On Saturday morning, Finnish cross-country skier Teemu Virtanen began an attempt to set a 24-hour cross country-skiing World Record. After keeping the pace for almost an entire working day, things became heavier with increasing lap times. Virtanen finally chose to interrupt the attempt halfway, after 12 hours and 225 kilometers in the track.

The attempt was conducted as an official Guinness World Record to ski more than 472 kilometers, the record distance that compatriot Hans Mäenpää managed to cover in one day in April 2018.

“I started at a high pace from the beginning and knew that it meant a risk I had to take. But after a while, I realized it was going to be tough. At the same time, I was hoping that the weather conditions would help me and make the tracks faster. Unfortunately, that did not happen. In the end, my strength died out completely, and I decided to hold out for at least 12 hours,” said Teemu Virtanen shortly after interrupting the attempt.

During his attempt, Teemu Virtanen managed to ski 523 laps around the 400-meter track at Stockholm Stadium.