Four elite athletes cross the proverbial river of pain to undergo transformation in a way no cross-training program has ever done before. The athletes – expedition kayaker Rafa Ortiz, surf ironman Australian Matt Poole, big-wave surfer Ian Walsh and multisport waterman Kai Lenny – are guided by two former Navy Seals who purposely create high-performance challenges at every turn. The River Acheron, also known as the River of Pain, forms the border of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, and serves as a metaphor for the program. Red Bull Project Acheron merges extreme environments, the power of the unknown, and elite athletes into a highly engineered and singular athletic training experiment. The mission also has a scientific purpose, as the athletes’ brains are scanned pre- and post-trip to analyze how the brain reacts and adapts to stress.
