Mr Robert, 45, who has been arrested many times before for scaling buildings without permission, has conquered skyscrapers such as the Taipei 101, the Empire State Building and the Petronas Twin Towers. -- EMMANUEL AGUIRRE
FRENCH professional climber Alain Robert will scale a building here on Saturday as part of The Straits Times' 163rd anniversary celebrations.
But which building it will be will remain a secret - till Saturday.
His feat will be followed by a grand lucky draw in which a reader of this newspaper will win a car.
Mr Robert, 45, who has been arrested many times before for scaling buildings without permission, has conquered skyscrapers such as the Taipei 101, the Empire State Building and the Petronas Twin Towers.
He was arrested here in 2000 when he attempted to climb the 63-storey Overseas Union Bank Building at Raffles Place. Police nabbed him on the 23rd floor for criminal trespass.
In his home in France, he has a 40-sq m training surface mounted on his ceiling which he can hang on to, upside-down, for 20 minutes. He views his death-defying acts as a 'healthy challenge'.
Mr Robert, a compactly built climber, who weighs in at 52kg and can do a pull-up with his pinkie, will wear a safety harness as part of the rules governing his climb here.
The prize for the grand draw following his climb on Saturday is a new Volkswagen Touran Sport 1.4 TSI worth $79,480.
To win this seven-seater family sports car, ST readers will have to solve a word puzzle.
Letters of the alphabet began appearing in this newspaper's 'A Part of My Life' advertisements last Friday. These ads will run until Friday. Readers will need to collect all the letters and unscramble them to spell out the location where the prize car is on display.
This mystery location will be near where Mr Robert is scheduled to make his climb.
Readers have to paste all eight letter-tiles on an entry form to be published in this newspaper on Friday and Saturday, and show up at the mystery location with it between 2pm and 4pm on Saturday to qualify.
Participants also have to be there for the draw at 6pm. Only correct entries will be eligible for the draw.
Information on the contest is available at www.straitstimes.com & www.razor.tv