Dubai’s 1007-ft Cayan Tower is No Match for ‘French Spiderman’

4/13/2015
Updated:
4/17/2015

DUBAI, United Arab Emirate—A French climber,  dubbed “The French spiderman”, scaled one of Dubai’s tallest skyscrapers on Sunday, relying on just chalk and sticky tape on his fingertips to help him. 

Alain Robert, 52, climbed the 1007-foot (307 meter), 75-story high Cayan Tower in the emirate’s glitzy marina area in just 70 minutes. He had no harness and little space for his feet on the ledges of the tower, which twists as it ascends.

Robert is no stranger to scaling tall buildings.

In 2011, he climbed the world’s tallest tower in Dubai. Using a rope and harness to comply with organizers’ requirements, it took him just over six hours to scale the 2,717-foot (828 meter) tall Burj Khalifa.