearing and paying a
fine.
Impressed by his Petronas tower climb, the Sabah Foundation in Borneo invited him to climb their 150 meter building. Borneo’s government gave their authorization and Robert managed to draw a crowd of 15,000 people, raising funds of $150,000.
Some of his many famous climbs are:
The Golden Gate Bridge in California, US in 1996 (climbed 227m)
The 313m Eiffel Tower in Paris, France in 1997
The 442m Sears Tower in Chicago, US in 1999
The 508m Taipei101 building in Taiwan in 2004
The 173m National Bank of Abu Dhabi in 2003 (His most famous climb yet, watched by over 100,000 people)
The 420m Jin Mao Building in Shanghai, China in 2007 (for which he was expelled from China)
His next planned climb is the tallest building in the world, the 828m Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
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