'686 Steps In 12.5 Minutes': French Cyclist Becomes Fastest Ever To Climb Eiffel Tower On An All-Terrain Bike, Breaks

Cyclist and social media influencer Aurelien Fontenoy has become the fastest athlete ever to climb to the Eiffel Tower on an all-terrain bike. On Friday, October 3, it was confirmed that Fontenoy succeeded in reaching the second floor of the tower in just 12 minutes and 30 seconds. With this, he also broke a 23-year-old record of the fastest human to climb on Eiffel Tower.

Societe d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel said in a statement, "Fontenoy climbed 686 steps of the monument to reach the second-floor platform, the last accessible by stairs, in 12 minutes and 30 seconds." Second-floor platform of the Eiffel Tower is the highest point that can be accessed by stairs.

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@toureiffelofficielle wrote, "#WORLDRECORD! 12 minutes and 30 seconds: that’s how long it took @aurelien_fontenoy to climb, on a trial bike, the 686 steps leading up to the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower! He smashed the previous record held by Hugues Richard: 19 minutes and 4 seconds in 2002."

According to the reports, Fontenoy broke the previous record from 2002 by almost seven minutes. To claim the title, Fontenoy's feet were not allowed to touch the ground.

Fontenoy expressed post-victory. In disbelief, he said, "I did not expect to take this little time. The Eiffel Tower is really a symbol; it is really the monument that I wanted to climb." As part of his project "The Climb", Fontenoy cycled in 2021 to the top of the 140-metre-high Trinity Tower, also in Paris, and this year he climbed Tallinn's TV Tower in Estonia.

In an interview with CNN, Fontenoy said, "My plan is to climb the biggest towers, so I’m already in contact with other towers in the world."