Sore and sandblasted but triumphant, runner Russ Cook reached the northernmost point of Africa on Sunday, almost a year after he set off from its southern tip on a quest to run the length of the continent.
Dozens of supporters gathered on a rocky outcrop beside the Mediterranean in northern Tunisia, cheering on the British charity fundraiser, who has run more than 16,000km across 16 countries in 352 days.
Cook believes he is the first person ever to run the entire length of the continent.
Photo: AFP
“I’m a little bit tired,” Cook said — likely an understatement.
In the course of his journey the 27-year-old endurance athlete from Worthing in southern England crossed jungle and desert, swerved conflict zones and was delayed by theft, injury and visa problems.
Cook — known on social media by his nickname, Hardest Geezer — set off on April 22 last year from Cape Agulhas in South Africa, the continent’s southernmost point. He hoped to complete the journey in 240 days, running the equivalent of more than a marathon every day.
He and his team had money, passports and equipment stolen at gunpoint in Angola. He was temporarily halted by back pain in Nigeria, and he was almost stopped in his tracks by the lack of a visa to enter Algeria, before diplomatic intervention from the Algerian embassy in the UK secured the required documents.
Cook, who has spoken about how running helped him deal with his own mental health struggles, previously ran about 3,000km from Istanbul to Worthing in 68 days.
His African run has raised more than ￡690,000 (US$870,980) for the Running Charity, which works with young homeless people, and Sandblast, a charity that helps displaced people from Western Sahara.
“It’s quite hard to put into words, 352 days on the road, long time without seeing family, my girlfriend,” Cook told Sky News as he started running on Sunday, accompanied by supporters who had come from far and wide to run the final stretch with him.
“My body is in a lot of pain. But one more day, I’m not about to complain,” he said.
Cook said he planned to celebrate with a party, where British band Soft Play was due to perform.
“We’re going to have strawberry daiquiris on the beach tonight,” he said. “It’s going to be unreal.”
Additional reporting by AFP
South Korean giants T1, led by “Faker,” won their fifth League of Legends (LoL) world championship crown in London on Saturday, beating China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG) in a thrilling final. The teams were locked at 2-2 at a packed O2 arena, but T1 clinched game five to make it back-to-back titles after nearly four hours of tense action. China’s BLG started strongly, taking the first game before T1 struck back to level. The Chinese team pulled ahead again at 2-1 only for their opponents to hit back again and go on to take the decider. Faker, who won the Most
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgian partner Elise Mertens on Monday notched up their first win in the doubles group stage of the WTA Finals in Riyadh to keep their semi-final hopes alive, while Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russian partner Veronika Kudermetova were aiming to record their first victory after press time last night. Third seeds Hsieh and Mertens came back from a disheartening opening-day loss to Australia’s Ellen Perez and Nicole Melichar-Martinez to defeat top seeds Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, the women’s doubles world No. 3 and 4 respectively. The 6-1, 6-3 victory at King Saud University Indoor Arena
Amber Glenn overcame a fall and her own doubts to win a maiden Grand Prix figure skating title on Saturday at the Grand Prix de France. The American skater had the lead from Friday’s short program. That and the support of the crowd got her through a tough free skate in which she fell on a triple flip and put a hand onto the ice to steady herself on two other jumps. “I didn’t feel that great out there today, but I really tried, and the audience really got me through that last half when I was doubting myself,” Glenn
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
RSS