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Vedangi Kulkarni |
31/12/2017
PUNE: Nineteen-year-old Vedangi Kulkarni wants 2018 to be a special year. The
last few months of 2017 have seen her clock hundreds of kilometres on bicycle,
almost every day, in pursuit of her dream.
She now wants to be the youngest and fastest woman to cycle
around the world by completing a 29,000-km journey solo and unsupported within
130 days. It will take her across all continents, except South America and
Antarctica, and put her through the most testing conditions that exist on the planet.
This is definitely not the rosy stuff the dreams of 19-year-olds are made of.
"It is going to be super cool, I am very excited about
it," a nonchalant Vedangi, who studies sports management at Bournemouth
University, told pune-news.com recently
before setting out on a 1,400-km 'training ride' from Mumbai to New Delhi.
The young cyclist, who hails from Pune, plans to start her
record attempt in June 2018 from Perth in Australia, and has divided the
campaign into five phases. In the first phase she will cycle across Australia
upto Brisbane, from where she will take a flight to begin the second phase from
Wellington to Auckland. From Auckland, she will fly to Anchorage in Alaska, and
cycle eastward to Montreal.
Then a flight to Lisbon, and she will start the most arduous
part of her ride -- a 14,520-km leg across Europe and Asia which will take her
through 10 countries before reaching Ulan Bator in Mongolia. Then she would fly
back to Perth, the start-finish line.
"There are certain laid-down norms (by Guinness World
Records) in order to qualify (for getting into the record book for cycling
around the world). I am only adhering to them," she said. Paola Gianotti's
2014 record of cycling around the world in 144 days will certainly be on her
mind. In the men's category, Mark Beaumont holds the record for completing the
journey in 78 days. To date, no Indian -- man or woman -- has attempted to
break these records.
A keen footballer in her school days, Vedangi got hooked onto
cycling, courtesy a ride in Himachal Pradesh. She followed it up with a solo
ride along the Manali-Leh- Khardungla top-Drass route in 2016. After arriving
in the UK for a sports management course, her plans to attempt a world record
began to take shape. Every weekend and vacation was spent logging hundreds of
kilometres on bike.
"I met very interesting people and read a lot before
finalising my plans. You need help because of the huge amount of logistics
involved, and I am alone all through the journey," she said. In New Delhi,
she will try to meet potential sponsors and also government officials, whose
help would be needed for the paperwork needed to cross continents on two
wheels, solo.
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