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American climber Alex Honnold has successfully scaled a Taiwan skyscraper without a rope, harness or safety equipment. <\/p>\n
The building, named Taipei 101 for the number of its floors, stands at 508m (1,667ft) of steel, glass and concrete and is designed to resemble a stick of bamboo.<\/p>\n
Honnold is renowned for being the first person to climb El Capitan, the vertical granite cliff in California’s Yosemite national park – also without ropes or safety gear. <\/p>\n
The climb was originally set to take place on Saturday but was delayed by wet weather.<\/a><\/p>\n His ascent in Taiwan’s capital was streamed live on Netflix, which said there would be a delay on the live feed should the worst happen. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Honnold completed the climb in an hour and thirty-one minutes and celebrated the achievement with one word: “Sick.”<\/p>\n His time more than halves the record of the only other person to scale the tower. <\/p>\n Alain Robert, a Frenchman who called himself “Spiderman”, made it to the top of Taipei 101 – at the time the world’s tallest building – in four hours<\/a>. He did so with ropes and a harness.<\/p>\n Taiwan’s Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim congratulated Honnold on the ascent, writing on X: “I admit I would probably feel sick, too, barely able to watch.” <\/p>\n Honnold was greeted at the top of the building by his wife, who expressed concern for the wind and heat as he climbed.<\/p>\n But there was another distraction during his ascent.<\/p>\n As Honnold reached the 89th floor, fans cheered and waved, face to face with the man clinging to the building but for the window.<\/p>\n