“Leopard seals, unpredictable waves, ice-cold currents…” Spencer Matthews faces brutal conditions as he arrives in Antarctica for his extreme triathlon.

He might have ticked off six of his seven triathlons on seven continents, but there’s a monster of a challenge awaiting entrepreneur and endurance athlete Spencer Matthews. The final iron-distance triathlon of his challenge will see him heading to Antarctica to complete a freezing cold swim (in a wetsuit, of course, but still…) followed by brutally difficult bike and run conditions across snow and ice.

So ahead of the final challenge, here’s a quick recap as well as a look ahead at the conditions he will be facing, plus insight from previous attempts at what has to be the most difficult iron-distance course on the planet.

Matthews is attempting PROJECT SE7EN – a challenge to complete seven iron-distances on seven continents in under four weeks to raise funds for James’ Place, a UK-based male suicide prevention charity providing life-saving therapy to men in crisis. His first triathlon was in London, followed by Arizona, Cape Town, Perth, Dubai and Rio. Antarctica is the final stop and Matthews is expected to start his attempt on Wednesday 3rd December.

Swimming in sub-zero

So what’s ahead? In an interview with writer Rob Kemp for our sister magazine Men’s Fitness, Matthew’s shared his thoughts ahead of the challenge.

“Antarctica is the trickiest,” he said. “We need permits for a frozen inland lake we’re hoping to use for the swim. If that doesn’t come through, we may have to swim in the open ocean, which is much more dangerous – leopard seals, unpredictable waves, ice-cold currents. I hope my mum isn’t reading this. But Antarctica is the one that keeps me up at night.”

The swim is the part of the challenge which is likely to garner the most interest – and which would scare the majority of us reading this. Water temperatures could be below freezing and the 3.8km swim will see Matthews in the water for well over an hour. In an Instagram post alongside a photo of himself floating in an ice bath, he wrote:

“It’s almost a completely separate challenge, with the swim being more of a survival scenario than a leg of a triathlon. Everything needs to be perfect to pull it off… Body, mind, kit, support. Things can easily go wrong when submerged in -0.4 degree water for 90 minutes.”

In fact it’s a feat which very few have achieved. The distance has previously been completed by a Danish athlete, Anders Hofman, who conceived the idea in 2017 and completed ‘Project Iceman’. For that challenge, he swam the 3.8 km in the ocean around the coast, before heading slightly inland and planning to complete the bike and run on a 4km loop which had been set out in an area free of dangerous crevasses.

You can watch the full film of Hofman’s challenge, Project Iceman via the links on his website, In total, the iron distance took him a whopping 73 gruelling hours.

Training for Antarctica

Back to Matthews. He has shared that the Antarctica leg of the PROJECT SE7EN challenge has been the hardest to train for. Again talking to our friends at Men’s Fitness he stated:

“It’s very hard to simulate. The closest I’ve come was a multi-day ultra in Arctic Sweden, where it was -36°C. That gave me a taste of what extreme cold does to the body I remember taking my glove off for a photo and my hand didn’t recover for hours.

“For Antarctica, I use an ice bath set to 0°C every day, but it’s not the same as swimming for over an hour in -2°C water. I’ll be in a wetsuit, of course, but it’s still going to be brutal. The key is not to waste energy worrying.”

Weather conditions are likely to play a part and with blizzards as well as the cold being a feature of previous challenges in Antarctica, Matthews will undoubtedly be hoping for a good weather window.

The previous record for completing seven on seven is four years. This was achieved by athlete Connor Emeny and is covered in his book All In: Becoming the First Person to Complete a Long-distance Triathlon on Seven Continents.

However Matthews has set himself a target of completing all seven in 21 days. London was the first on 13th November, meaning he hits 21 days on Wednesday 3rd December. Factor in the fatigue from the previous triathlons and he’s certainly got his work cut out for him on the frozen continent.

At the time of writing Matthews’ team have confirmed he is due to start the Antarctica leg of the challenge on Wednesday 3rd December. You can follow his progress via his Instagram here. Posting today, Matthews stated:

“Extreme conditions mean that starting an attempt today would be foolish and dangerous… This weather is a brutal reminder of how quickly this environment can change and become even more hostile.

“Our flight out of here is scheduled for Friday and the race is likely to take upwards of 30 hours so every moment we wait takes us uncomfortably closer to our cut-off… According to local weather reports, our best chance is to enter the ice water between 3am and 5am TOMORROW MORNING (6am – 8am UK time)”.

Images: Matt Stone