American rock climber Alex Honnold has started his terrifying attempt at scaling a 101-storey tower without ropes live on Netflix.
Honnold is attempting to scale Taiwan’s 1,667 feet Taipei 101 skyscraper – formerly the world’s tallest building – on Sunday morning in his signature free solo style.
Thousands of local people lined the streets around Taipei 101, while his wife Sanni was on the ground watching her husband climb.
Honnold’s attempt had to be put back 24 hours due to wet weather conditions in the city on Saturday morning. The ‘Skyscraper Live’ broadcast is on a 10-second delay.
The much-anticipated event has caused excitement across the globe but has led to some fans questioning the 40-year-old’s motive, as he is a married father of two girls.
Built in 2004, Taipei 101 features mostly glass curtain walls, with balconies near the top.
Alex Honnold has started his attempt at scaling a 101-storey tower without ropes live on Netflix
Honnold is climbing Taiwan’s 1,667ft skyscraper on Sunday morning in his signature free solo style
Mr Honnold is known for his iconic ropeless ascent up Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan, documented in ‘Free Solo’.
He said: ‘When you look at climbing objectives, you look for things that are singular.
‘Something like El Capitan where it’s way bigger and way prouder than all the things around it.’
Mr Honnold would not be the first climber to ascend the skyscraper but would be the first to do so without a rope.
French rock climber Alain Robert scaled the building on Christmas Day in 2004, as part of the grand opening of what was then the world’s tallest building.
He took nearly four hours to finish, almost twice as long as what he anticipated, while nursing an injured elbow and battered by wind and rain.
Mr Honnold, who has been training for months, has said he does not think the climb will be hard.
He said he had practiced the moves on the building.
Speaking on a climbing podcast, he added: ‘I don’t think it’ll be that extreme.
‘We’ll see. I think it’s the perfect sweet spot where it’s hard enough to be engaging for me and obviously an interesting climb.’
The building has 101 floors, with the hardest part being the 64 floors comprising the middle section – the ‘bamboo boxes’ that give the structure its signature look.
Divided into eight, each segment will have eight floors of steep, overhanging climbing followed by a balcony that Mr Honnold would be able to rest on.
More to follow.
