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     explores new spaces for expressing sport, unexpected, unusual, clever or booming.

  • Alexis Landot recently distinguished himself by climbing the Montparnasse Tower

  • The young man excels in urban climbing, a discipline made famous in France by Alain Robert, better known as Spiderman

Climbing towers hundreds of meters high, many have done it on Breath of the Wild or Assassins Creed, but few have tried it in real life - a story of survival instinct, no doubt. At only 21 years old and with fifteen years of climbing since his first climbs on the parking meters in the capital, Alexis Landot is already part of the second category. He has to his credit the ascent of the highest crane in Ile de France in Ivry-sur-Seine, the Engie tower and the Ariane tower in La Défense. His latest feat of arms? Have swallowed the 209 meters of the infernal Montparnasse tower with bare hands and without assistance in 48 minutes.

The exploit is not new.

The French pioneer Alain "Spiderman" Robert made it four times ("including twice on the corner, which is much more complicated", he tells us from Bali), in 1995, 1996, 2004 and 2016, but the pictures may never have looked so good.

An alloy of technological excellence and optimal sunshine.

Almost too much.

“It warmed up the structure of the tower a bit, but it was okay, puts the young climber into perspective.

You have to know not to listen to your body too much.

I don't say to myself 'oh boy, it heats your fingers'.

In my head, there is just the focus, the perfect movement and the distance that separates me from the end.

"

Bloody fingers

The risk of falling is real, but minimized by preparation upstream on a metal structure of its garage and night sessions on the Montparnasse tower, just to test the waters and understand the architecture of the building.

"But sometimes, Alain Robert nuance, along the way there may be plugs, parts that can deteriorate, cracks ..."

The ascent of the Parisian monument may well be considered of medium difficulty in the area, Alexis Landot does not escape, as expected, the unforeseen.

In this case, the strap supposed to protect his fingers gives up the ghost about fifty meters from the top, forcing him to grit his teeth to the end.

Hello hell.

“My fingers were really raw on the wall and there I started to slow down, because my fingers were raw, my fingers bleeding, the blisters exploding on each floor. I did three-quarters of the tower in half an hour and the last quarter in almost 20 minutes. It's the most mentally trying moment, but that's what I love about this sport. Whether it is hard or not, once on the way there is no longer a choice. "

But the mind has its limits: if the survival instinct actually allows one to surpass oneself, it cannot work miracles.

The prohibitive nature of urban climbing therefore implies a perfect knowledge of one's own capacities.

Idea summarized by Spiderman.

“A building, in three, five minutes, you know if it can be climbed or not.

Then, you have to know if you are physically able to climb it.

If you rate badly, you will end up without muscle fuel and your arms will suffer.

And when you have nothing, you have nothing.

You can scream, try, your arms let go and you fall, you're done.

"

Storming the world

Wisdom in unreason, an absurd concept to which Alain Robert, soon to be 59, surely owes its longevity. Because before tackling the urban reliefs, he had fun, a young climber, on endless cliffs, "even harder than those I was able to attempt", concedes Alex Honnold, the "goat" of extreme climbing. . “But if I had continued to climb solo as I did every day on a cliff,” continues the Frenchman, with climbs in 8th degree, I would not have lasted very long. I was going to the maximum of difficulty. As on some towers, but here it is more resistance. "

This was the case during the climb of the Sears Tower, in Chicago, after five years of training to tame the 442 meters of the beast. Note also that in this balancing act, size does not necessarily matter. The Areva tower (178m) in La Défense, for example, can only be climbed with the first phalanx of each finger, making it impractical for ordinary people. “I did an absolutely atrocious tour in Slovakia and it was barely 60 meters. The frames were flat and were small, where in Montparnasse it's a bit T-shaped rails, which makes climbing easy. "

Not to say that Alexis Landot, moreover aware of the road which remains to be covered to equal the childhood idol, sees things in the same way.

“At the top of the tower, I have the feeling of having surpassed myself, of having done something great.

And everything indicates that he is still a long way from the adrenaline overdose.

The student in digital graphics plans to carry his Go Pro to other buildings in Paris and Europe, including a tower in Barcelona, ​​without further details.

“It's top secret”.

The police are already waiting for him - not always nicely - at the top of the buildings, so he should not be premature on the job.

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  • Sport

  • Montparnasse Tower

  • Climbing