It was Jan. 29, at the South Pole. The temperature was minus 34 degrees Celsius and the wind was blowing at 100kph, with driving snow. A 250km super-marathon crossing the South Pole had been interrupted by the snowstorm, and Taiwanese marathon runner Kevin Lin (
The race had begun two days before, and contestants had already run 110km. Lin was too tired and sick to guess when the race would resume, or whether the runners would be able to finish the event.
But by the end of the race on Jan. 31, Lin had won the bronze medal. With that medal, Lin placed first overall in four super-marathon competitions held in far-flung locations: Antarctica, the Sahara desert, Chile's Atacama desert and the Gobi desert.
PHOTO: CHU PEI-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Last year, Lin came in second in the Sahara race. In 2004, he won the seven-day, six-night Atacama ultra-marathon, which crosses the desert known as the driest place on earth. He was the only local runner to be invited to compete in the Atacama race. Lin finished third in the Gobi March in 2003 and 12th in the Sahara Race in 2002, after getting lost.
On March 1, a month after his athletic triumph at the bottom of the earth, the 27-year-old Lin was awarded the Order of the Brilliant Star, fourth class, by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who dubbed Lin "Taiwan's Forrest Gump."
From punishment to passion
Like that fictional character, Lin's life story -- though still less than three decades long -- is full of dramatic twists and turns. Ironically, Lin's world-beating achievements grew out childhood punishment.
Coming from a family of five in Taipei, Lin was labeled a "troublemaker" when he was in elementary school. His teachers ran out of ideas for how to punish him, so they told him to run around the school's track.
But in that punishment, a passion for running took root. At the age of 16, he won his first official race, a victory that fixed his ambition to become an athlete. But his parents opposed the idea, thinking he wouldn't earn fortune or fame in a running career. That disapproval made him decide to run away from home.
Later, he entered Hsi-hu Business School (now the Shu De Home Economics and Commercial High School), which is famous for its track and field teams.
A helpful coach
Lin ran away from home again when his parents refused to support his enrollment in a "cram school" after he failed to pass the college entrance examination. He borrowed NT$50,000 from his coach, who wrote him a letter asking him not to tell his wife that he had agreed to loan him the money.
With one year of diligent study at the "cram school," Lin got his wish, and entered the Taipei Physical Education College, where he majored in sports management.
But Lin's parents threw up another obstacle by refusing to support his college education. Even if they had wanted to support him, they wouldn't have been able to help much: Lin's father had given his pension to Lin's older sister so that she could open her own business, and lost it all when the business went belly-up and she declared bankruptcy.
Heartbroken by his parents' opposition, Lin nevertheless continued on, working odd jobs to put himself through college. He worked at gas stations, sushi bars and pizza parlors, and even drove a taxi -- earning NT$300 to NT$700 a day. At that time, Lin slept just three to four hours a day. In addition to the tuition and living expenses, he gave his parents NT$10,000 a month -- despite their lack of support for his dreams.
Amid that hectic schedule, Lin managed to train for four hours a day.
After graduating from college in 2003, Lin quit his jobs and studied for the graduate school examinations. But bad luck struck when he broke his right leg in a car accident in the winter of 2003, and failed the entrance exams.
After that setback, Lin finally got into the Graduate Institute of Sport and Leisure Education at National Chung Cheng University. He is still completing that degree, and writing a thesis about mental toughness.
To support his passion for running, Lin wrote proposals and pitched the idea of running super-marathons to government agencies and private corporations.
His proposal caught the interest of the Taipei City Government, the National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and China Motor Corp, which endorsed his plan. And the rest is history.
Dangerous challenge
Wherever Lin goes, he carries Taiwan's national flag with him. He said he was inspired to do so by a chief executive officer of the Coca Cola Company, who was also an avid jogger.
"One day, I was at his apartment looking at his photographs. I was surprised that he posed with the national flag of Taiwan," Lin said. "It suddenly hit me that he loved Taiwan, even though he was an Englishman. I was born and raised here, so how can I not love this country?"
His determination to carry a national flag got even stronger in 1998 when he was running a 100km race in France. Lin found out that the organizer had displayed the country's national flag upside down, but but when Lin complained to the organizer about it he was given the brush-off.
"I suddenly realized that our country was like an orphan in the international community. If the same thing had happened to the US or the UK, the organizer wouldn't have turned a blind eye to their complaints," Lin said. "At that moment, I wanted to stand on the podium so much, so that the world would see where Taiwan is and how its national flag was supposed to be hung."
After returning from the South Pole last month, Lin has stayed in high gear. He is preparing for his biggest challenged yet: crossing 6,275km of the Sahara desert in three months -- a feat that has never been attempted.
The run, which Lin hopes to begin in September, has attracted the interest of Hollywood documentary filmmakers. James Moll plans to direct the film, with Matt Damon narrating.
Two other runners will join Lin: Charlie Engle from the US and Ray Zahad from Canada.
Lin said that he is not certain whether they will be able to finish the race -- which he called "mission incredible" -- but he will put his mind to it "200 percent." Realizing the danger involved, Lin said that he would like his teammates to cremate him and spread his ashes in the Sahara if he loses his life in the attempt.
Lin's girlfriend, who quit her job last September to become Lin's full-time secretary, said that she is confident that Lin will finish the run and make his country and parents proud.
Lin is thrilled by the challenge.
"You just wait and see. The world will give a thumb's up to Taiwan," Lin said. "Nobody remembers the second person who climbed Everest or landed on the moon, but everybody remembers who did it first."
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