Mountain man Lewsey tackles his biggest challenge
"I am not great at altitude," says Josh Lewsey as he sips a mint tea in a café on The Strand.
On the face of it, this seems quite an admission for someone . Even if he is a World Cup winner. Lewsey may have reached the summit of his sport, but this is the top of the world.
The former Wasps and England full-back must curb his natural competitive instincts if he is to succeed in a challenge far and above any of the peaks he scaled in his rugby career. The only prize for trying to beat everyone else up Everest is a serious case of altitude sickness and then evacuation off the mountain - if you are lucky.
"There is a fear of failure," Lewsey acknowledges. "There is also the fear of being crap at something. When you are used to playing sport and being physically confident in your own ability, and then you see a 52kg girl carrying half her body weight whistling away past you, and your lungs are burning and you feel as though you can't move...well, it is something you are not used to. But perhaps it is quite a healthy lesson.
"I take longer than other people to acclimatize. But we are in the Himalayas for two months, and hopefully that is long enough to give us the best opportunity possible to summit."
I'm Bryn Palmer and I specialise in rugby union but stick my oar into most other sports, apart from rowing.
