G Cox: Botham Scales New Heights (10 Nov 1995)

The Electronic Telegraph Friday 10 November 1995

Botham scales new heights

Gerry Cox joins the great all-rounder in Nepal during his trek alongside a gruelling new race

THINK of the world`s most gruelling sports, and dramatic images spring to mind - spent cyclists dropping out of the Tour de France, marathon runners collapsing from exhaustion, cross- Channel swimmers being helped out of the sea.

Now there is a new contender for the title of the ultimate sporting challenge and Ian Botham has already done it. Well, almost.

Two weeks before his 40th birthday, Botham has shown once again that he can not resist a challenge. He has always delighted in winning against the odds, whether beating Australia almost single-handedly in 1981, or walking from John O`Groats to Land`s End in less than six weeks.

So it was appropriate that he should be in Nepal last week to launch the Great Himalayan One Hundred, a race of staggering intensity. The inaugural run was over 100 kilometres of incredibly beautiful countryside in the foothills of the Himalayas, and the 10 Nepali athletes who finished were close to collapse at the end of a race that tests the human body - and spirit - to the limit.

Not only is it the equivalent of two and a half marathons run at altitudes up to 12,000 ft, but over mountainous terrain that rises so steeply at some points the skills of a climber are more useful than those of a runner.

"It has to be the toughest race in the world"

Botham was in Nepal to launch the event by `speed-trekking` the course, from Pokhara in the shadow of Annapurna to Poon Hill and back. It is a route that takes trekkers up to a week, but he was aiming to do it in two days, starting 24 hours before the main race and finishing a day later, at the same time as the runners.

Botham`s party included event organiser Jan Turner, two British runners from race sponsors Nike and me, and set off up the punishing 5 km climb to Sarangkot then on for another 20km to Chandrakot.

Darkness and a lack of time curtailed the final section of the first half of the walk, but we made it back on the second day in time to see the winner, local policeman Basanta Ghimire, come home in a time of 11 hr 59 min 55 sec.

Botham knows what endurance events are all about, having raised more than #5 million for charity through his long-distance walks, and was clearly impressed that the 10 Nepali athletes who finished kept up such an astonishing pace over the whole route.

"It is mind-blowing to think these guys ran 60 miles on such rugged terrain in 12 hours," he said. "It took the rest of us a good two days to walk less than the whole course, and that was hard work. While we spent two and a half hours climbing to Sarangkot, they did it in 17 minutes.

"It has to be the toughest race in the world. I certainly have never seen anything harder. This is unique because it is running through mountains with a 7,000 ft climb in altitude.

"What makes it all the more astonishing is that these runners get no funding. Who knows what they could achieve if they were put on flat courses at sea-level and given proper training?"

"Ultimately we want 1,000 people taking part annually"

That point was picked up by Turner, who dreamed up the race. An artist from Eastbourne who fell in love with Nepal in the 1970s and has been coming back every year since, he is trying to raise the profile of athletics in the country and encourage tourism.

To this end he organised the first Everest Marathon in the 1980s and followed up with the Annapurna Triathlon and Kathmandu Marathon more recently. He said: "We are trying to encourage responsible tourism to Nepal and also raise the profile of Nepalese runners, to put them on a world stage.

"I think this is the toughest race in the world. Everyone got through alive but it might have been a different story had Ian not been on hand at the finishing line to insist on getting the runners off quickly to hot baths to prevent them from getting hypothermia. It showed how much he was involved - he made it clear from the start that he did not go just as a PR exercise."

Indeed, Botham has promised to come back to start next year`s race, which Turner hopes will be expanded to accommodate an international field of 50 to 100 runners, half from abroad.

"Ultimately we want 1,000 people taking part annually, some running and some walking the course. But you have to take one step at a time because if you expand too quickly you can open up avenues of disaster.

"The ideal thing would be to have a festival of running with events ranging from 100 metres to 100 km. That way the Nepalese would be able to get real competition at home and hopefully attract the media coverage that will bring them the funding to train for events such as the Olympics.

"Nepalese athletes can win gold medals at the Olympics if they can train properly. The top five from the Kathmandu Marathon came over for the London Marathon and the fastest of them finished 71st out of 28,000, which was phenomenal considering it was only his second marathon and he had hardly ever run on flat roads, which he found difficult."

Turner will bring the top three from this race to England next summer to run in an international field, while Botham will be making the opposite journey a few months later.

"This was my first time in Nepal and I fell in love with it. I am aiming to come back with my wife next year to spend more time trekking."

It is no secret Botham wants to get back into cricket at some stage

His biggest problem will be finding the time. Since retiring from cricket almost two and a half years ago, he has barely stopped travelling the world and admits: "I have never been busier. My schedule is so hectic I hardly know what I am doing next. I still do promotional work like this trip for Nike and I have speaking tours as well as television, video and radio work."

He flew straight from Kathmandu to Cape Town to commentate on England`s forthcoming Test series with South Africa for satellite television, a tour punctuated by brief trips back home to record more episodes in the latest series of A Question of Sport.

It is no secret Botham wants to get back into cricket at some stage, but he is in no hurry.

"I have made my thoughts quite clear on that front, but there is a time and a place for it and while things are going well for England I am happy to wait and watch.

"I still keep in touch with a lot of players and am more than happy doing what I do now, but certainly in the next year or two I`d like to have a much greater involvement with England."

He is confident England have finally found the right blend. "There is no reason why we should not win the series in South Africa and then win the World Cup in India. I think England are now the best one-day side in the world, although it hurts to admit that Australia are the best Test side."

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/et/)