Have you ever been on the wrong end of a drunken bet? If so, chances are you wound up downing a pint, texting an ex or generally embarrassing yourself. It probably didn’t end with you standing on the podium of the Marathon Des Sables – a 251km multi-stage race across the Sahara Desert.
But that’s exactly what happened to Tom Evans in 2016. The then British Army captain was enjoying a tipple or two with friends who had just finished the race, when he drunkenly suggested he could beat their times – despite never having run more than 10km. Fast forward 10 months and he was good to his word, becoming the first non-sub Saharan male to finish in the top three.
