The British motorbike racer, who is running in the Dakar Rally 2022, climbed to the top of the world’s highest skyscraper for a new film published on Friday in collaboration with Dubai Tourism and Red Bull.
In the video, Sunderland, 32, who made history by becoming the first British rider to win the Dakar Rally with KTM in 2017, can be seen racing across Dubai on a motorcycle through locations that have never been ridden before.
He bikes across the city, navigating Hatta mountain bike routes, over the dunes of Al Faqa desert, and hitting fairways of golf courses all over Dubai. Before turning over his bike and travelling to the top of the Burj Khalifa, he visits the heart-shaped Al Qudra lakes, Souk Madinat Jumeirah, La Mer, and The Dubai Mall aquarium. Sunderland stands on top of the tip, arms outstretched, in the last photo.
“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” he adds in the roughly seven-minute video, which also includes a nauseating view of the ground from Sunderland’s vantage point.
Sunderland, who was born in the south of England in 1989, visited Dubai in 2009. He was recovering from a car accident that left him with two damaged legs, but he saw promise in the UAE right away and moved there permanently.
He started racing motocross and endurance raids across the Middle East within a few months, and he won the 2010 UAE National Baja Championship. Shortly after, he made his Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge debut and competed in the Cross Country World Championships, winning three stages and defeating riders with significantly greater celebrity, including serial champion Marc Coma.
In addition to winning Dakar in 2017, he finished third in 2019 and 2021. In addition, he won the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship in 2019.