Andrea Lanfri - en

Previously a paralympic athlete on the Italian athletics team, today a mountaineer and explorer. In 2015, at the age of 29, he contracted meningitis with meningococcal sepsis, and after a month of being in a coma, he lost both his legs and seven fingers. Thanks to his sheer willpower and his passion for sport, he went back to his previous life in the space of one year, starting out as a Paralympic athlete and beginning to run on a pair of carbon fibre prosthetic limbs, that had been purchased thanks to a collection of funds. The first Italian lower-limb double-amputee athlete to get below 12 seconds in the 100 metres, winning three Italian records, two bronze medals, and a silver at the Europeans, and a silver at the world championships in 2017. The same years, he went back to climbing and bouldering, sports he enjoyed before his illness. In 2018 he began to train on higher mountains, up to 5000 metres. He was the first multi-amputee to reach the 8849 metres of Mount Everest. The holder of several records, such as the fastest mile run at altitude, and which is a Guinness World Record. The creator of the “from 0to0” project, a unique sports event in the world, never undertaken by a paralympic athlete: bike, mountains and running; starting and returning to sea level after climbing a mountain, non stop. A story of enormous courage and determination, rewarded by achieving sporting goals that seemed like they were impossible. An athlete who is a symbol of life and a whole national sports movement.

His dream? To climb all the highest peaks on the 7 continents, a goal that he has been in training for for years.