As the tallest building in the world, The Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai stands at 828m (2717ft) amid other impressive skyscrapers in the UAE city of Dubai. After six hours of climbing the tower’s facade, Alain Robert (dubbed the ‘French Spiderman’) reached the top of the tower in the early evening on Monday.

Robert has climbed over eighty buildings including the iconic Empire State Building, Eiffel Tour and Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. While he usually accomplishes these feats without any form of safety equipment (using only chalk to improve grip), Monday’s ascent saw Robert uncharacteristically use a safety harness. Speaking to the Reuters new agency, the daredevil explained that “this is such an iconic building so I can understand that even though they are taking care so much about my precious life, they are also taking care a lot of that precious Burj Khalifa."

However, it is reported that Robert may have removed the harnass at least once during Monday’s ascent.

Previous conquests include the climbing of Taiwan’s Taipei 101 in 2004, which was also the tallest building in the world at the time. His love of climbing came at an early age, and lead to him climbing up the side of a building to reach his parents’ eight-floor apartment at the age of twelve after being locked out.

Despite his potentially lethal skyscraper climbs, Robert has only had two serious accidents to date; in 1982, he fell 15m (49ft) on two occasions, the second of which left him with multiple fractures and put him out of action for six months.

Reported by Claire Blackthorne.

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