Michael Strasser (extreme athlete)

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Michael Strasser Road cycling
Logo by Michael Strasser
Logo by Michael Strasser
To person
Date of birth April 16, 1983
nation AustriaAustria Austria
discipline Road , mountain bike
Driver type Randonneur
height 174 cm
Racing weight 62 kg
To the team
Current team Lauf & Triathlon Club (LTC) Seewinkel
Most important successes

World records

  • Crossing Russia 2013 (13 days, 3 hours)
  • Crossing Africa 2016 (36 days)
  • America crossing 2018 (84 days, 12 hours)
Last updated: October 16, 2018

Michael Strasser (born April 16, 1983 in Mödling , Lower Austria ) is an Austrian extreme athlete . He began his career as a competitive athlete as a triathlete , but gained greater fame as a long-distance cyclist . On his racing bike he crossed Russia (Race Across Russia) , Africa (Cairo2Cape) and America (Ice2Ice), each in world record times .

biography

Michael Strasser grew up in Trautmannsdorf an der Leitha . In 2014 he graduated from the Technical University of Vienna with a degree in architecture and has been a doctoral candidate ever since . In addition to his extreme sports projects, Strasser works as a course instructor at the sports institute of the University of Vienna . He is also a state-certified instructor for triathlon and competitive ski mountaineering as well as a cycling trainer and mountain bike guide.

He is not related to the extreme cyclist Christoph Strasser of the same age .

Triathlon and first projects

Strasser started triathlon in his twenties. In 2011 he was able to succeed for the first time in Podersdorf with fourth place at the state championships over the long distance . In the following years he won, among other things, the Austria Extreme Triathlon twice , which differs from ordinary Ironman competitions mainly in the extreme difference in altitude (5800 m). He achieved an exceptional performance in ski mountaineering on March 15, 2012, when he covered more than 8,848 vertical meters on the Stuhleck in 22 hours and two minutes. In the 8848 project - Nonstop on Everest , he covered a total of 97 km and, with the difference in altitude, equalized the record of two Tyroleans, but in contrast to these, he did without a service team or technical transport aids.

In August 2013, Strasser and three other cyclists crossed the Russian Federation from Moscow to Vladivostok (Race Across Russia) . For the 9208 km, the team led by Andreas Sachs needed 13 days and almost 3 hours, which enabled him to set a new world record . The team was accompanied by five vehicles with 16 helpers including interpreters . The television channels Russia Today and NTW Plus , as well as local newspapers, reported on the team of four several times. Cities in the European part of Russia were sometimes driven through with police escort.

Cairo2Cape or Coast2Coast

Michael Strasser realized his first major solo cycling project in the spring of 2016. In 34 days and eleven hours he crossed the African continent on a distance of 10,665 km from Cairo to Cape Town . He undercut both the solo record set by Scots Mark Beaumont in 2015 (41 days, 10 hours) and the team record from the same year (37.5 days). He also set the first record in 36 days for the 10,940 km and 66,000 m altitude  route between Alexandria ( Mediterranean Sea ) and Cape of Good Hope ( Indian Ocean ), which led him through nine countries. He described the poverty as special impressions - the team was often mistaken for an aid organization - and the encounter with wild animals. Every day he spent up to 18 hours in the saddle and a maximum of five hours sleeping. With the project, Strasser collected donations for his non-profit association Racing4Charity. Interested parties could “purchase” individual route sections and in this way follow live tracking .

Following his record performance, Strasser was on the TV show Hard to believe! of the NDR as a guest.

Ice2Ice

After a long period of acclimatization in Alaska , Strasser started his largest undertaking to date, crossing America from north to south on July 23, 2018 . The undertaking with almost 23,000 km - the longest land crossing in the world to date - and 168,000 meters in altitude was preceded by two years of planning. The aim was to beat the world record (99 days and 13 hours) set by the British Dean Scott in May 2018. On October 16, the Lower Austrian reached the finish in Tierra del Fuego after 84 days and almost 12 hours, clearly undercutting the existing record. On his journey between Prudhoe Bay and Ushuaia , which took him through a total of 14 countries, Strasser was supported by two escort vehicles with two supervisors each. As in Africa, he placed great emphasis on credibility and offered the possibility of live tracking on his website. In addition, Strasser completed the most kilometers of all users of the Strava social network in the months of August and September. On the Red Bulletin website , Strasser reported daily on his experiences in blog form.

The donations of 35,000 euros received as part of the project again benefited Racing4Charity and supported ALS and ME / CFS research. For this, Strasser was honored as an “athlete with a heart” as part of the election for Austria's athlete of the year 2018.

successes

The list contains a selection of the most important achievements of Michael Strasser.

2013

  • Crossing Russia ( Race Across Russia , Moscow - Vladivostok ): World record (9208 km in 13 days, 2 hours and 59 minutes, in a team with Andreas Sachs, Robert Lang and Walter Zelenka)

2014

  • Balatonman (triathlon over the Ironman distance): 1st place

2015

  • Austria Extreme Triathlon (3.8 / 188/44 km + 5800 m): 1st place
  • Social-Man-Extreme Triathlon (5/185/25 + 4900 Hm): 3rd place

2016

2017

  • Austria Extreme Triathlon (3.8 / 188/44 km + 5800 m): 1st place
  • Social-Man-Extreme Triathlon (5/185/25 + 4900 Hm): 3rd place

2018

  • Crossing America ( Ice2Ice , Prudhoe Bay - Ushuaia ): World record (22,642 km in 84 days, 11 hours and 50 minutes)

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Raimund Novak: Plagued by cramps, driven by ambition. NÖN , June 30, 2015, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Michael Strasser - portrait. Michael Strasser, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Uwe Mauch: Strasser: What unites and wheels Austria's most extreme namesake. Courier , July 22, 2018, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Everest height reached with helmet light and GPS. NÖN , March 21, 2012, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Project “8848 - Nonstop on Everest”. triaguide.com, 2012, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Stefanie Riegler: World record in Russia. NÖN , August 21, 2018, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  7. ↑ record. Cairo2Cape, accessed January 10, 2018 .
  8. ↑ a b Michael Strasser undercuts world record time by three days. Cairo2Cape, March 5, 2016, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  9. ^ Mathias Eßmeister: World record man Strasser: "A borderline experience". ORF , March 25, 2016, accessed on October 1, 2018 .
  10. ↑ “Hard to Believe” TV Show. Michael Strasser / Vimeo , accessed October 1, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Ice2Ice. Michael Strasser, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  12. ^ Raimund Novak: Michael Strasser: Gang wars and a curious bear. NÖN , July 18, 2018, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  13. ↑ a b c Strasser through America in record time. ORF , October 16, 2018, accessed on October 16, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Michael Strasser: Twice worldwide Strava winner. BVZ , October 4, 2018, accessed October 4, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Ice2Ice Blog: 23,000 Kilometers Across America - Week 11. The Red Bulletin , accessed October 2, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Strasser, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian extreme athlete
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1983
PLACE OF BIRTH Mödling