Arjun Vajpai climbed the Mount Everest in 2010 when he was just 16-years old. He now wants to become the first Indian man to climb all 14 peaks above 8000 m across the world.
New Delhi: Competing against Mother Nature is perhaps the most challenging task that professional athletes face. Whether it climbing hills or mountain biking or a triathlon, athletes face the toughest of obstacles and even surmount them with gay abandon. Indian professional mountaineer Arjun Vajpai, trained at the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi, reveals how he has managed to scale some of the highest mountains in the world. The 30-year-old is the world’s youngest to scale six peaks over 8000 metres in 2018.
It came as no surprise for a man who summited Mount Everest as a 16-year-old in 2010. The Delhi man now wants to become the first Indian man to climb all 14 peaks above 8000 m across the world. “It is my dream to climb all 14 mountains above 8000 meters and keep India’s flag flying high. This dream and the tunnel-vision or one-sighted aim keeps me going despite the harsh conditions mountaineering makes you go through,” Vajpai said in a ‘Fit India Champions’ podcast, an initiative of Sports Authority of India.
“As mountaineers, we are not competing against humans. We are competing against Mother Nature. Here, you will be tested against nature’s standards. So, we need to focus both on physical and mental fitness. There have been deaths of our fellow climbers, amputations done but we keep going. It’s our one-sighted aim to be at the top,” Vajpai added.
Vaijpai has been a pioneer in his field having scaled some of the most difficult Himalayan peaks like Lhotse, Makalu, Kanchenjunga, Manaslu and Annapurna. “The vision of Fit India is something I can relate with as well. Fitness has been an integral part of my life and I’ve spent a lot of time in staying fit each day.
“I try to motivate younger generation by being outside and teach kids the same. I am very happy to be a part of the movement and thank Hon’ble Prime Minister of India for launching this initiative,” added the professional mountaineer.
Vajpai was third on the list of celebrity athletes who have taken part in the podcast hosted by Ekta Vishnoi, the Deputy Director General of Sports Authority of India and the director of the Fit India Mission.