Drikus Coetzee makes history

NAMIBIAN cyclist Drikus Coetzee made history on Tuesday when he became the first Namibian to complete the Everesting Challenge.

The ulta-endurance event is a daunting challenge in which cyclists have to complete a gradient climb of 8 848m which is the height of Mount Everest, on any hill anywhere in the world, in one go, without any interruptions or sleep.

Coetzee selected the Alpe du Huez hill which is one of the hill climbs on the Tour de France. The hill climb is 12,4km long with an ascent of 1 030m, so, coupled with the descent, he had to do eight and a half laps to successfully complete the Everesting Challenge.

Coetzee started the challenge at home at 05h00 on Tuesday morning with his virtual trainer linked to an app that simulated the Alpe du Huez hill climb, and after cycling non-stop for just under 10 hours, he reached his target. He, however, still felt strong enough and decided to continue and eventually completed 10 laps for a total distance of 263km and a total elevation gain of 10 393m in a time of 11 hours 43 minutes.

It was an exceptional achievement through which he also made history since he became the first Namibian to complete the challenge.

“I did it in a surprisingly good time, which was one of the fastest times for the Everesting Challenge, but it’s not about the time, it’s just about competing,” he said.

“They put my achievement up on the Hall of Fame of the Everesting Challenge website, and added Namibia as the 97th nation to have completed the Everesting Challenge. I’m the first Namibian to have achieved it, which is a special achievement and I’m very proud of that,” he added.

Coetzee said he selected the Alpe du Huez because preferred steeper climbs.

“You can do it on any hill, but if you select one with steeper gradients it’s better, because the distance becomes less, but then again it becomes more difficult because the gradient is steeper. However, I prefer a climb with steeper gradients,” he said.

“This challenge is definitely tougher than the Desert Dash Solo, where I came second in 2018. That was over 370km, while this one was 263km, but it had many more climbs and is equivalent to doing the Matchless hill climb about 25 times,” he added.

Coetzee said he just decided to take up the challenge on the spur of the moment.

“There was no special reason why I did it, I just like endurance events and saw it as a challenge. I then wanted to do it for a charity, but I couldn’t organise that in time,” he said.

“My body is well-trained and I didn’t find it as tough as I thought. If I do it again, I’ll try to go beyond that,” he said.

Coetzee said his training schedule was not affected much by the lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The lockdown hasn’t affected my training at all, because we can still train outside, but I’m getting used to doing indoor training now. I’ll just continue training to remain in shape and be ready once the cycling season starts again.”