5. MITCHELL BACKS BRINGING IN AFRICA RUNNER RUSS COOK TO ENGLAND CAMP
The press conference ended off on a tangent, in discussion about one of the most impressive feats of recent human endurance. Englishman Russ Cook has just become the first person ever to run the entire length of Africa, with his 16,000km journey shared by millions as a sensation of inspiration on social media.
The journey took Cook a total of 352 days, as he ran over a marathon a day and raised over £700,000 for charity in the process. Nicknamed the ‘Hardest Geezer’, Cook’s 16-country journey is one that could well be utilised as inspiration for the England players, as Mitchell previously brought in an accomplished Everest climber to base camp. Mitchell welcomed Everest climber Jo Bradshaw to Pennyhill Park, who reached the highest point in the world in 2016, on what was her second attempt to scale the mighty Himalayan mountain.
JOHN MITCHELL: That was a lady that obviously climbed Everest. A fascinating story for us, because I think a lot of the girls can resonate, you know that in your rugby career, you tend to be up and down. You don’t always get it moving forward. You get stuck sometimes as a rugby player. And so do you as a team.
“So I’m sure from what I learned from her, Joe Bradshaw. I learned from her that I think I would probably would have died trying to climb Everest, because I would have tried to get to the top immediately. So her trip to the top to the summit, took a number of times, there was a number of assents and a number of descents and it was quite phenomenal. I think a lot of the girls could relate to that.”
“I mean, it’s a be a fascinating story (Russ Cook). There’s lots of those, but I think you got to be really, really smart around the narrative that you bring in. It’s definitely got to be aligned similar to what we’re trying to do. But yeah, if we can learn about somebody else’s courage, somebody else’s ability to lead themselves and somebody else’s ability to learn how important connections are, then yeah, we are all for it.”