National Geographic announces 2014 Adventurers of the Year

Online voting for the National Geographic People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year 2014. For the ninth year running the prestigious award - not to be confused with the National Geographic Explorer of the Year - will be assigned by readers from a select list of nominees which, this year, includes 13 honorees. These include, in our world of mountain sports, Czech sports climber Adam Ondra who with the routes Change in 2012 and La Dura Dura in 2013 climbed the world's first 9b+ sport climbs, the extraordinary Spanish ski mountaineer, alpinist and skyrunner Kilian Jornet Burgada, and the Canadian alpinists Raphael Slawinski and Ian Welsted who carried out the coveted first ascent of K6 West in Pakistan last summer.

Readers may cast one vote per day and voting remains open until 31 January 2014. The winner will be announced in February and will join the list of previous winners which include Austria's Felix Baumgartner, Nepal's Lakpa Tsheri Sherpa and Sano Babu Sunuwar, Spanish alpinist Edurne Pasaban and American rock climber Dean Potter.


NOMINEES 2014
Stacy Bare and Nick Watson — American adventurers and veterans who launched an organization that links veterans to the outdoors and the outdoors community;
Greg Long — American big-wave surfer who won the 2012/13 Big-Wave World Tour, despite nearly losing his life in a massive wipeout a few months earlier;
Amy and Dave Freeman — American adventurers and educators who completed a three-year, 11,647-mile journey across North America by kayak, canoe, dogsled and foot, connecting with students and teachers along the way;
Diana Nyad — Sixty-four-year-old American long-distance swimmer who recently completed a swim between Cuba and the United States, on her fifth attempt;
Kevin Pearce — American snowboarder who, after surviving a traumatic brain injury, launched the “Love Your Brain” campaign to encourage the use of helmets for kids;
Kilian Jornet Burgada — Spanish “skyrunning” ultrarunner whose new brand of running involves blazing up technical terrain such as glaciers, rock ridges and steep snowfields;
Raphael Slawinski and Ian Welsted — Canadian alpinists who were the first to summit Pakistan’s K6 West, one of the last great unclimbed peaks in the world, despite danger and political turmoil in the region;
Adam Ondra — Czech rock climber who takes climbing to new frontiers of difficulty;
JP Auclair — Canadian skier who is best known for his special style of urban skiing;
Sarah Marquis — Swiss hiker who has just completed a three-year trek from Siberia to Australia.

To cast your vote visit: www.adventure.nationalgeographic.com