Kathmandu (AFP)
Nepal climber Nirmal Purja announced Tuesday that he has set a historic record by climbing in just seven months the 14 mountains of more than 8,000 meters of altitude on the planet.
"Mission accomplished!", Launched "Nims", his diminutive, in a message posted on his Facebook page from the top of Shishapangma, the Chinese summit that was the last of the "more than 8.000" he had to conquer. He had set the superhuman deadline for all of them in just seven months, starting from his arrival at the summit of Annapurna on 23 April.
The previous record for the same performance - climb the 14 "8,000", using at least once the oxygen - was seven years, eleven months and fourteen days, and was held by the legend of Polish mountaineering Jerzy Kukuczka .
The 36-year old British special forces soldier and his team reached the Tibetan peak of 8,027 meters, the smallest of the "8,000" at 08:58 local (00:58 GMT). They had received a special permit from China, which had kept the mountain closed this season, to go up to Sishapangma,
Unknown to the small world of Himalayanism until recently, Nims has gradually attracted the attention of his peers and the media in recent months, as he conquered with phenomenal stamina and speed the culminating heights of the planet.
Originally, many thought the company physically and logistically impossible, given the window of ultra-tight time that leaves no room for hazard or turn around. Before the first summits, "everyone laughed in my face", confided Nims to AFP before leaving for Shishapangma.
To achieve this physical feat, "you have to trust your abilities and you always have to have a positive state of mind, because sometimes things will go wrong." The plans will not work out the way you want them or you would like to think so, but even so, you can make the impossible possible, "he explained.
© 2019 AFP