It’s a media spectacle – no question about it. When top US climber Alex Honnold free solos (climbing alone and without any safety equipment) the 509-meter-high Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan on Friday night/Saturday morning German time, and Netflix streams it live, Alexander Huber will probably be fast asleep.
“Climbing Taipei 101 will not provide any new insights into climbing, so from that point of view, the event is not relevant to us as climbers,” writes the younger of the two Huber brothers to me. “But of course, it will reach a very wide audience via Netflix, and Alex is obviously entitled to do it.”
“Alain Robert as the authentic Human Spider”
During his long career, Alexander Huber has mastered several difficult free solo climbs himself – on rocks, not on facades. The latter has actually been reserved for the Frenchman Alain Robert in the public eye.
Huber also points this out. “With hundreds of buildings climbed, Alain Robert was and is authentic as the ‘Human Spider,’ but with Alex Honnold, I think generating reach is more the motivation.” The 57-year-old does not believe that facade climbing will now become Honnold’s “new calling.”
Free solo coup on El Capitan
Alex Honnold became known worldwide beyond the climbing scene in 2017 when he became the first person to climb the 900-meter granite wall of the legendary El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in the USA without a safety rope in just four hours – on the extremely challenging “Freerider” route, which was opened by Alexander Huber in 1995.
The documentary film “Free Solo” about Honnold’s ascent won an Oscar in 2019 and reached an audience of millions in theaters and later via streaming services.
Since his coup on El Capitan in 2017 at the latest, Honnold has been one of the top earners in the scene. The climber puts a third of his earnings into his own foundation. The Honnold Foundation promotes private solar energy initiatives worldwide. How much Netflix is paying the climber for the project on the skyscraper in Taiwan has not been disclosed.
“Voyeuristic dynamics”
The live broadcast of an event that could potentially end in death has attracted criticism. Netflix is crossing a line because “the concept and setting promote voyeuristic dynamics,” Claudia Paganini tells me. The philosopher and theologian from Austria teaches at the University of Innsbruck, where one of her main areas of research is media ethics.
The risk is being deliberately used here to increase attention and reach, and thus also financial gain, she says, adding that this means that the responsibility “no longer lies primarily with the athlete, but with the media that broadcasts it.”
In addition, the live broadcast of Honnold’s ascent is “likely to normalize risky behavior and encourage imitation, even if it is emphasized that this is an exceptional athlete,” warns Paganini. “In this respect, the planned project must also be viewed very critically from the perspective of child and youth protection.”
Honnold: “Within my comfort zone”
Such live streaming lacks editorial distance, says Paganini: “If an accident occurs, there is no longer any way to check or classify images or to protect the audience and, in particular, the relatives.”
Honnold is married and has two young daughters. He has been climbing since his youth and has always been concerned with risk management, says Alex. His attitude toward this has not suddenly changed because he has children.
Climbing Taipei 101 does not cause Honnold any sleepless nights.? It should be within my comfort zone, I think,” Alex recently downplayed in Jay Shetty’s podcast. “So it’s not much about what if I die?”
Alain Robert: Honnold will make it “very easily”
Alain Robert had already climbed the facade of the skyscraper in Taiwan on Christmas Day 2004 – contrary to his usual habit, not free solo. The government of the island nation had hired him for this stunt to promote the then-new Taipei 101 and insisted on belaying him with a rope.
The now 63-year-old “French Spiderman” rates the skyscraper as moderately difficult. The most important thing is not to lose concentration, Robert told Climbing magazine: “There is no crux. What makes it complicated is to repeat the same move over and over again. But otherwise, you just take it one move at a time.” He is certain that the American will manage the climb ”very easily.”
“People will push you to the top,” Alain said in Honnold’s podcast Climbing Gold: “Nobody wants you to fall.”
Update 24 January: The climb was postponed by 24 hours to Sunday morning local time for safety reasons, as there was light rain in Taipei on Saturday.
Update 25 January: Alex Honnold completed his project successfully. In around an hour and a half, he climbed the facade of the 508-meter-high Taipei 101 to the top of the building. There he took a selfie and waved to the thousands of onlookers below.
