The most incredible athletes you’ve never heard of
Who is the greatest endurance athlete of all time?
Who has won the most ultramarathons, Ironman triathlons or achieved the most incredible endurance feats? Who is the fittest, toughest and most mentally strong human on the planet? Here are some of the contenders.
Yiannis Kouros
Why is he the greatest endurance athlete?
- Kouros holds all the world records from 100 to 1,000 miles and from 12 hours to six days.
- He ran 100 miles in 11 hours 46 minutes and 186 miles in one day.
- He has been nicknamed "The Running God" and "Pheidippides' Successor". Read our guide to the world's most extreme races, including the Spartathlon where Yiannis Kouros first made his name.
- Watch Kouros discuss the meaning of ultra running and his secrets: "you are clinically dead...no longer in control".
Scott Jurek
Why is he the greatest endurance athlete?
- Scott Jurek has had a huge cultural influence on the sport with a New York Times bestselling book Eat and Run espousing his vegan philosophy.
- He is one of the most popular ultramarathon runners, with a huge Facebook following.
- Despite winning the Spartathlon three times in a row and the Western States 100-mile run six years in a row, Jurek has a light-hearted approach to running: screaming at the beginning of each race, rolling over finishing lines and staying behind for hours to cheer late finishers.
Pam Reed
Why is she the greatest endurance athlete?
- Pam Reed is one of the few women to win an ultramarathon outright.
- She didn't just win any race, but one of the toughest the world, the Badwater UltraMarathon, a 135-mile run through Death Valley in temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius in the shade, finishing five hours ahead of her nearest male competitor.
- The 5 foot 3 inch tall mother-of-five was 41 when she won the Badwater in 2002, and for good measure won it outright again the next year.
- Reed once completed a 300-mile run without sleep.
Mark Allen
Why is he the greatest endurance athlete?
- Allen won the World Champion Ironman triathlon six times – a 2.4-mile open water swim, 112 mile bike ride and full-length marathon.
- He also won the World Champion Ironman triathlon five times in a row from 1989 to 1993, when he set a world record of 8 hours and 7 minutes that lasted until 2011.
- Best nickname in the sport: The Grip, as in, 'of death'.
Chrissie Wellington
Why is she the greatest endurance athlete?
- In the biggest shock in the sport, Chrissie Wellington won the Hawaii Ironman triathlon on her first attempt in 2007, then continued winning the next three world championships she entered.
- Wellington holds all three Ironman triathlon record times and the next four fastest times.
- She only started running in her mid-twenties as a way to lose weight. She has also overcome a major bike crash before her 2011 championship and in 2008, still won despite losing ten minutes because of a flat tyre.
- She's British.
(Photos - Book, Yiannis Kouros, Mark Allen, Scott Jurek, Pam Reed, Chrissie Wellington)
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