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Talk with entusiasts
On 9th October 2002
Written by Ann Rosenbom
Photos by Morten Heide
Everything is possible, - but nobody says it has to be easy!
Two men on the stage in an exciting talk about the great force of willpower, courage and thorough preparations that it demands when the way to the goal is 1200 km on skies, across hills, ice and highly dangerous cracks in – 35 degrees of cold and stiff head wind!
Gregers Gjersøe and Kristian Joos became in 2000 the first Danes on ski to the South Pole, and that achievement holds many good stories. Not only the story about the journey across the ice, but also that it took one and a half years to procure the two millions to fund the adventure journey and all the equipment. Only the flight between Chile and the Antarctic cost 850.000 dkr, and the assurance of the whole journey cost 100.000 dkr.
It IS possible!
“We people set up some rules in our heads for what is possible and what is not. But remember: Where there is will, there is a way” so it sounds from Gregers and Kristian, and they can find the way. They made business plans, communication strategies, presentation material, home page, and then they contacted potential sponsors. To handle the economy they formed the firm Joos and Gjersøe Aps. At the same time they started hard training, pulling tyres to make the body used to pull the heavy pulks. They each put on 20 kg of weight in order to have body fat to waste away.
“As we finally landed on the Antarctic and we were ready to walk the 1200 km., we felt so privileged that the thought of giving up never crosses our minds”, Kristian explains on the question how you defy damages, pains, a lost vital parka coat, and go through 56 days of hardship.” There is no energy in negative thoughts, and therefore we had to think positive thoughts all the time, “ Gregers adds.
The talk was spices with beautiful pictures and video cuts, which illustrated the very moment when Kristian and Gregers put their hands on the shining metal ball which, in the middle of the “nothingness”, marks the South Pole. A strong moment where the dream and the goal had been reached. An ideal example that all is possible! Remember that!
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