Cycling in the cold
Athlete dies in extreme challenge in Russia
Updated 02/02/2026 – 3:50 p.mReading time: 1 min.
Adam Borejko wanted to cycle 900 kilometers through the coldest part of Siberia. But halfway through, his adventure ends fatally.
The Polish extreme athlete Adam Borejko is dead. The Russian civil protection agency in the East Siberian Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) found him lifeless in his hotel in Khandyga. The cause of death is not yet known.
Borejko started his bike tour in the capital Yakutsk on January 25th, as can be seen from his blog on Instagram. His destination was the village of Oymyakon, almost 900 kilometers away – one of the coldest permanently inhabited places on earth. In 1933, 67.8 degrees of frost were measured there. In the first days of February this year, the thermometer dropped to minus 39 degrees at night. In Yakutsk there is currently frost of around minus 35 degrees.
The merciless cold in eastern Siberia always attracts adventurers. In January 2022, a marathon with international participation took place in Oymyakon. Konstantin Dragunov, winner of the competition at the time, crossed the finish line with a thick crust of ice on his face. “The marathon is unpredictable, that’s what I was told in advance,” Dragunov told “The Mirror” afterwards. But things got even worse: “After 33 kilometers I almost fainted.”
