A legendary mountaineer has been stripped of his two Guinness World records, after an amateur cartographer claimed he was five metres short from the peak of the mountain he climbed in 1985.
Reinhold Messner, 79, known as one of the greatest climbers of all time, said cartographer Eberhard Jurgalski was “clueless” and “not an expert.”
Messner is credited with being the first person to climb all 14 peaks over 8,000 metres, which earned him a Guinness World Record in 1986.
Jurgalski said he was five meters short of the peak when he climbed Annapurna, Nepal, resulting in Messner being stripped of his title.
Over the years, Jurgalski has gathered and analysed climber’s routes, comparing it against satellite and photographic data, which he used to reach his decision.
In support of Messner, one fan on Instagram said: “So someone really wasted ten years to prove that numerous expeditions by famous mountaineers actually never exactly reached their summits resulting in Reinhold Messner losing his (never claimed) world record by a few meters.” The fan wrote ‘get a life’ on the post which Messner then shared on his story.
Guinness World Records confirmed that it had used Jurgalski’s findings to reach the decision to remove Messner’s title.
They said in a statement: “Many climbers — usually through no fault of their own — stopped before reaching the summit.”
Jurgalski’s research also stripped Messner of his world record as the only climber to ascend all 14 peaks of the globe. Guinness World Records has instead listed him as a ‘legacy’ record holder acknowledging his accomplishments.
He is replaced by Edmund Viesturs, who became the first American to reach all 14 peaks in 2005.
On Monday Messner said: “I don’t care if my name is in the Guinness World Records book. You can’t take a record I never claimed away from me.”
“Also, mountains change. Almost 40 years have passed, if someone has climbed Annapurna it was certainly Hans and I. No one who knows anything about mountaineering would question our feat... Jurgalski in fact knows nothing about,” he said.
Messner’s climbing partner Hans Kammerlander, 66, who also ascended Annapurna in 1985, defended him strongly.
He told the Times: “This is how you destroy mountaineering. Of course, there is no absolute certainty, those were other times, without GPS.”
“We are still convinced that we reached the summit, but who knows if there were another five to six metres to climb behind the rock. That would still not detract from our achievement. Humanity really is getting worse,” he said.
Jurgalski has claimed independent chroniclers are duty bound to correct mistakes, and he had no intention of diminishing anyone’s achievements.
Posting several responses on his Instagram Messner said: “It is a bit funny that again and again people use my person, my name to make themselves important.”
In a final message he thanked his fans and said: “With so many supporters, envious have no chance.”
