EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: OBE World Record Holder Brit Returns Home From Spain To Face His Biggest Challenge Yet

World record holder Josh Llewellyn Jones travelled back from Ronda to the UK after intense training in the Spanish mountains in preparation for his latest challenge.

Despite being awarded an OBE at the age of 31, the name Josh Llewellyn Jones may not mean anything to you even though he’s a world record holder, and already awarded the prestigious honour of officer of the most excellent order of the British Empire by the Queen.

Born in Cardiff in 1987 Josh was born with the condition Cystic Fibrosis and as an athlete takes on humanly “impossible ” challenges and as a fund raiser has raised over one million Euro’s.

From having no chance of survival in his early life he took a trip with his father Adrian to the USA to meet with Dr Bob Kramer a pioneer to the cystic fibrosis cause. The Doctor said to his Father “to run his legs off and throw him in the sea to make him swim” following the advice Josh excelled at football, cross country running, rugby and athletics.

At 15 Josh ran in the British national championships, by 17 he was climbing Mt Kilimanjaro! On his return at just 18 he had a boxing match with European heavy weight champion Scott Welch to raise £125,000 for the cystic fibrosis trust.

Despite the above doctors advised him due to his condition he wouldn’t make 30 years old, defying this Josh as always decided to celebrate his 30th birthday in style by becoming the 5th person in the world to complete the “World’s Fittest Man Challenge” 

In September 2018 he became a world record holder for most lifted weight in 24 hours, lifting 1,000,000 kilos destroying the previous record of 475,000 kilos; he averaged 775 kilos a minute in 22 hours 11 minutes to obliterate the record, an incredible feat.

Having broken world records, raising over a million Euro’s for charity and on June 8th this year being awarded the OBE, we caught up with this incredible athlete as he trained here in Spain for high altitude training before his next event.

Josh explained exclusively in Spain to the Euro Weekly News that on 7th October this year he will go for his latest challenge, Josh said “I’m setting my targets even higher this year, I’m going to swim 21 miles In Dover which is the distance of the English Channel to France, then jump on my bike and cycle to Twickenham which is 200 miles and then run home to Cardiff which is another 160 miles all constantly within 5 days”

We asked him “why Dover?” Josh went onto explain that firstly he had planned to swim the English Channel from France before jumping on his bike but his organisers were concerned bad weather could delay the start for weeks, so he decided to go into the Dover pool instead, “I would have preferred the Channel as swimming looking at pool tiles will be rather boring and more of a mental test” said Josh. 

Josh’s latest self-imposed challenge is to complete it in 5 days which will mean no sleep for 5 day or nights as he will constantly be on the move from start to finish.

The next question we asked Josh why Spain for training? he replied “I love to get up in the mountains whilst the scenery is beautiful the attitude assists my training at home I run with an altitude mask so not having to wear it whilst running is a pleasure, I’ve also been doing some lake swimming for extra strength hoping it will then be easier in a pool when I get there as for the bike riding up the mountain terrains is ideal”

Josh has titled this challenge 5days4CF and feels he’s nearly prepared for it but has a little more training to do when he returns to the UK, explaining that he needs now to adapt to the Autumn British weather especially for the 160 run to Wales ” well it always rains in Wales doesn’t it he quipped”

“I will have a week off before the start of the challenge from training to allow my body to be at maximum strength” said Josh.

To date, this is clearly Josh’s toughest challenge. He will put his body and mind through something not many can imagine. People thought the million kilo challenge was impossible and he’s looking to raise the bar again in October.

As Josh prepared to board his flight at Malaga airport he said “I want my challenges to take peoples breath away, because to put it simply, that’s what cystic fibrosis does to 100,000 people all over the world, every single day.”

We thanked Josh for his Spanish exclusive interview with the Euro Weekly News and giving us some of his valuable time to explain his latest challenge.

Good luck Josh!