{"id":228344,"date":"2025-10-27T15:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T15:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/228344\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T15:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T15:05:09","slug":"i-wasnt-so-smart-ultra-distance-rider-sofiane-sehili-after-eurasia-world-record-bid-ends-with-50-days-in-russian-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/228344\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I wasn’t so smart’ – Ultra-distance rider Sofiane Sehili after EurAsia World Record bid ends with 50 days in Russian prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

French ultra-distance rider Sofiane Sehili has recognised that he “wasn’t so smart” after his attempt to cross the Chinese-Russian border as part of his EurAsia World Record bid ended with him spending nearly two months in prison.<\/a><\/p>\n

Having left Lisbon on July 8 and when he was just hours away from reaching his final destination of Vladivostok on the Asian coastline, Sehili was arrested for crossing the frontier illegally.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The experienced ultra-distance rider, 44, had initially wanted to re-enter Russia from China via a frontier post that was only crossable by train or bus \u2013 a transport option that would have invalidated his record bid in its third and final month.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

So the Frenchman opted to use his bike to reach Russia through rough woodland, only to be detained – and see his 18,000-kilometre journey end with him spending nearly two months in jail.<\/p>\n

Although Sehili faced a potential jail sentence of up to two years for the crossing, the authorities opted to release Sehili from prison, give him a fine and repatriate him to France.<\/p>\n

“I tried to cross the frontier legally, but unfortunately that wasn’t possible that day,” Sehili, who had already been through 17 different countries, explained to AFP. <\/a> once he had made it back to France last weekend.<\/p>\n

“That would have been possible the following day, but I wouldn’t have had the chance to beat the record. So I decided to try to go through it illegally.”<\/p>\n

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Having got over to Russia from China, he first rode for several hours through “a very thick forest. But then I told myself that enough was enough and that I wasn’t very smart to have tried to do that.<\/p>\n

“Rather naively, I thought that if I told the [Russian] authorities it had all been unintentional, I’d [at least] have a chance of getting sent back to China quite quickly. But given the current situation in Russia being so tense, that didn’t work.”<\/p>\n

Sehili said he had been well treated in the Russian prison and that he had had medical and legal attention throughout.<\/p>\n

“It’s not a place where they pick you up and throw you in a jail and you’ve got no idea of what’s happening,” he told AFP<\/a> after being released on October 23 and flying back to France via Thailand.<\/p>\n

Following Sehili’s failed attempt, the EurAsian crossing World Record will remain in the possession of its current holder, Germany’s Jonas Deichmann and with a time of 64 days and two hours.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Sofiane\n<\/p>\n

Sofiane Sehili during his failed EurAsian Record bid (Image credit: Edgar Santos)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French ultra-distance rider Sofiane Sehili has recognised that he “wasn’t so smart” after his attempt to cross the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-228344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}