Montreal Gazette

Extreme consequenc­es

YUKON ULTRA-RACE UNDER FIRE AS COMPETITOR AWAITS AMPUTATION

- JOE O’CONNOR AND VANESSA HRVATIN

Roberto Zanda was hauling a sled loaded with lifesaving gear — a tent, sleeping bag, cooking stove, food, spare clothes — on a trail in the middle of the frozen Yukon landscape when a man with dark glasses appeared. The man urged the Italian ultra-racer to head for a cabin in the nearby woods and to climb through the window. Someone was there waiting to help. And Roberto Zanda needed help.

The Montane Yukon Arctic Ultra bills itself as the “world’s toughest and coldest ultra race.” This year’s edition of the 480-kilometre slog, across frozen rivers, up and down mountain slopes and along fir-lined dogsled tracks, in February, was among the coldest on record, with temperatur­es touching -50 Celsius.

As the around-the-clock event edged into its sixth day, Zanda was one of only three competitor­s left on the course, the others having surrendere­d to the brutal conditions, many suffering from frostbite, hypothermi­a or both.

But Zanda endured. His nickname — Massiccion­e — means the “tough one” in Italian. He had run across Middle Eastern deserts, traversed jagged mountain ranges and pushed through blistering African heat, never wavering. His muscled legs looked like tree stumps. But as another night wore on in the Yukon, the 61-yearold felt a surge of panic. He wasn’t battling a desert sun but a deep, foreboding cold, a cold that could freeze exposed skin in two to five minutes and that had wicked into his body, gnawing at his legendary reserve, muddying his judgment.

Zanda fumbled to open his SPOT tracker, the racer’s lifeline, a critical piece of GPS technology allowing event organizers back in Whitehorse to pinpoint his whereabout­s on the trail, but that could also be used to send a distress signal in an emergency. But Zanda couldn’t feel his fingers. He couldn’t activate the device. It was February 6, just past 10 p.m., and he was alone, with the temperatur­e falling.

That’s when Zanda made a near fatal decision, abandoning his sled, SPOT tracker and belongings on the trail, and doing as the man in the dark glasses — a hypothermi­a-induced hallucinat­ion — had told him to do: heading into the forest in search of a cabin that wasn’t there. At some point, he became stuck in a snowdrift, freeing himself by removing his shoes and socks. He faded in and out of consciousn­ess, spoke with the “shadows,” resolved not to die — and appealed to God to save him.

When race volunteers finally found him late the next morning, he was half dead from the cold, his bare feet and hands blackened with fourth-degree frostbite. A helicopter airlifted him to Whitehorse General Hospital, where doctors wrapped his damaged appendages in white bandages and offered a grim prognosis: amputation of the hands and feet was almost a certainty.

“Whether I had hallucinat­ions or not, whether someone saw me or not, whether there was shelter or not, the moral of this is that I am alive,” Zanda told the Italian news site tgcom24. “No matter what, I am alive.”

The world is a big place and yet smaller and less mysterious than at any point in history. Once unknowable frontiers are now known to Google Maps in 3D view. There are no great rivers to discover, oceans to sail, lost cities to search for or new mountains to climb. So what is left for the modern explorer — for the Roberto Zandas and the other extreme athletes among us — is the search not for an actual place, but for the answer to a fundamenta­lly human question: How far can a person push themselves before they break?

Zanda didn’t travel to the Yukon because he wanted to freeze to death in the forest. He went there because he wanted to feel alive. And it is this subtle tension in extreme racing — between keeping competitor­s safe and allowing them to push the boundaries of what is humanly possible in an extreme environmen­t — that has come under fire in the aftermath of Zanda’s neardeath ordeal.

The National Post has translated several Italian media accounts of the race, including interviews with Zanda in hospital, as well as the Facebook posts of him and his life partner, Giovanna Caria. Caria, who was in Italy during the race, has been highly critical of the Yukon event. Accusing its organizers of negligence and questionin­g why Zanda — who struggles with basic English — was allowed to enter the event, when the race waiver he was given to sign, assuming responsibi­lity for his possible death, was written in a language he doesn’t understand.

The pre-race training course, in and around Whitehorse, detailing everything from equipment care to emergency procedures, was also in English. Caria is especially furious that Zanda wasn’t halted by race officials at the Carmacks checkpoint — the race’s 278 km mark — where the Italian devoured a hot meal before heading back on to the trail, and the hallucinat­ions awaiting him there.

“There’s not only the risk of frostbite, there are other symptoms that athletes themselves can’t recognize,” Caria wrote in a March 3 Facebook post. “So there needs to be someone at each checkpoint who can provide a medical opinion. Did (Roberto) have the mental capability to go on ...? No.

“Were his clothes dry? No. Did anybody ask him how long he hadn’t slept for? No. Was he able to use the SPOT (tracker) with his frozen hands? No.

“Did the organizers think of everything? No.”

Frode Lein, a Norwegian ultra-racer, is friendly with Zanda from desert competitio­ns and regards the Italian as a “tough and good runner.” Zanda expressed concerns about the extreme cold to Lein, but “was very determined to complete the race.” Lein regularly trains in -20 Celsius conditions in Norway. But even with his Arctic background, the deep Yukon freeze was jolting and so he paired with Asbjorn Bruun, a Danish racer, so that they could watch over one another during the long cold nights.

“For one occasion at night (-50), I took my hand out of my glove to find some food,” Lein says. “My hand did not get cold as usual. After two or three minutes, I realized that the feelings had just disappeare­d and it took 15-20 minutes of hard work to get the circulatio­n back.”

Lein’s SPOT tracker conked out three times. By relying on electronic­s, he says, the organizers gave the racers a false sense of security. And even in an emergency, a competitor who signalled for help during the night would not be rescued until morning — and would then be slapped with a $150 evacuation fee.

“When there are so many people ending up with frostbite, this is a sign of bad organizati­on,” Lein says. “Profession­al runners who participat­e in this type of race are looking for challenges in difficult areas, but expect the organizer to take care of safety — and create a safe framework for the participan­ts along the way.

“That’s why we pay US$2,500 to enter.”

Robert Pollhammer founded the Yukon ultra in 2003. The 44-year-old German operates an outdoor gear business in his home country, but travels to the Canadian north each winter to oversee the event. In a post-race report published Feb. 11, he mentions Zanda, writing that the Italian “got into trouble” and had to be rescued — but had plans to be back next year.

Pollhammer has competed in ultra-races and defended the Yukon event in an email to the National Post, stating that Zanda had access to a race volunteer who spoke fluent Italian — and “got all vital informatio­n in his mother tongue.” He added that the Italian “showed no signs of hypothermi­a or frostbite” when he arrived at the Carmacks checkpoint and “in fact was looking rather good.” His critical error, hours later, was to unhook from his sled, which Pollhammer describes as “the athlete’s lifeline.”

Asked whether he would do anything differentl­y in hindsight, Pollhammer allowed that tweaks are always being made to his race, but that the greatest responsibi­lity for personal safety resides with the individual competitor.

“Reflecting on the race and making changes to increase safety is an ongoing process,” he wrote in an email. “Will this guarantee that it is impossible somebody gets hypothermi­c and makes mistakes? I do not know. Anybody can make mistakes.

“It is human.”

Two weeks after he got lost in the Canadian forest, Zanda was transferre­d to a hospital in northern Italy specializi­ng in mountain medicine and extreme frostbite. He is now on a heavy cocktail of anticoagul­ants and vasodilato­rs, while undergoing experiment­al stem cell treatment in an effort to regrow the ruined arteries in his hands and feet. A psychiatri­st has been helping him piece together his memory of events, though blank patches remain. His Italian medical team has said that the only reason he is alive is because of his toughness — and the care he received from the doctors in Whitehorse.

Whatever drove the Italian to race through deserts, across mountains and in the bitter Yukon cold still appears to be driving him now as he waits to see what physical parts of him will be lost.

“It’s fear that makes the masks you wear every day fall,” Zanda wrote in a Facebook post on Feb. 27. “But when real fear stares you right in the face, and you embrace it, you realize that it takes less physical and mental energy than it does to travel 500 km at -50 degrees Celsius.”

Those who love Zanda and have competed alongside him have damned the Yukon event, but the Italian remains philosophi­cal about his journey through the cold, dark night, somehow elevated above his suffering.

“I will lose something and maybe I will lose everything,” he wrote. “But this doesn’t make me lose the will to love life even more.”

WERE HIS CLOTHES DRY? NO. DID ANYBODY ASK HIM HOW LONG HE HADN’T SLEPT FOR? NO.

 ?? JOE BISHOP / MONTANE YUKON ARCTIC ULTRA ?? Roberto Zanda runs along the beautiful but dangerous Yukon Arctic Ultra race course.
JOE BISHOP / MONTANE YUKON ARCTIC ULTRA Roberto Zanda runs along the beautiful but dangerous Yukon Arctic Ultra race course.
 ?? JOE BISHOP / MONTANE YUKON ARCTIC ULTRA ?? Roberto Zanda became disoriente­d during the race, stripping off his shoes and socks.
JOE BISHOP / MONTANE YUKON ARCTIC ULTRA Roberto Zanda became disoriente­d during the race, stripping off his shoes and socks.
 ?? FACEBOOK ?? Yukon Ultra Race competitor­s Roberto Zanda, left, of Italy, and Frode Lein, of Norway. Right: Zanda’s bandaged hand, which he is in danger of losing due to frostbite.
FACEBOOK Yukon Ultra Race competitor­s Roberto Zanda, left, of Italy, and Frode Lein, of Norway. Right: Zanda’s bandaged hand, which he is in danger of losing due to frostbite.
 ?? FRODE LEIN ??
FRODE LEIN

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