Stephanie Case Becomes First Woman to Finish 100 Miles in Antarctica
Canadian ultrarunner Stephanie Case has become the first woman to complete a 100-mile race in Antarctica, finishing second overall in 17 hours, 31 minutes and 39 seconds. BBC Sport reported the result.
An ultramarathon is any race longer than a standard marathon's 42.2km. The Antarctic Ice Ultra asks runners to complete 38 loops of a 4.2km course in the Schirmacher Oasis, an ice-free area in Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica. Each lap passes the same ground again and again, so the mental test is as hard as the physical one.
The cold made it harder still. Temperatures fell as low as -35C, the coldest the organisers have ever recorded. Because of the harsh conditions, the 100-mile race was brought forward to a 1am start on Sunday morning. Only four of the eight runners who began the race reached the finish.
The race had only ever been attempted by men until this year. Three women started, and Case was the only one to finish. She is 43 and works as a human rights lawyer, and she has now added a first that no woman had claimed before her in this event.
The winner was Yusheng Ni from China, who crossed the line 29 minutes ahead of Case. Ni broke his own world record, set last year, by more than five and a half hours. A world record is the fastest time ever recorded for an event, and Ni has now completed more than 500 ultramarathons.
Case is no stranger to attention. Last year she went viral after she breastfed her baby daughter, Pepper, during her victory at an ultramarathon in Snowdonia, in Wales. Her result in Antarctica adds another striking chapter to a career built on endurance.
For a general reader, the story is simple. A small field of runners faced temperatures colder than most people will ever experience, and one of the few who finished was a woman making history in a race that had never seen one before. Ni's time shows what the course allows at its very best, while Case's second place shows what it takes to keep going when the cold and the loops wear you down.
