Paralympian gold medallist and marathon king Kurt Fearnley has crawled his way to the top of Sydney Tower in 20 minutes, faster than most able-bodied people can do it.

The 28-year-old bolted up all 1,504 fire stairs, two at a time, with his six-month-old chocolate labrador Alby.

The record time for the annual Sydney Tower Run-up is six minutes and 52 seconds, but Tower manager Jade Hayes says most people with a good fitness level need 25 minutes.

Fearnley is in training to defend his Chicago and New York marathon titles after marathon wins in Paris, London, Seoul and Sydney, and the Kokoda Trail in November.

Watch an interview with Kurt Fearnley

Posted September 16, 2009

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Margie McDonald From: The Australian November 02, 2009

TWO-time Paralympic marathon gold medallist Kurt Fearnley has won his fourth straight New York marathon this morning (AEDT).

The 28-year-old, who won the Chicago marthon two weeks ago, edged out South African veteran Krige Schabort in a photo finish.

Both wheelchair racers stopped the clock at 1hour 35min 58sec forcing judges to go to the cameras to see whose wheel-tip was in front.

Shabort finished third to Fearnley in Chicago but today in New York he kept right on his tail.

The pair broke from the pack in the first five kilometres. By the half-way mark in the 42km race they had built up a lead of more than two minutes and continued to pull away.

Nothing could split the duo as they entered Central Park steaming towards the finish line. With 50 metres left Fearnley had one final surge.

“I can't believe it came down to the last metre,” Fearnley said.

“I attacked more than a dozen times during the race and tried to get a bit of a lead, but I couldn't break him.”

Marcel Hug of Switzerland out-sprinted a pack of athletes to finish third, more than four minutes behind the Fearnley and Schabort.

He couldn't lift his arms afterwards but the Australian couldn't wipe the smile off his face.

“I couldn't be happier,” he said.

“That was one of the hardest races I have ever pushed and to finish in front is amazing.”

After defending his Athens gold by collecting the Beijing Games marathon gold medal in August last year, Fearnley has now finished 2009 unbeaten, with six marathon wins from six starts _ Seoul, Paris, London, Sydney, Chicago and New York.

But he has little time to rest. Along with a group of family and friends, Fearnley, who was born without a complete spinal cord, will leave his wheelchair and crawl the 98km Kokoda track in Papua New Guinea starting next Sunday.

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Four in a row for Fearnley in New York

The defending champion has been in New York City since Tuesday preparing for the race, a close contest that came down to the final centimetres.

Fearnley led the race at the start but settled in behind good friend Krige Schabort of South Africa at the half way mark.

The 28-year-old is used to leading at the final stages, but this year was different.

Feanley chased down Schabort on the final sprint into Central Park, edging him out by centimetres.

"I'm hurting mate, that one took a bit, that's the closest finish I've ever had," he said.

He finished the 42.2-kilometre course in a time of one hour, 36 minutes.

He says having to sprint at the finish really hurt.

"That was hard, I don't think the arms are used sprinting and I felt like they were just full of mud there coming up with 100 metres to go," he said.

"I was looking at Krige's front wheel just yelling at myself not to let it by me.

"He's a hell of a guy to race with, he's been racing for 20 years and he said this is the strongest field he's ever pushed in outside the Paralympics.

"To go one two with him and get over the top by an inch, that's a good race."

It is the 40th anniversary of the New York Marathon and Fearnley says this one is extra special.

"Four in a row, toughest race on the planet, it doesn't get any better than this," he said.

"It's a hell of a way to finish the racing for the year.

"Any medal that's made at Tiffany's is a pretty special medal, but this one is going straight to the cellar. This one is getting kept."

Just three weeks ago Fearnley won the Chicago Marathon and his list of challenges do not stop today.

He will fly back to Australia tomorrow and next weekend he will attempt to crawl the 96-kilometre Kokoda Track.

"I've got 12 hours to soak in this atmosphere," he said.

"I'm going to see a [New York] Jets [NFL] game, then ill get on an plane and it's all Kokoda from there."

He will crawl the track with 15 of his close family and friends to raise awareness for men's health.

"The boys are amazing, if it's at all possible to get through this track it will be with them around me, I think it's going to be great," he said.

It was a great day for Australia in the wheelchair division, with Christie Dawes finishing in fourth place in the women's event.

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Mateship in War and Sport
by Sally Robbins WA Today.com.au

Two-time paralympic champion Kurt Fearnley, a four-time winner of the New York Wheelchair marathon, is already a hero.

But the journey on which he is about to embark will cement this even more. He is taking on the challenge of attempting to crawl 96km of steep and slippery terrain of the Kokoda Track this Saturday.

Many might say that he was mad, considering able-bodied people struggle with the walk and two Australians died within a week of each other while walking the trail in April.

But Fearnley said even though he was a little bit worried, he had 15 close family and friends to help him through.

What inspired the crawl was watching a family member battle depression, resulting in their death and he felt that it was a perfect way to raise awareness of this issue by campaigning for Beyondblue and Movember, both targeting men's health.

He said the trip was about mateship and "blokes supporting other blokes and asking for help when they need it".

You might ask why the Kokoda Track? Well, what better link to make by connecting a successful sportsman who has had many struggles of his own to the battlefields of WWII.

Australia has very strong ties with both sport and war. Both determine how Australians see themselves and how the world sees them.

Throughout history, war and sport have been linked, whether it is through military training exercises or associating competition with qualities such as loyalty, mateship, courage, leadership, physical prowess and national pride.

Some might claim though that comparing war and sport trivialises what those in a real war endured.

Sport in one way may reinforce antagonisms bred on battlefields, which keeps the memories of battles long ago "alive" and may exacerbate the "ill feeling" and hostility between countries. However a journey such as this one brings nothing but positives, apart from aching limbs, blisters and maybe a few cuts and bruises.

From Fearnley's perspective it is all about mateship. Many men during World War II had it far worse. As well as having bullets flying past them, they were battling malaria, dysentery and often crawling to safety with legs and other limbs missing.

Just as some of the soldiers relied on other diggers to get them to safety Fearnley may also need to call on his support network to complete his challenge.

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Fearnley embarking on difficult quest

Tue Oct 27, 2009 By Joe Battaglia / Universal SportsWatch ING New York City Marathon

November 1 on UniversalSports.com and NBC TV

CHICAGO -- His arms burned with an ache like he never felt before.

His hands were chaffed with blisters from the rough concrete.

For a split second after climbing those 20 flights of stairs that November afternoon, Kurt Fearnley questioned what he was getting himself into. But that fleeting moment of doubt was hardly enough to squelch the indomitable will of a champion on a quest.

Last year, the nine-time Paralympic medalist and winner of 23 marathons over the last eight years decided that he wanted to complete the Kokoda Track, a 60-mile stretch through the jungle and mountains of Papua New Guinea steeped in history.

The trail is also among the most inaccessible and dangerous in the world, so arduous that earlier this month it claimed the lives of two able-bodied trekkers.

Fearnley, who lost the use of his legs due to a developmental disorder of the spine, plans to crawl Kokoda on his hands and knees six days after he competes in the ING New York City Marathon.

"Everyone says to me, ‘Have you gone mad? What are you thinking?'" the 28-year-old said a day before winning his third straight title at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. "My job is to race for Australia, and the Track has a huge significance in Australian history. For me, I think it's going to be a bit about figuring out who we are. It is also a chance for me and my family and friends to experience something positive and challenging."

Fearnley is crawling Kokoda to raise money for the charity Movember, which supports awareness of men's health issues in Australia, particularly depression and prostate cancer. In this aim, his ties to Kokoda are personal.

"I lost my cousin, Peter Smith, to depression," Fearnley said. "Blokes in our country find it hard to talk to other blokes about what's affecting them. We fellas need to need to learn that we can talk to other fellas and when we ask for help it is often received with nothing but good will. If you can turn to your friend, or your brother, or your cousin, and can ask for help, so much more can be accomplished. Even a guy in a wheelchair can feel confident enough to crawl the Kokoda Track."

HISTORY BEHIND THE HIKE

The Kokoda Track is a single-file foot trail that starts just outside Port Moresby and runs 60 miles through the Owen Stanley Range in Papua New Guinea. The trail crosses rugged and isolated terrain, and reaches a height of 7,185 feet as it passes around the peak of Mount Bellamy.

The trail was first used by European gold miners in the 1890s. During the Pacific War of World War II a series of battles, afterwards called the Kokoda Track Campaign, were fought from July 1942 to January 1943 between Japanese and Australian forces.

Japanese forces had originally hoped to take Port Moresby, on New Guinea's southeastern shore, by sea. However, having been repulsed by the United States Navy in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May and again in the Battle of Midway in June, the Japanese resorted to a land invasion. Landing at Buna on New Guinea's northeastern shore, Japanese soldiers advanced the Kokoda Trail toward Port Moresby.

The Australian forces were both outnumbered and inexperienced, particularly at jungle warfare. After they were initially unable to stop the Japanese, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur reinforced the Australians with more seasoned Allied troops and in November 1942, they had retaken Kokoda. By January 1943, Japanese forces were pushed off the island.

Kokoda was the first time Australians fought and died repelling an invader on Australian soil without the material presence or support of the United Kingdom.

"It's the only track where a battle has been fought in the direct defense of Australia," Fearnley said. "We've never had a war in Australia. The closest we got was New Guinea, where Australian soldiers fought in defense of our country as the Japanese were moving toward Australia. That's where our ties became tighter with the U.S. because that was the time when we turned to General MacArthur and the U.S. because the English weren't there to help us."

Fearnley said he has been particularly inspired by the story of Corporal John Metson, who was serving in Papua New Guinea during in August 1942 when he was shot in the ankle. Metson refused to burden his comrades with the task of carrying him on a stretcher. Bandaging his knees and hands, he crawled Kokoda for three weeks until he was finally killed in a Japanese ambush.

"People crawled down there with legs missing, with limbs missing, with bullets shooting at them, with dysentery, with malaria, with an army on their heels," Fearnley said. "There are going to be no bullets flying at us, no one chasing us, no one trying to stop us. No matter how tough we seem to be having it, people have had it far worse. Along that track, there isn't a thing you could do that could even compare to what people went through in the past. That's why it's very doable."

NOT A WALK IN THE PARK

Australian casualties in the war have been estimated at more than 2,100 while it is believed that 12,000 of the 18,000 Japanese troops who fought in New Guinea died. The challenges that those troops faced 67 years ago - hot, humid days, intensely cold nights, torrential rainfall, risk of endemic tropical diseases - are the same that trekkers face today.

Since 2001, the steep, slippery terrain of Kokoda has claimed the lives of six people who have attempted to walk it, including four this year alone.

Imagine then pulling yourself, hand over hand, through the mud and over the debris and across the streams that cut through the wilderness like Fearnley will.

For almost two weeks straight.

"It's going to be 12 days of crawling through jungle," Fearnley said. "It's hard on your body. It's a tough, just-brutal thing to put your body through. It's going to be tougher than even I can imagine."
But Fearnley has prepared himself the best that he can.

His physical preparation began almost a year ago, but kicked into high gear in May following the Sydney Marathon. His workouts have consisted of crawling up and down flights of stairs and through the bush near his home in Newcastle. In early October, accompanied by his dog Alby, he climbed the 1,504 stairs of the Centrepoint Tower in Sydney on his hands and knees, making it to the top in 20 minutes.

"It's ‘Planet of the Apes' material," he said. "I've been crawling through mud. I've been crawling up and down the steepest descents I can find. I've been crawling between 10 and 20 kilometers a week, and then I'm doing as many stairs as I can do, between 50 and 100 flights of stairs a day.

"There's stairs just outside my house and I just go up and back, up and back, up and back. Now, I can knock out 60 stairs in half an hour if I put my head down. My first training session was terrible. I did 20 flights of stairs and I was just shattered, full of blisters and all that sort of stuff. I hadn't gotten the gloves. I hadn't gotten any of the equipment really sorted out."

EQUIPPED FOR THE CHALLENGE

After that initial workout, Fearnley worked on coming up with gear to protect his extremities from the elements and friction of the crawl.

To keep his skin dry, and thus firmer and more resistant to tearing, he will wear a neoprene wetsuit, similar to what surfers or divers might wear. The wetsuit will be adorned with rubber and treading to protect his shins, knees, and elbows. His shoes will be capped with steel. For support, he will also wear a steel wrist brace covered with rubber. Fearnley said all of his gear is custom designed.

"Me and my cobbler, my boot maker, kind of put our heads together and came up with it so it's all made from scratch," he said. "It took a long time to develop it but I'm finally happy with what we've got. I think we've done good."

Fearnley laughed off the threat of "creepy crawlers, snakes and wombats," but admitted to being far more concerned with the threat of malaria, a parasitic disease most often transmitted through mosquito bites but one that can also be water-borne.

Fearnley said he will begin taking preventative medication the week before the crawl and then again for two weeks afterward. During the expedition, he said immediate treatment of the slightest injury will be paramount to survival.

"You need to make sure that you're on top of every single cut, anything that can get a bit of bacteria or disease into your bloodstream," Fearnley said. "Every injury has to be treated with respect. It's 96 kilometers and every meter can be the one that gets you. It's the most inaccessible place on the planet. You're crawling over mossy logs and there is something like 15 river crossings. Every step can be the one that you need to get flown home for. I've been racing marathons for about 10 years now and I wouldn't mind doing it for another five or 10 so I'm going to take every precaution possible."

Fearnley said he is not sure how crawling the Kokoda Track will impact him or his marathon racing. He expects that his life will be different afterward.

"This is about as far removed from my comfort zone as I have ever been," he said. "Marathons for me are more about finesse. They're about technique and being as technically perfect as you can time and time again for an hour and a half. Crawling is being brute-strong dragging yourself for hours and hours and hours.

"After going through something like this mentally, I will probably see things differently. All I can be sure of is that I'm doing it for the right reasons and that I think I'm in the right place right now to be able to give it a crack."

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Four in a row for Fearnley in New York
By Jennifer Browning in New York

The defending champion has been in New York City since Tuesday preparing for the race, a close contest that came down to the final centimetres.

Fearnley led the race at the start but settled in behind good friend Krige Schabort of South Africa at the half way mark.

The 28-year-old is used to leading at the final stages, but this year was different.

Feanley chased down Schabort on the final sprint into Central Park, edging him out by centimetres.

"I'm hurting mate, that one took a bit, that's the closest finish I've ever had," he said.

He finished the 42.2-kilometre course in a time of one hour, 36 minutes.

He says having to sprint at the finish really hurt.

"That was hard, I don't think the arms are used sprinting and I felt like they were just full of mud there coming up with 100 metres to go," he said.

"I was looking at Krige's front wheel just yelling at myself not to let it by me.

"He's a hell of a guy to race with, he's been racing for 20 years and he said this is the strongest field he's ever pushed in outside the Paralympics.

"To go one two with him and get over the top by an inch, that's a good race."

It is the 40th anniversary of the New York Marathon and Fearnley says this one is extra special.

"Four in a row, toughest race on the planet, it doesn't get any better than this," he said.

"It's a hell of a way to finish the racing for the year.

"Any medal that's made at Tiffany's is a pretty special medal, but this one is going straight to the cellar. This one is getting kept."

Just three weeks ago Fearnley won the Chicago Marathon and his list of challenges do not stop today.

He will fly back to Australia tomorrow and next weekend he will attempt to crawl the 96-kilometre Kokoda Track.

"I've got 12 hours to soak in this atmosphere," he said.

"I'm going to see a [New York] Jets [NFL] game, then ill get on an plane and it's all Kokoda from there."

He will crawl the track with 15 of his close family and friends to raise awareness for men's health.

"The boys are amazing, if it's at all possible to get through this track it will be with them around me, I think it's going to be great," he said.

It was a great day for Australia in the wheelchair division, with Christie Dawes finishing in fourth place in the women's event.

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November 3, 2009
By JOHN JEANSONNE john.jeansonne@newsday.com

Fearnley victorious in mad dash for wheelchair title

He was in a hurry, Kurt Fearnley explained. The 28-year-old Australian had arranged to attend his first NFL game at the Meadowlands on Sunday afternoon, but that wasn't what demanded all of his strength and urgency in the final yards of the New York City Marathon's wheelchair division, started at 8:20 a.m.

Fearnley, the three-time defending champion, found himself in a mad dash, wheel-to-wheel with 48-year-old Krige Schabort, a South African-born resident of Cedartown, Ga., as both barreled toward the finish line. They had chatted during the race and traded a friendly fist bump at one point. "We looked after each other," Fearnley said. "We nursed each other through."

But at the end, Fearnley "saw his wheel there and just kept screaming at myself not to let him pass me."

Fearnley hung on by inches - both were timed in 1 hour, 35 minutes, 58 seconds. And Fearnley was off to watch the Jets play. Switzerland's Edith Hunkeler had an easier time in winning her fifth New York title in the women's wheelchair event, in 1:58:15.