A FRENCH YouTuber climbed up a 32-floor Barcelona hotel with his bare hands in under 20 minutes – earning him applause from the ground and a fine from the regional police.
Leo Urban had spent three years practising after being inspired by his compatriot known as 'the Spiderman of France', Alain Robert, before tackling the Meliá Sky Hotel without any climbing equipment whatsoever.
His idol, Alain, very publicly scrambled up the Glòries Tower, also known as the Agbar Tower and the fourth-tallest building in Barcelona, in 2016, again in November 2019, and then in March this year – a 144-metre (472-foot) glass-and-chrome office block with 38 floors.
Barcelona's tallest building is the hitherto-unfinished Sagrada Família Cathedral (172 metres, or 564 feet), followed by, jointly, the Hotel Arts and the MAPFRE Tower – head office of MAPFRE Insurance – at 154 metres, or 505 feet.
In reality, compared with Alain Robert's 'monkey tricks' – which got him arrested on all three occasions – Leo's party piece was small fry: the Meliá Sky is 'only' 100 metres, or 328 feet, tall.
Leo wanted to try to match Alain's record, or get as close to it as possible – this is so far around 20 minutes for 144 metres, although Leo managed the 100 metres in the same time.
Catalunya's answer to the Guardia Civil, the Mossos d'Esquadra – the regional military-trained police – immediately hit him with a fine notice when he was back on terra firma, but Leo said 'realising your dreams is priceless' and considered it worth the financial sacrifice.
The applause and multiple photos taken from the ground also, he considers, made the climb a sound investment.
In theory, both Leo and Alain were committing public order offences by scaling tall buildings with their bare hands, since they were wilfully putting their own safety at risk, and also those of others if they had fallen and landed on someone, but their experiences show that such a fall would not be a tragedy that was bound to happen; rather, a freak accident.
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