A daredevil teen has spoken of his "overwhelming sense of achievement" after scaling the 1,017ft Shard this morning, one of the tallest buildings in Europe.
Urban climber George King, 19, was spotted on the side of the skyscraper at around 5.15am on Monday.
He later confirmed he had completed the stunt in 45 minutes, posting footage on Instagram.
In a caption, he wrote: "Freesolo the shard. 45mins. A lot of misinformation about suction cups in the media at the moment. Here is a little snippet video. Enjoy.
"I was thirteen and on a school trip when I first laid eyes on The Shard. I felt an immediate passion to climb it - the same type of passion I want to the world to feel."
Mr King was spoken to by police after the climb but not arrested.
The personal trainer told the Standard that he spent a year preparing for the huge climb.
"I started training a year ago, it's been my dream since I came to London and saw the Shard as a 13-year-old," he said.
"I spent months gathering intelligence and planning to do it.
"To prepare, I free-climbed both the world's and the UK's tallest climbing walls, and I've climbed lots of cranes too.
"This is my passion and climbing the Shard was an expression of that."
Mr King was so committed to climbing the skyscraper that he moved to Leyton, east London for eight months as part of his preparations.
He has previously completed other daring stunts, including scaling cranes over the River Thames.
Mr King added: "Right now I'm just reflecting on the climb - it absorbed my life, I was obsessed with it, and I neglected other areas of my life because of working on it every day.
"For me, it splits into three areas. You've got the pre-climb, which is about the preparation, training and perseverance.
"Then the present, while you're doing it, when you get the sense of fulfilment and the flow of climbing - it's an incredible feeling.
"Afterwards, in the past, you have an overwhelming sense of achievement, it's a mixture of things."
Police said they were called at 5.15am after Mr King was spotted scaling the outside of the building.
Officers spoke to him after the climb but he was not arrested, and a spokesman said officers on the scene are able to make case-by-case decisions when it comes to the arrests of free climbers.
The Shard is one of London’s most popular tourist attractions and took three years to build before opening to the public in 2012.
The skyscraper, designed to look like a shard of glass, has 72 residential floors with a viewing deck.
It is also home to offices, restaurants, a shopping centre and a luxury hotel with views across London.
A spokesman for Real Estate Management, the asset management company that operates The Shard, said: "We dealt with an incident at The Shard earlier this morning involving a member of the public who climbed the building.
"The person was safely apprehended and detained by police. Some areas around the base of The Shard that were closed to the public as a safety precaution have now been partially re-opened.
"Public safety and the security of the people who live, work and visit The Shard and the surrounding area is of paramount importance to us.
"Fortunately no-one was hurt by this dangerous activity and we will be assisting the police with their investigation."
