37 years old, Eco Challenge racer

Dive master, sky diver, marathon runner, martial arts champion, author, philanthropist, motivation speaker, venture capitalist, adventure racer, chef… Life is a check list for Derek Kwik, the first Chinese, and 13^th person in the world, to have raced the four hottest, driest, highest, and coldest deserts (the Gobi, the Sahara, the Atacama and ‘The Last Desert’ of Antarctica). “I have no idea why I would be a hero,” he says. “I don’t see myself as doing anything special or unique. I don’t have any special talents that no one else has. I’m not tall. I’m not a professional athlete. I don’t have an S on my chest.”

But he does have one superpower that not too many possess, and that is the ability to block out all the external noise and get the job done: trek the Amazon jungle, check; cross the South Pole, check; survive the Atacama desert, check. For him it is all about finishing. It’s just not an option not to cross something off the list. “It’s either do or do not, there is no try,” he mantras. “I come from a no class family, with no privileges, and dad would tell me, ‘If you need something done, you gotta just do it.’”

Kwik was racing in the Eco-Challenge, in 2000, when he realised he was in deep trouble. Grown men are known to cry at this event, otherwise known as the Olympics of Adventure Racing, thought up by Survivor’s Mark Burnett. Navy Seals and Iron Man champions have been known to break down mentally because of the immense stress. Five hundred kilometres over ten days, no campsites, no sleep, no time outs, no way out, non-stop, go go go.

Kwik was rowing with his Hong Kong team, in the middle of the ocean off Borneo, when he saw a wall of white rain and black clouds form above. They were miles away from land, and their little wooden outrigger would easily tip over if they were caught in the storm. “All I could think of was getting us to land. We had to keep paddling. One girl started crying, another teammate just sat there silently. All I could think of was to start singing Row, row, row your boat,” Kwik recalls. The storm got closer and closer, and then a lightning bolt struck the water 100 metres away. “All the singing stopped.” They lowered the mast, as it was the highest point of the boat, but then their heads were the highest point, so they got into the water and held onto the boat. It took them another seven hours to make it to the shore. “We all had monkey butt from sitting on a wet wooden bench.” And that is not even the worst of his injuries. The soles of his feet literally fell off. He lost his toe nails, got bitten by mosquitoes who do not understand repellent, and found leeches sucking on his leech lounger, racing lingo for belly button. “But at least I didn’t have any fish swim up my pee hole.”

Kwik was scheduled to make his way to the Amazon in October for another race, but his Achilles heel snapped and his calf muscle rolled up into his knee cap during a game of dodge ball. “I told the therapist I had to be in the Amazon for a race. She told me I had to be off my feet for six months. I was so pissed. Pain is temporary, but quitting lasts forever.” Angie Wong