Slovenia - the land of extreme athletes
What drives people to run or cycle across entire continents? Swim the entire rivers or have an idea to ski from a mountain that most people don't even dare to climb? Doing things that no one has done before. Test (and torture?) yourself to the limit. I guess we will never really fully understand these outstanding people that move the line of what is possible for a human to achieve. People that really dedicate their lives to the thing they love most. Here below are 4 outstanding Slovenes with their jaw dropping achievements:
Davo Karničar
Skiing was always considered a national sport for us. At Bloke, a region known for its harsh winters, local people used simple skis, already centuries ago for their everyday needs. Elan has been a Slovenian manufacturer of skis since 1945 and might even be the inventor of carving skis.
Their innovations also helped their ambasador Davo Karničar in 2000 to achieve something almost unimaginable, first uninterrupted ski descent from top of Mount Everest to Base camp! It took him 4h40min, after of course climbing to the top. In the years following, he completed his project 7 summits, in which he skied from all the highest mountain tops of every continent! Not to mention all other ski descents like Annapurna, Eiger, Matterhorn or in his home mountains in Kamniško Savinjske Alpe. Who knows what other project he would achieve if sadly his life wouldn't end tragically while cutting trees at his property in Jezersko at the age of 56.
Check out this short documentary about him: Davo Karničar - Neustavljiv (Unstoppable)
Dušan Mravlje
For most normal people, finishing a 42km running marathon is quite an achievement. At this distance Dušan Mravlje slowly warms up. He is the ultimate long distance running machine. At the age of 72 he still runs on a daily basis, however in his prime he set many records and won over 60 long distance ultra marathons. In his 30 year career he completed over 300.000km! If you think driving a car across continents is an epic trip, Dušan ran competitive races like TransAmerica (4800km), TransAustralia (4360km), Sidney-Melbourne (1060km), Athens-Sparta (245km), Death Valley (220km). He is knows for his use of very minimalistic running shoes, way before it was popular. On long races he cut top front part of the shoes off, to give space to swollen feet. For modern nutritionist his diet would be a total no-go, but it worked for him. Having only isotonic drinks during his running (with a beer or two occasionally towards the end), a lot of meat and potatoes after the stages and almost nothing for breakfast (except coffee) before the stages. Mentally a total rock, he often crushed his opponents with his psychological mind games.
Read his biography: Dušan Mravlje | Boštjan Fon - Knjigarna Bukla
Jure Robič
Jure Robič was a cycling version of Dušan Mravlje. Ultra long distances and non-stop races were his thing. Starting as a professional cyclist and being Slovenian national champion, later he found his passion in long distances and mastered it to perfection. He had over 100 wins in his career, but was best known for winning Race Across America (RAAM) 5 times between 2004 and 2010. This is a non stop race without stages that takes cyclists from the Pacific coast in California to the other side in Atlantic city. He came across the finish line in just over 8 days! Who knows how many more wins he would achieve if it
wasn’t for an unfortunate collision with a car while training back in Slovenia. He was killed in September 2010 at the age of 45.
Documentary about Jure winning 2007 RAAM: Oglejte si dokumentarec v spomin Juretu Robiču - RTV SLO
Martin Strel
Martin Strel is probably the most controversial of the athletes mentioned in this article, so let's just start with some of his main achievements in open waters swimming. As first person ever, he swam complete lengths of some of the longest rivers in the world: The Danube river (2000), 3004 km, 58 days. The Mississippi river (2002), 3797 km, 68 days. The Yangtze River (2004), 4003 km, 51 days. The Amazon River (2007), 5268 kms, 66 days. The main challenges in these kinds of projects are: parasites and pollution, piranhas, crocodiles, sunburn, rashes on body from being in the water for 10h a day for 2 months. Some people are making fun, that he is swimming rivers but also a log would come the same way. In his defense, he also swam across the English channel and From Africa to Europe in the Mediterranean sea.
To get a better understanding about the whole scene around Martin Strel you have to check out his documentary about swimming the Amazon BIG RIVER MAN (Sundance, 2009)
Tevž Černigoj, 10.3.2025
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