British Cricket Teams Play On Everest In Attempt To Set High-Altitude Record
Posted April 21, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Two teams of British cricketers played on the foot of Mount Everest on Tuesday in an attempt to set a high-altitude record for field sports.
The teams played the Twenty-20 cricket match on Tuesday at Gorakshep, located 5,165 metres above sea level on the southern side of world’s highest mountain in Nepal.
Team Hillary defeated team Tenzing in the match, organizers said in an e-mail sent from the mountain.
The two teams are named after New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay, the two mountaineers who first conquered the 8,850-metre peak on May 29, 1953.
Organizers hoped to raise more than US$365,000 from sponsors for two charities.
The record still needs to be ratified by Guinness World Records, which currently does not have an entry for highest altitude for a field sport.
The group of 50 people, which included lawyers, medics and city workers from Britain, trekked for nine days to reach the site where the match was held. It is the last village before reaching the Everest base camp, the starting point for dozens of mountaineers who attempt to climb Everest every year.
Organizers said the players trained for months to face the conditions at that altitude, where the oxygen level is about two-thirds of what is available at sea level.
File photo
