DUBAI // He has taken his brand of extreme free-climbing to some of the most iconic structures around the world, with Dubai the latest playground for daredevil James Kingston.
The fearless Briton has posted videos of him climbing an unnamed tower, 150 metres up in the Dubai Marina skyline, without any obvious safety equipment in place.
His stunts have accumulated a cult following online and a documentary on his feats, Don’t Look Down, exposed his regular brushes with law enforcement around the world during his skyline adventures.
Kingston, from Southampton, England, has taken the sport of free-climbing to a new level, and is fast becoming a pioneer in the sport.
Many of his climbs are considered illegal and the 24-year-old has admitted facing difficult questions from authorities in Dubai when he was caught out attempting to scale Princess Tower, also in the Marina.
The Dubai footage is understood to have been filmed last year but has only just been released on YouTube.
Although brief, at just short of a minute-and-a-half long, the film is not for the faint-hearted as he walks rope-free across the narrow edge of an unnamed tower, near to Cayman Tower, before scaling a crane at the building’s summit.
Kingston’s trademark finish of hanging one handed from the top of the crane is then filmed as he dangles in the air, with nothing to stop him plunging to his death should his grip fail.
His back-catalogue of climbs has now reached more than 100, and includes The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the famous Wembley stadium arch in London. He admitted Burj Khalifa remains on his wish list of potential buildings to scale but other climbs around Dubai during his five-day trip last year will be posted online soon.
nwebster@thenational.ae
