England’s Russ Cook became the first man to run the length of Africa last month, but his moment was ruined in brutal scenes at the finish line.
After running across Africa, British extreme athlete Russ Cook said he only considered giving up once during his nearly year-long odyssey – after he was kidnapped in the Congo by a knife-wielding gang. Angela Johnston reports.
Cook began his odyssey at the southernmost point of Africa, the South African village of L’Agulhas, running up the west coast for more than 16,000 kilometers.
Watch selected NRL & AFL games, along with every F1 race live in 4K on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial today
For the record, that’s an average of more than 45 kilometers a day — or more than a marathon a day.
The monumental distance is also equivalent to 385 marathons.
Just over a full year later, the 27-year-old from Sussex crossed the finish line at Ras Angela in Tunisia on April 7.
While he hoped to complete the trip in 240 days, he had a few setbacks, including being robbed at gunpoint in Angola, back pain in Nigeria and a visa issue entering Algeria as well as bouts of food poisoning.
It also raised more than £1m ($1.9m) for charity.
But despite everything he managed to achieve and all the adversity he overcame, Cook was unable to break the tape at his own finish line after a Tunisian crossed the line first.
Cook was accompanied by a huge group of supporters on the final leg of the epic journey, but the man wearing a yellow shirt and holding a Tunisian flag ran into the line ahead of him.
Talking to you The Fellas podcast this week, Cook, who is known as the “Hardest Geezer” for his efforts, was asked about the man who stole his moment.
“I said … we got to the last 100 meters and I said ‘let me go, let me go, let me go’.” “I don’t know if he just didn’t hear me, I don’t know. “
Rewatching the moment, he couldn’t help but laugh saying “that was crazy”.
One of the hosts joked: “350 days and then this guy smokes you bro!”
The other host tried to defend the man, saying he may not have appreciated the magnitude of what Cook had achieved.
Cook replied: “The only annoying thing… I didn’t really care at the time. I didn’t really know it happened.
“I’m just watching it, it’s like ‘dude – we’ve got a documentary we’re making, how are we going to cut it?’
The hosts suggested that they might have to pull him from the documentary.
Cook concluded: “He’s Tunisian obviously, he’s rather proud of the country and he wants to make sure Tunisia is represented at the finish line.
“But he went a little too far with it.”
Cook also opened the most dangerous part of his run, when he was kidnapped in the Congo by a gang armed with machetes.
“It was very emotional to be honest – I basically thought I was going to die at a few times that day,” Cook said.
Having reached 100,000 YouTube subscribers, Cook was to run 100 kilometers a day.
Running out of water, he became separated from his crew as they could not follow the same path.
He ended up running to a village where they tried to blackmail him for money.
“They ended up trying to get money out of me and then they took me out into the bush, two guys with a machete,” he said.
“I did myself a disservice. And then I emptied my bag—she had nothing but biscuits—she gave my biscuits, and I set her on foot.
“I was running in the jungle and then two guys came on a motorbike and they were trying to communicate… they were trying to take me to my friends. I don’t know if it’s true, normally the boys would send a no when they sent people for me, but I would run like 50k, I had no water and I was really dehydrated, really hungry, my phone had no signal — I have no choice. It’s either that or I camp out in the jungle for a night and that’s probably not a good idea.’
He went with the men and hope said to himself “if I’m not back with the boys in about half an hour, then I know it’s bad news.”
They were on the bike for seven hours and ended up in a farming village where they again tried to extort money from them.