The climb by North American climber Alex Honnold to the top of the 508 meter high Taipei 101 building in Taiwan, broadcast live last Saturday (24) on Netflix, brought several discussions to the sports scene. The main one, of course, is how valid it is to show someone risking their life in front of millions of spectators, taking the risk of inspiring people not prepared for a feat of this magnitude to follow their example, even if it is in much smaller structures — but from which a fall is often fatal. It is worth mentioning here that the transmission was generated with a small delay, a delay so that, in the event of a fall, the image could be edited in its most violent aspects. Still, the images are chilling.
The practice of free-solo climbing, in which the climber does not use ropes or any protection, relying only on the tips of his fingers and intense muscular work that requires years of preparation, is not new. Honnold himself had already starred in the documentary “Free Solo”, which won the Oscar in 2019, showing him crawling up the rock on El Capitan, an iconic 910 meter high wall, located in Yosemite Park, in California (USA). Released by National Geographic Documentary Films, “Free Solo” grossed US$15 million at the box office and won the main awards in its category around the world.
But the big difference with “Skyscraper”, the exhibition of the Taipei 101 climb that can be seen on the platform, was precisely the audience that followed him holding their breath with each thrust of Honnold up the facade. At some points, he even took his hands off and was trapped only by his legs. In others, with one arm he would just throw himself upwards to climb another floor. He often stopped to give a shout-out to the crowd that saw him from the ground or to pose with fans who were filming him with their cell phones from one of the 101 floors of the building, whose facade has several ornaments that forced him to propel himself in what is called negative climbing, when the body needs to overcome a structure that is horizontal to the ground.
Interestingly, for many years, Honnold made a point of refusing to have his climbs filmed. Like most free solo practitioners, he said that it was something very intimate, between him and the mountains and his first records were homemade images, at most posted on his profile. However, in times of social networks that show everything to everyone, it ended up surrendering to visibility. With the support of Netflix, Honnold earned something over US$500,000, and commented in the interview with journalists after his descent that he thought the amount was low, compared to what top athletes in other sports earn — that’s not wrong.
But Honnold wasn’t the first to have the idea of climbing iconic buildings on the planet. Frenchman Alain Robert, now 63 years old, has faced the facades of monuments such as the Burj Khalifa (828 meters high, but with the help of ropes), in Dubai, the Petronas Towers (452 meters, also with protection, which he was forced to do by the local authorities), in Malaysia, the Cayan Tower (307 meters), also in Dubai, from where he was almost toppled by the police for not having authorization, and even the Italy building. (165 meters), in São Paulo, where, by the way, he was detained by the police. The main difference was that, in addition to generally preferring not to be allowed to exercise what earned him the nickname Spider-Man (whose costume he even wore on some climbs), Robert, most of the time, had no sponsorship — and often had to pay fines and nights in jail for his daring.
Another pioneer of skyscrapers was fellow North American Dan Goodwin, who in June 1986 climbed the CN Tower in Toronto, 553 meters high, free solo. Although he climbed to the top of the building’s tower, as Honnold did, Goodwin refused to register the final part of his climb in the Guinness Book of Records, claiming that climbing the tower could not be considered free solo, but rather climbing with assistance — from the ladder to the tip. This left it with “only” 335 meters.
The risks of the ‘selfie effect’
In the world of sport mountaineering, this type of extreme media spectacle inspires a certain kind of endless discussion. Anderson Lima, one of the most daring free solo practitioners in Brazil, assessed that, “if Honnold is one of the greatest climbing athletes who ever existed”, it is necessary to consider what he calls the “eternal dilemma between the exposure necessary to gain visibility and the spectacularization of risk”.
“As a solo climber, one of my biggest concerns when publicizing my ascents is the potential for generating the ‘selfie effect’, leading beginners or laypeople to try to replicate such feats without due preparation”, says Lima. For him, “the solo climber’s internal conversation with the chosen route is something so private and special that spectacularization runs the risk of breaking that magic.”
He further considers that “the vast majority of people who watch these live broadcasts do not understand all the training, dedication and study involved for an athlete to accept this risk.”
At Taipei 101, says Lima, “Honnold was not reckless; he was applying a refined technique in a controlled environment. The show helps make the sport financially viable, but it is up to us climbers to educate those who arrive now about the difference between a marketing event and ethical and safe practice, whether on the rock or in any other vertical environment.”
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