Forget basketball. Forget all team sports like football and baseball. Even forget soccer and hockey. The real sports heroes aren’t on teams. They’re the extreme athletes tackling the planet’s highest mountains and deepest oceans, often alone.

For example, Erden Eruc has been trying to reach all the Seven Summits (except Vinson in Antarctica) by human power, and then climb them. He got the idea in 2002 after the death of his friend Goran Kropp, who was best known for cycling from Stockholm to Nepal to climb Mount Everest. The two had been climbing together in Washington State when Kropp suffered a fatal fall. On the plane returning home from Kropp’s funeral in Stockholm, Eruc decided to reach the highest summits on each continent by human power, in honor of Kropp.

He first climbed Denali in Alaska in 2003. Four years later, he started his human-powered circumnavigation of the world. He climbed Mt. Kosciuszko in Australia in 2010. Then he rowed alone across the Indian Ocean and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with his father in 2011.

Everest, Elbrus, and Aconcagua remained, but financial issues and visa problems began to impede his plans. Eruc decided to bypass the summits for the time being and continue with the circumnavigation. By 2012, he completed his human-powered trip around the world.

After more years of planning and saving, he decided to finally tackle the remaining three summits. Eruc left California in the spring of 2021 and began to row to Hong Kong. He estimated that it would take 10 months. On reaching Asia, he was going to cycle overland to Everest.

In September 2021, he stopped in Hawaii so he could repair his boat and try to resolve his visa problems. The weather was also becoming an issue. If he rowed straight to Hong Kong, he would have to resupply at sea, a difficult feat, so he rowed to Guam.

When he landed, he became the first person to row from Hawaii to the Marianas. He became the first person to notch 1,000 days of rowing alone across the world’s oceans, besting the previous record of 937 days, set by legendary British rower Peter Bird in the 1990s.

Eruc re-launched from Guam in February 2022, hoping to avoid tropical depressions and storms, but he started a few weeks too late. Weather forced him to stop in the Philippines. He left his boat there, waiting for him to return and restart in February 2023. 

Sadly, it was not to be. Lack of sponsorship, and mounting visa issues made passage through China to Everest difficult to impossible. Russia’s war with Ukraine made even Elbrus questionable. This month, Eruc announced the end of his self-powered Six Summits project.

None of this was covered by ESPN. He may be one of the strongest, bravest, most determined athlete these days, but chances are you never heard of him, and he’s probably fine with that.