The dispute between mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner and the Guinness Book of Records over the ascent of all 14 eight-thousanders is entering a new round. The 79-year-old announces that he will take action against the Guinness publishing house if his name appears again on a new list of those who have climbed all eight-thousanders. “If this gets into the Guinness Book, I will ban it. I am against my name being on such a list.”
For a long time, Messner was considered by Guinness to be the first person to stand on all 14 mountains in the world that were more than 8,000 meters high. In the new edition, however, the title is now to be awarded to the US climber Ed Viesturs because, according to calculations by the German Himalayan chronicler Eberhard Jurgalski, Messner allegedly missed the summit of the 8,091 meter high Annapurna by a few meters in 1985. On the Guinness website, Viesturs is already listed as the first “real summit climber”. Messner, on the other hand, remains confident that he was at the top. According to a report in the magazine The mirror Guinness’ decision should now be reversed. On the website 8000ers.comwhich is led by Jurgalski, Messner is currently back in first place.
Messner has been defending himself for years against Jurgalski’s claims that he missed the summit of Annapurna during his joint expedition with Hans Kammerlander almost four decades ago. When the story resurfaced last month, he said he didn’t care whether his name was in the Guinness Book or not. However, he has now announced that he wants to defend himself against it in the future. “I didn’t care. I’ve never had a book like this in my hand,” said Messner. Mountaineering basically has “nothing to do with records”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/.”This is a conflict between man and nature.” Jurgalski has no idea about mountaineering.