In reply to Robert Durran:
> ... I find the treatment of Everest (or any mountain) as little more than a race track little more edifying than the rest of the Everest circus, however physically impressive the times are.
I don't see the harm that much. I do find funny the use of 'fastest known time / FKT'. I understand this was initiated to head-off the kind of arguments that follow claims, that someone that nobody knew of did the thing faster some time previously. Often such inaccurate claims were simply the result of poor (or non-existent) research.
While I think this might have been justifiable some years ago, the likelihood of someone now - at least since the advent of social media, Strava etc - clocking up some super fast time
on anything significant and not broadcasting it to the world is unlikely. So I think it's a bit of false humility now, a bit disingenuous, despite its justifiable origins.
It can also be used to legitimate odd routes or non-standard Start/Finish points, and I can already see elsewhere on the web people asking questions comparing Kammerlander and Stangl's 16hr north ridge Everest climbs (ABC to Summit). Jornet's self-imposed rule of going to/from the last place of civilisation is a nice one in some ways, but quite a rod for his own back, as shown now when sickness prevented him from completing his self-determined 'route'.
I noticed from the short videos published, he seemed to be in incredibly good shape as he got back down, hardly tired at all, and apparently he spent plenty of time at ABC signing autographs before having a rest. Climbing traditions be damned, it's an amazing feat he's pulled off.