Andreas Nicolaou has entered the history books as the first person to run the entire coastline of Cyprus.
The ultra-marathoner covered a little over 700 kilometres in seven days, twenty-two hours and thirty-five minutes, starting at the Molos pier in Limassol on 20 July 2026 and finishing at the same spot on 27 July. This incredible feat was accomplished not only for personal achievement but also for a charitable cause — Nicolaou raised funds for the Sigma Foundation and the Little Heroes organisation, which helps seriously ill children.
The athlete himself admits that what attracts him is not so much the thrill or adrenaline as a particular philosophy of endurance. He calls the long hours of monotonous running an “honest test” that allows him to drop all masks and be alone with himself. When the sun beats down mercilessly, the legs refuse to obey and every cell in the body screams to stop, the runner is left with neither illusions nor distractions. Nicolaou does not try to avoid pain, fatigue or doubt — he accepts them as an integral part of the journey. He is convinced that heat is always replaced by the cool of the night, and that pain and tiredness are temporary states that will inevitably pass.
Preparation for this achievement lasted not a few months but a full eight years. Instead of searching for the perfect training plan or obsessing over a special diet, Nicolaou chose a completely different approach. He simply went out to train every single day, regardless of the weather, how he felt, his workload or problems in his personal life. This daily discipline became the foundation that allowed him not to break under the weight of the 700-kilometre distance. In his words, the victory was won not during the run itself but over the thousands of ordinary days that preceded it. The athlete does not call himself a superhero or the owner of exceptional genetics, but simply a person who has learned to be consistent. It is precisely this consistency, in his conviction, that turns everyday decisions into something extraordinary.
The athlete’s coach, Stefan Stankovic from the Beyond the Finish Line endurance training centre, said that Andreas approached the start with a solid endurance base and a weight of around 84 kilograms.
However, physical form was only part of the preparation. Special attention was paid to psychological resilience — the ability to keep moving despite any difficulties. The coach emphasised that the main task was for the athlete to believe in his own strength and to know that he is capable of more, even when it seems that everything is against him.
The run itself turned into a severe ordeal. In total, Nicolaou spent 107 hours on the move out of almost eight days — meaning he was on his feet for more than half the entire time. On average he covered 88.4 kilometres per day, and the shortest daily stretch was 73.7 kilometres. The route included 8,505 metres of elevation gain, comparable to the height of Everest. Energy expenditure was colossal — estimates put it at around 52,186 calories, equivalent to a 26-day diet of an average adult.
The athlete’s physical condition changed throughout the distance. While at the beginning the pace was around seven minutes per kilometre, by the 600-kilometre mark it had dropped to almost eleven minutes. Resting heart rate jumped from 53 beats per minute before the start to 78 at the finish, and even three days after completing the run it remained elevated at 69 beats. The second half of the route proved significantly harder than the first: covering the second half took 18.5 hours longer than the first.
Nicolaou’s main enemy was the heat. He ran for twenty hours in temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius, and on 26 July the thermometer on the road reached 40 degrees. To counter the scorching sun, the team completely inverted his schedule: Andreas slept during the hottest part of the day and covered the bulk of the distance at night. In the dark hours he ran 288 kilometres, and his pace was a full minute faster than during the day. Sleep became another serious obstacle. Over the eight days his watch was switched off for a total of 47 hours, but this time includes not only sleep but any stops. At best he managed to get less than six hours of interrupted sleep per night. The longest rest lasted eight hours and 41 minutes on the first day, and subsequent breaks became shorter and shorter.
Throughout the entire run Andreas was accompanied by a three-person support team — his coach Stefan Stankovic, Michalis Tsiapouras and Emilios Charalambous. They took turns running or cycling alongside him and also operated the support van, which met the runner more than twenty times a day. Most stops lasted only a few minutes — enough to replenish energy stores and move on. The athlete’s position was available to anyone interested via an online tracker that worked even in the north of the island, where mobile reception is often unstable.
Stankovic noted that isolation, along with the heat and lack of sleep, became one of the three main challenges of this endeavour. However, for Nicolaou himself the main achievement lay not so much in the seven days of running around Cyprus as in the fact that he managed to prepare himself for this victory over long years of persistent training. This record-breaking run is proof that consistency and belief in oneself can move mountains — or rather, cover kilometre after kilometre where most people give up at the very first stage.
Detailed data on the run, including the route, statistics and time indicators, are available on the official website www.bflcoaching.com/cyprus-700km.
Source: cyprus-mail.com
https://cyprusbutterfly.com.cy/news/kipriot-pervyim-istorii-probezhal-kilometrov
