Trento Sports Festival, Messner meets Viesturs

Here is the team you don’t expect, certainly the team of the moment: at the Sports Festival on Saturday 14th Reinhold Messner and the American Ed Viesturs will go on stage together at the Teatro Sociale (8pm) for a truly special evening.

Who was first?

—

The imagination of the “Guinness centimeters” has tried to put these two great mountaineers in competition in some way. Their response, from the heights of all 14 8000ers that they both climbed in their respective long Himalayan careers, was practically identical. “Climbing is a personal journey and should not be about lists or records. Messner was the forerunner and many like me were able to take inspiration from him,” said Viesturs. Who, by decision of the Guinness Book, unintentionally found himself at the center of attention, because he was indicated as the first to have climbed all the true peaks of the 14 highest mountains on Earth. He would therefore have “overtaken” not only Messner, but also Jerzy Kukuczka, Erhard Loretan, Carlos Carsolio, Krzysztof Wielicki and the others who had preceded him in time. “I have never claimed any record – said Messner. – It is the path that constitutes the true goal. Mountaineering is also a sporting activity, but it is not a sport and for this reason neither competitions nor winners exist and cannot exist, unlike sport climbing, which has rules and judges”.

it’s not a question of numbers

—

The figures – times, heights – and records are easy to understand even for those who know nothing about the Himalayas and mountaineering. What Messner and Viesturs will try to do instead will be to explain the profound and internal motivations that push true mountaineers to confront themselves by putting themselves on the line in the mountains