Australian wins race to the top

"Tower Running" takes place around the world

An Australian man has beaten 75 other contestants from around the world to win a race up the stairs of the world's tallest building, Taipei 101.

Paul Crake, 30, ran up 91 floors containing 2,046 steps in 10 minutes, 29 seconds.

Mr Crake, who has won a similar race up the Empire State Building five times, won US$5,920 (£3,446) in prize money.

The women's race was won by Austrian Andrea Mayr, who finished in 12 mins, 38 seconds and also won a $5,920 prize.

Ms Mayr is also a previous winner of the Empire State Building race, according to the AFP news agency.

Austrian Rudolf Reitheiger, who beat Mr Crake in this year's Empire State Building race, came second in the men's competition, AFP said.

Mr Crake and Ms Mayr missed out the $30,000 on offer for completing the gruelling race in under 10 or 12 minutes respectively.

A further 1,001 people took part in a so-called "self-challenging" race up the skyscraper, AFP said.

Taipei 101 is 508 metres (1,676 ft) tall and was finished in 2003, although Chinese developers have said Shanghai's World Financial Centre will be taller when completed in 2007.

Long-distance

"Tower-running" races take place up the tallest buildings and structures across the world.

The Sears Tower in Chicago, the CN tower in Toronto and the Azrieli tower in Tel Aviv have all held recent events.

Runners also race up the longest staircase in the world - the service staircase for the Niesenbahn railway near Spiez, Switzerland, which has 11,674 steps.

An event for the long-distance stairway runner also takes place in Radebeul, Germany, where competitors run up 397 stairs 100 times to equal the height of Mt Everest.