Scroll down for English                  Der Genfer Leichtathletiker und Europa-Rekordhalter Julien Wanders bereitet sich in Kenia auf seine ersten Olympischen Spiele vor. Ein grosser Teil des Trainings besteht darin, sich mental für den Event zu stählen. Ein Besuch vor Ort.

Für deutsch bitte runterscrollen.                  The Swiss long-distance runner Julien Wanders has lived and trained in Kenya for seven years. Observations.     —           It's eight-thirty on a Wednesday morning in February. Julien Wanders speeds over the country road from Eldoret to Iten at 140 kilometers per hour. A hip hop track called “I'm the boss” is blasting on the stereo. His colleagues are sitting in the back of the car, chatting happily, scrolling on their cell phones, the mood is relaxed. Wanders calls his girlfriend Kolly while on the road and says, “We're done with track, we'll be there soon for breakfast!”

Last February (which seems an eternity ago), I spent a couple of weeks in Durban, South Africa, reporting on a surf program for homeless children. The assignment—for various reasons, one of them being Covid-19—was never completed, and I hope to find a good home for this story next year. For now, here are a few pictures in front of and behind the scenes.

My brother Johannes and his friend Steve recently recorded a black metal album, and last week we shot some promotional material for their band Utopia Disaster.

Scroll down for English.                  Anfangs März veröffentlichte ich auf Instagram einen Surfkitsch-Post: Mein heiss geliebtes Board, hier am Strand in Anakao bei Sonnenaufgang fotografiert, mit der Zeile “One of these days—and it's gonna be right soon—you'll find your legs, and go, and stay gone.”* Das war prä-Corona, und ich ahnte damals noch nicht, wie sehr sich diese Worte in den kommenden Monaten bewahrheiten würden.

Currently, I live in Anakao, a small fishing village in the southwest of Madagascar. I came here in the beginning of March for a surf vacation, then the island got locked down, I decided to stay ... and it's been 108 days since.

When you fly across Madagascar, you can clearly see the bare, eroding soil and landslides everywhere: It’s a desolate view. Deforestation on the world’s fourth largest island is the most alarming in the tropical world and has reached catastrophic proportions in the past years. Approximately 95% of Madagascar’s vegetation has been destroyed over the centuries. — This is a story I pitched to and shot for Neue Zürcher Zeitung last year which was recently published.