Sydney:
An Australian ultra-marathon athlete who holds the record for being the fastest man to run around his own country launched a bid to run non-stop from the North to South pole on Tuesday.
Pat Farmer, once dubbed Australia's "Forrest Gump," after the movie, aims to raise 100 million US dollars for Red Cross water and sanitation programmes during his 21,000-kilometre (13,000-mile) journey through 14 countries in the Americas.
Farmer,48, said it was a recent trip to southeast Asia that inspired him to use his "gift" to contribute funds to the Red Cross.
"I saw children covered with needlestick injuries in a dump trying to break syringes to sell the metal inside for bottles of water," he said.
"It was a heartbreaking turning point for me, said Farmer. "By creating clean supplies of water and installing proper sanitation facilities, things we all take for granted in Australia, we can change people's lives forever."
"I believe I'm born with a gift," Farmer said. "My gift is to be able to run long distances faster and perhaps further than any other person on Earth, so I figure I'd be a fool if I had this gift and didn't use it."
His 11-month voyage will take him from freezing tundra through the tropics, and he expects to go through more than 40 pairs of shoes and 300 pairs of socks.
"This is by far the greatest challenge of my life," he said, adding that he had been training "like a man possessed".
"To be quite honest with you I don't know if I can run from the North pole to the South pole," said Farmer, who also served for a decade as an Australian government MP.
"But I do know that I can run for 80 kilometres, or 85 kilometres or 90 or 100 kilometres a day and I do know that I can get up the next morning and do the same thing the next day.
Farmer's run starts at the North pole in March and will continue through Canada, the United States, Mexico and 10 South American countries before he arrives in Argentina to be airlifted to the final South Pole leg.
Once he is done he will return to the United States to address the United Nations about his journey and the plight that inspired him.