Forrest Gump, but in real life and more extreme: German completes uninterrupted round-the-world triathlon trip after 429 days | More sports

“I am so happy to start the match, I can’t wait to see Siberia,” Jonas Deichmann said in September of last year. The German super-athlete had just completed a long training period, during which he trained in a cold room on the German railways at -23 ° C. The German railway company has a factory in Minden where athletes can train in extreme conditions.

This would be necessary, because Deichmann wanted to circumnavigate the world over a period of 12 to 14 months. From Munich to Munich. As a warm-up, the first stage was a 600km bike ride from his hometown to Karlobag on the Adriatic coast, and from there he swam 450km off the coasts of Croatia and Serbia to reach Dubrovnik 54 days later. There Deichmann jumped on the bike for 17,000 kilometers.

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Over large parts of Ukraine and Russia, I went to Siberia, where the Germans had to deal with severe cold and snowstorms. As soon as he reached the eastern coast of Russia, he went by boat across the Pacific Ocean to Mexico. In Forrest Gump-wise (including long hair and beard) Deichmann walked a little over 5,000km in the heat from Tijuana to Cancun. In other words, that’s 120 marathons in 117 days.

Finally, the last stop was European. From Cancun, Deichmann crossed the Atlantic to cycle another 4,000 kilometers from Lisbon via Barcelona and Mont Ventoux to Munich. After 429 days, the man has returned home since Tuesday, crossing eighteen countries on his round-the-world journey. “It’s been a great adventure with a lot of ups and downs, but now I’m especially happy to be here,” Deichmann said.

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No athlete has ever completed 120 triathlons in one go. One complete triathlon consists of 3.86 km swimming, 180 km cycling and 42,195 km running. It’s not his first stunt with the German. In 2017 he was the first to cross Eurasia by bike. A year later, he cycled across the United States in 97 days without a day off. Last year he finished South Africa’s Cape to Cape Adventure, an 18,000-kilometre bike ride from the Northern Cape to Cape Town.

Deichmann plans to share his adventures with the public through lectures starting in the spring of 2022. There will also be a documentary about his adventures and the man has also written a book called Das Limit bin nur Ich (The Only Limit Available, Is Myself). “Every day I was faced with surprises,” said Dichmann, who has often had to improvise due to the coronavirus pandemic. “However, every time I saw things I had never seen before. It made me feel more alive than ever and enjoy my adventures to the fullest.”