Kilian Jornet is Kilian Jornet’s sponsor. By creating his own mountain sports equipment business, he has gained the freedom he always sought in his career. Now he is free to compete only when he wants, but above all to devise and take on the challenges that appeal to him. And this is where his love for the mountains, his reverential interest in the history of mountaineering and his desire to understand the physiological limits of his body converge. His freedom also allows him to communicate his projects in his own way, in installments, as if he were writing a suspense novel.
Jornet has been immersed in one of the most important challenges of his career for days: exploring his metabolic limits while, presumably, trying to climb the 82 mountains of more than four thousand meters that exist in the Alps. His communication team has not confirmed that the Catalan athlete wants to climb all of them. four thousanders. In fact, his journey may stop halfway, when his body says enough. Or he may complete the crossing of the Alps leaving aside some of its important peaks. In the meantime, it is known that he started from Saint Moritz (Switzerland) on August 14 and that he will only use his legs to advance and connect valleys: he will walk, run, and pedal on the road until exhaustion.
His second stage – not a day: he spent 32 hours and 43 minutes moving and at some point added a few hours of sleep – in the Oberland, produced figures that say a lot about his unique challenge: he travelled 279.43 kilometres, of which 66.37 were on foot and the rest by bicycle. He climbed four peaks over four thousand metres high, walked or climbed for 23 hours and 48 minutes and cycled for 8 hours and 55 minutes. He slept seven and a half hours. The bad weather in the area forced him to readjust his plans to avoid danger zones and a storm forced him to seek shelter in a refuge.
Jornet lived in the Alps for a decade: he loves the scenery and is an avid student of the history of mountaineering, of the great challenges and progress of human beings in relation to the mountains. If his idea is to climb the 82 four thousanders In terms of alpine skiing, he may not have invented anything new, but it is quite possible that he will reinvent the way of taking on challenges of this kind. His primary doctor is Dr. Jesús Álvarez, who has studied the Catalan athlete’s metabolism in the past, concluding that “neither sleep deprivation, caloric restriction or cognitive impairment caused Kilian’s failure from a metabolic perspective.” It should be remembered that just 10 months ago, the ultra-runner climbed 177 mountains of more than three thousand metres in the Pyrenees, in just 8 days, in what has ultimately turned out to be a scaled-down test of the challenge that now occupies him.
According to Dr. Alvarez, “this new expedition is different from any previous project. Kilian’s demands will be so extreme that we cannot predict the physiological or even genetic changes that may occur.” He says that the challenge involves taking “a further step from a physical, technical and mental point of view” compared to what has been done to date.
Several French media outlets take it for granted that Jornet’s inner desire is to gorge himself with the 82 four thousandersperhaps because one of the pioneers in taking on the challenge of climbing them all in the fastest way was the Frenchman Patrick Berhault. It was in 2004 and his dream was dashed when a cornice broke under his feet while he was circling the Dom and the Täschhorn (Switzerland). His death was a tragedy for the French alpine community: Berhault was not only a tremendous mountaineer, but he had been Patrick Edlinger’s soul mate and together they had taken the art of rock climbing to unknown limits. In 2008, the Italians Franco Nicolini and Diego Giovannini climbed all 82 four thousanders without using anything but their legs: they walked, ran, climbed and cycled, setting the record at 60 days of effort. In 2015, the also ill-fated Ueli Steck spent two more days alone…, although allowing other mountaineers to join him to climb some of the peaks or to accompany him between valleys, something that Kilian is also doing these days. A scientific team accompanies the Catalan at a distance, taking samples from his body and studying his hours of sleep. But the chain of efforts in a terrain that can easily vary between simplicity and maximum exposure is one of the greatest concerns of the ultra-distance runner: “body and mind working for days at the maximum of their capacities… is something that I find very stimulating,” he admits. The search for the unknown has always figured in the DNA of great mountaineers: taking on a challenge without really knowing if they will be able to carry it out. Overcoming exhaustion and fear. Kilian moves at full speed through familiar terrain, searching for answers in his mind and in his body. Without knowing. He pursues a type of knowledge that transcends what we understand as mere sport.
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