The New York Times - 19.09.2019

B10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES SPORTSTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

MOUNTAINEERING

The photograph of a traffic jam
of climbers leading to the summit
of Mount Everest in May went vi-
ral, evidence of the mountain’s
surging appeal among thrill-seek-
ers and the overcrowding that has
caused deaths and pollution.
The photographer — Nirmal
Purja, known as Nims — is a Nep-
alese moun-
taineer who has
been on a jour-
ney to climb the
world’s tallest
peaks in rapid
succession,
showcasing lo-
cal climbers as
central actors
in the history of
Himalayan feats.
He and his all-star Sherpa team
call the mission Project Possible,
with a goal of summiting all 14 of
the world’s peaks higher than
8,000 meters (a little more than
26,000 feet) in seven months.
So far, since beginning in April,
he has climbed 11 of them, some-
times reaching the top of mighty
peaks like K2 and Broad Peak in
the span of a weekend, something
that took previous generations of
mountaineers months, if not
years, to accomplish.
The fastest all 14 have been
climbed is eight years. So few be-
lieved Nims, 36, when he an-

nounced Project Possible. Yet it

has already stirred pride in the

Nepalese climbing community

and made a dramatic statement

about achieving independent

mountaineering goals.

And then there is that photo-

graph, which he sees as a blessing

(it helped motivate regulatory

changes on climbing Everest) and

a curse (it has often been used

without credit or compensation).

This interview has been edited

for clarity and condensed.

Your Everest traffic jam

photograph — it’s a striking and

important image. Please discuss.

I just took that picture as evi-

dence, and obviously it took a

completely different toll. But I’m

glad in a way that I took that pic-

ture because it’s helping to change

the rules and regulations with the

Nepalese government policy.

Do you think guide services or

other climbers wish you hadn’t

taken it?

I think so. But to be honest, I really

didn’t think it could’ve taken this

toll. People took from the photo

the story in the way they wanted

it.

Did any media outlets have

permission or rights to use the

image?

Everybody used this picture, all of

the biggest media in the world, so

people with power are mis-utiliz-

ing this picture, without even giv-

ing the credit. They could also

give a bit of money for this project,

this project I’m out begging for,

sold my house for.

Your team has several notable

climbers like Mingma David

Sherpa, Gesman Tamang, Geljen

Sherpa, Saney Sherpa and Lakpa

Dendi Sherpa, whom we see on

your Instagram feed. What’s the

secret?

The reason we’ve been very suc-

cessful is, of course, we’ve got an

amazing team, we’ve got good

leadership, we’ve got a really

good positive mind-set. But the

other big component of this is be-

ing disciplined. Like discipline,

discipline, discipline, 100 percent

discipline.

Why did you leave the United

Kingdom’s special forces —

specifically the U.K. Royal Navy’s

elite Special Boat Service — and

give up on your full military

pension to pursue the project?

Even though I had only six years

left to get full pension, I gave my

resignation. I never joined the

special forces for money, and cer-

tainly what I’m doing right now

wasn’t for the money as well. So I

have always followed my heart

and this is exactly what I did.

Have you turned around or backed

off any summits so far?

All summits in one! That’s your

brother. I summited four moun-

tains — Kangchenjunga, Makalu,

Broad Peak and Gasherbrum I —

in one push. I didn’t camp any-

where. Just went boom, summit,

brother.

Please describe your fitness and

endurance at altitude in a way

normal folks may relate to.

For me to run 100 meters at sea

level, if it takes me 11 or 12 sec-

onds, I exactly do that at the alti-

tude in the same speed. That’s

how I am. I cannot beat anybody

at sea level, but I can beat any-

body up there.

Can we talk about the history of

the overlooked Nepalese climber?

(In accounts of Himalayan

successes, the contributions of

Nepalese and other local climbers

have often been minimized.)

Sherpa were always involved with

the setting of the lines, but they

never got the platform to tell any

story, I think. And so these people

have always remained in the

shadow. But now obviously with

the internet, the whole platform

and everything, people can hold a

light these days. The truth will al-

ways come out. That’s how people

are starting to see this stuff.

Would our conversation be

different if you were from Austria

or California and had just climbed

11 8,000-meter peaks?

Let’s be honest, if somebody else

had done these things, they

would’ve been on the front page of

everywhere else. I don’t know

what happened, but nothing came

in.

Considering how you spent the

month of July, climbing all five

8,000-meter peaks of Pakistan on

foot, I can understand the

disappointment.

I genuinely feel like, when people

climb K2, it’s everywhere in the

news, everybody covers it. And I

think I did something bigger than

that, and with four unplanned res-

cues and everything, and then

nothing came of it. There was no

justice to the story.

Now I truly believe this is not

only my project, it’s everyone’s.

It’s a project for my team, a

project for the Nepalese climber.

This is also for everyone who be-

lieves in doing impossibles.

Your team is trying to practice

self-reliance on your climbs, and

you’re also using all kinds of

different tactics. Please explain.

We’ve climbed in 60- to 75-kilome-

ter-an-hour wind conditions with-

out ropes, and yes we put in fixed

lines when we can because of the

safety. But it’s all calculated risk

and you have to be so flexible in

doing this project, and that’s why

we’ve been so successful. We al-

ways climb with what we have. So

from nothing to from everything,

we have everything — if that

makes sense. If we have nothing,

we can climb pretty much solo.

And then when we have every-

thing, like where we’re guiding,

we put the fixed lines all the way

to the summit, you know, because

we’re guiding clients, and we have

time and we have that luxury.

Your team is using supplemental

oxygen, which some critics online

have suggested diminishes your

project somehow. Thoughts?

The only people who might say

this are probably those mountain-

eers who think they’re cool and

I’m just blowing everything out of

the park.

Either you climb with oxygen or

without. I’m doing it because I

have my ethos. I’m doing it be-

cause I’ve learned my lesson. I’m

doing it so that I can save some-

body else’s life if I encounter one

of those needy people up high in

the mountains.

Last one: Are you concerned about

the effects of prolonged exposure

to high altitude?

No, brother, not really. I know my

body so well. And I just love it

when I’m out there. I’m just like,

‘Yeah, this is my place.’ I chill out,

brother.

This picture of heavy foot traffic near Mount Everest’s summit on May 22 led the Nepalese government to enact to regulatory changes. The picture is being used with the photographer’s permission.

NIRMAL PURJA

On Doing the Impossible, and That Viral Picture Atop Mount Everest

By TIM MUTRIE

Nirmal Purja

Princes to buy a jersey embla-
zoned with his name. One day, he
was at Everton, and the next day,
he was in Paris. From the out-
side, it just kind of happened.
Internally, though, it was dif-
ferent. Tuchel had pulled out all
of the stops to sign Gueye. P.S.G.
had been scouting him for
months. Tuchel had tried to bring
him to Paris last January, but

was stymied by Everton.
In the summer, he called Gu-
eye, outlining his vision of what
his role would be in Tuchel’s
team, a personal touch that
meant a lot to the player. Among
his friends, Gueye is now teased
for being something of a teach-
er’s pet. The hug will have given
them considerable ammunition.
On his first day, Tuchel told him
“not to change” in his new envi-

ronment. He wanted the rest of

his team to adapt to Gueye, to be

more like him, not the other way

around.

That kiss, that embrace, sug-

gested that in defeating Real

Madrid — not just defeating, but

stripping away its luster, crack-

ing apart its identity, exposing all

that is bare and empty beneath

in a 3-0 thrashing — Tuchel feels

Gueye, so unassuming as to be

almost surreptitious, is starting

to do just that.

It is not just superstars who

can change the character of a

club, who can alter the direction

of a game, or a season. There

was a moment, after Gueye had

been running for 80 long min-

utes, up and down, up and down,

when Karim Benzema picked up

the ball just inside his own half.

There was no real danger. Real

Madrid, trailing by 2-0 by that

stage, was beaten, though the

third goal — the one that com-

pounded the humiliation, P.S.G.’s

two fullbacks exchanging passes

in Real’s box, taunting Europe’s

most illustrious club — did not

arrive until a little later. The

game should have been idling

toward its inevitable close.

Gueye does not really work

like that, though. Instead, he

darted back to Benzema, burst

into a tackle, swept the ball away

from him, picked himself up, and

passed it forward, searching for

another goal. The Parc des

Princes roared and sensed blood.

This has always been a blue-

collar club, just one with a lavish,

state-funded “sporting project”

artificially imposed upon it. It is

a club that identifies more easily

with martial values than super-

star indulgence.

The tackle summed up P.S.G.’s

performance, a performance that

could have only come in the

absence of Neymar and, for all

that neither of them lack work

ethic, Kylian Mbappé and Edin-

son Cavani. It was a perform-

ance, and a victory, rooted in

talent, of course — Ángel Di

María’s two goals were sumptu-

ous — but in effort and intelli-

gence, application and energy:

Gueye’s traits, in other words.

P.S.G. has tried, for seven long

years, to conquer Europe by

acquiring superstars, by hoping

to happen upon a magical for-

mula by which gathering enough

talent together means it multi-

plies. It has not worked. Signing

Gueye, making him a central

part of his plan, is a sign that

Tuchel has recognized that. The

challenge for him now is convinc-

ing his owners that Neymar,

Mbappé and the rest must fit into

this new identity, rather than his

vision being subsumed by them.

If he needs any supporting

evidence, he might offer Real

Madrid. Madrid would, of course,

not have looked twice at Gueye.

It has instead spent its summer

equipping the returned Zinedine

Zidane with a raft of eye-water-

ingly expensive teenagers that

he does not seem to want to play,

building a team packed with

current or coming superstars but

without any clear sense of what

they might do, or how they might

fit together.

This is its reward: a perform-

ance so wan that it is difficult to

believe this team was the cham-

pion of Europe just 16 months

ago. Its time has passed so

quickly, so completely, that it

seems impossible it was so re-

cent.

Zidane was restored as man-

ager because he is seen, in Ma-

drid, as a guarantee of Champi-

ons League success — he has

won every single one he has

competed in as a manager — but

it would be faintly miraculous if

he maintained that streak this

year. It is not guaranteed that he

will even see out the season.

Real Madrid has the look of

everything P.S.G. has been,

rightly, chastised for being: a

disjointed team of disparate

parts, collected by the sort of

selection criteria generally used

by magpies. P.S.G., for now,

seems to have moved beyond

that, at long, long last. What it

needed was not another super-

star, but the antithesis: the quiet

man at the end of the line.

Ángel Di María, left, scored twice Wednesday for Paris St.-Germain. Manager Thomas Tuchel sought out Idrissa Gueye after the win.

BENOIT TESSIER/REUTERS CHARLES PLATIAU/REUTERS

Paris St.-Germain Roars

As Real Madrid Sputters

From First Sports Page

After years of courting

superstars, a French

club tries teamwork.

SOCCER