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![\"BBC](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/b4708b00-c48e-11f0-90ea-63f1b96da933.jpg.webp.webp\")
BBC<\/p>\nKatie WapleSouth of England<\/p>\n
BBC<\/p>\n
Former England Sevens rugby player Ollie Phillips will be rowing across the Atlantic Ocean with no support.<\/p>\n
A former England rugby sevens player is taking on a 3,000 nautical mile (4,828 km) rowing challenge for several charities supporting Motor Neurone Disease (MND).<\/p>\n
Ollie Phillips, from Henley on Thames, will be rowing with three other friends across the Atlantic Ocean as part of the world’s toughest row<\/a>.<\/p>\n The challenge starts next month in La Gomera in the Canary Islands and finishes at English Harbour in Antigua, the journey is expected to take 35 to 45 days.<\/p>\n Mr Phillips told BBC Radio Berkshire: “This will be my toughest challenge yet because of the lack of sleep, we will be rowing two hours on, two hours off and won’t get a full nights kip.”<\/p>\n Along the way, crews face waves up to 20 feet high (6m), temperatures ranging from 10\u00b0C at night to over 30\u00b0C with humidity by day, and burning 6,000 calories a day.<\/p>\n Ollie Phillips will be joined by three friends he met climbing Mount Everest<\/p>\n Mr Phillips explained that he has done several challenges for charities and met his three teammates for this challenge while climbing Everest.<\/p>\n He said: “I’ve always been interested in exploration and adventure ever since retiring from rugby.<\/p>\n “I have ridden a rickshaw across India, sailed across the world, climbed Everest and Kilimanjaro, as well as trekked across the North Pole. <\/p>\n “But this latest challenge will be the hardest of all, because I’ll not be able to get a decent night’s sleep and you have to row to progress.”<\/p>\n Ollie Phillips said he is most concerned about the lack of sleep during this challenge<\/p>\n He told BBC Radio Berkshires’ Kirsten O’Brien that nothing can prepare you for something like this adding “at most we’ll manage an hour and a half sleep if we’re lucky”.<\/p>\n He said: “This will be such an enormous challenge in terms of mental and emotional toll.<\/p>\n “I’m excited to see whether in this tough situation I can still smile and whether it is possible to flip my emotions on their head when it’s difficult.”<\/p>\n He said the challenge will help raise funds for several charities close to the team’s heart.<\/p>\n He added: “Raising funds that focus on MND is very important to me.<\/p>\n “The late rugby legend Doddie Weir<\/a> was a very good friend of mine and I know rugby player Lewis Moody<\/a> who has bravely spoken about his diagnosis.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Katie WapleSouth of England BBC Former England Sevens rugby player Ollie Phillips will be rowing across the Atlantic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-294245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Ollie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ca512100-c48e-11f0-90ea-63f1b96da933.jpg.webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Ollie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/f587c040-c48e-11f0-90ea-63f1b96da933.jpg.webp.webp\")
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