Selfies with Mexican cartel, dodging giant Russian trucks – Jonas Deichmann takes on Forrest Gump-like following during global triathlon
- German adventurer Jonas Deichmann has completed a 14-month long triathlon around the world, swimming, cycling and running in extreme conditions
- The record-breaking ultra athlete covered around 40,000 kilometres, including 456km of open water swimming and 120 marathon runs
It was early December and German ultra cycling adventurer Jonas Deichmann pedalled into the bleak wintry streets of Munich. Some 429 days earlier he had seized a lull in the pandemic to take on his long-planned and delayed “around the world triathlon”.
The highly accomplished ultra cycling record breaker had planned a self-supported bike packing circumnavigation of the planet. There would be around 40,000 kilometres to cover in all, and he aimed to split the journey into Ironman triathlon disciplines. This meant incorporating 456km of open water swimming and 120 marathon runs.
After riding over the Alps in winter he then swam down the coast of Croatia and pedalled off with his camping gear through Turkey, which was when we last caught up with him in February of 2021.
At that time his preferred route option of continuing through South Asia and China and then sailing to the United States to run across the country was rapidly closing up. He was forced to turn tail and seek an alternative route.
The only viable option was to try to cross Russia and then see what kind of shape the world was in. After a great deal of persistence he was allowed to enter Russia by land from Ukraine, just in time to cross Siberia during winter. During his Eurasia record ride a few years earlier he had terrifying and relentless encounters with Russian trucks on the route, and this time it was midwinter.
