Chris Seynaeve wins 6633 Arctic Ultra Canada-USA

Cover 400 km in exactly 6 days, 6 hours and 16 minutes, or an average of more than 65 km per day at an average of 3 km per hour, covering an altitude difference of 3,650 m in temperatures regularly down to -40°C. Numbers to make your head spin. 43-year-old Chris Seynaeve from Izegem in West Flanders has done just that. With all his equipment he was the first to finish the 6633 Arctic Ultra in Canada-USA. He stayed well under the target seven days to reach the finish line. It is clear what an almost inhumanly difficult task that ultramarathon was. The race started in the town of Dawson, in Canada's northwesternmost Yukon territory, and finished 400 km beyond the Arctic Circle in the US city of Alaska. Icy cold, vicious gusts of wind and frozen landscapes kept Seynaeve company the entire time.

In total, only 19 participants have completed this race since it was introduced in 2007. That says enough. And to think that Chris Seynaeve behaved like a real Burgundian until a few years ago. When a cousin with whom he once wanted to run a marathon died, he turned his life around. But after five Iron Mans and twice the Marathon des Sables in the southern Moroccan desert, he is thinking of finally calling it a day.