Nico Hischier’s Kondi trainer joins the row: Swiss team for a coup in the Pacific frenzy

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The name is already cult in the sailing adventure scene. And now it looks like the Swiss rowing team “Kiwi Fondue” will also include its name in the list of winners.

Where? At the crazy rowing race Pacific Challenge, 4444 kilometers non-stop from Monterey, California, to Hawaii.

One thing is clear to the organizers of the Pacific Madness: it is the toughest rowing competition in the world. It takes about 1.5 million rowing strokes to get to Hawaii with muscle power.

A British resident of Lucerne by choice as the initiator

Kiwi Fondue consists of the Bernese brothers Alex and Lorenz Gammeter, the Englishman from Lucerne Alex Brooker and the Englishman from New Zealand Rich Henderson – hence the Swiss-New Zealand fusion name Kiwi Fondue.

The man behind the crazy project is Brooker. He works as a fitness trainer with Swiss athletes such as NHL star Nico Hischier and skier Joana Hählen.

Blick reaches Brooker via satellite phone in the mid-Pacific. “I was looking for adventure, for a physical challenge in nature,” says the Briton. He found her at sea: weeks on the Pacific in wind and weather, aching hands and feet, sleep deprivation, rowing day and night.

Brooker found three participants for the Pacific Challenge. “I knew Alex Gammeter from a ski tour,” he says. The aforementioned Spiezer is a mountain guide and independent notary. He brought his brother Lorenz to the project, a carpenter with a passion for the outdoors. And Henderson is used to the solitude of the high seas. He sailed as far as New Zealand.

In Hawaii, lovers are waiting to arrive

“Our goal was simply to get involved in the race and have a good time together,” says Brooker. But now Kiwi Fondue is clearly on course for victory ahead of Danish favorite Ocean Warrior, with Joachim Sutton, an Olympic bronze medalist, rowing with them.

“And we’ll probably break the world record,” says Brooker. A rowboat had never traveled faster from the American mainland to Hawaii. Kiwifondue is expected at the finish on Wednesday, the 31st day after the start – in the port of Nawiliwili, the reception by Alex Gammeter’s partners, parents and children is guaranteed to be emotional.

Source : Blick