A French endurance cyclist who had just 200km remaining of an 18,000km record-breaking ride was arrested and spent the next 50 days in prison for an illegal border crossing.
Sofiane Sehili was trying to beat the world record for riding across Eurasia when he crossed the border from China to Russia. He was just 200km from Vladivostok, where his record-breaking ride should have ended.
However, two months of endurance cycling, at record-breaking pace, went down the drain when he crossed the border after realising he had the wrong visa to legally cross from China to Russia.
The visa he had put in place for himself only allowed him to cross by train. But if he had done that, it would have invalidated his record.
French cyclist Sofiane Sehili who was detained earlier this month for illegally entering Russia during an attempt to break the world record for the fastest bicycle crossing of Eurasia has been remanded in custody in the Russian Far East until 4 October.https://t.co/A1EOiqUszU pic.twitter.com/wKSzqdmod2
— Novaya Gazeta Europe (@novayagazeta_en) September 18, 2025
Instead, he decided to walk across the border, carrying his bike and passing through a forest, thinking he would not been spotted. But that effort was so arduous he gave himself up to Russian customs officials.
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Sehili (43) was arrested and put in pre-trial detention, ultimately facing up to two years in a Russian jail of convicted. However, he was released last week, and ordered to pay a fine of $615, after 50 days in detention.
He had set off from Portugal and rode 18,000km as he tried to break the record held by German rider Jonas Deichmann, who did the ride in 64 days, two hours and 26 minutes.
Having been freed on Thursday, he has since flown back to Paris and has been speaking about his ordeal.
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Ultra endurance cyclist, Sofiane Sehili, who was detained in russia, while attempting to a long-distance cycling record has been released after 50 days of captivity and is currently safe in Thailand on his way home
His eye say everything. #RussiaIsATerroristState #cycling pic.twitter.com/Q8G1szMbUV
— Pvt. Snarky Fella ? ꏢ ї ? (@AzovLife) October 25, 2025
“I was on a mission to break a world record and if I had decided to wait another 24 hours to be on that train then breaking the record would have been impossible,” Sehili told Reuters.
So he decided to try and cross the border via the forest, on foot, being guided by his GPS and encountering streams, dense undergrowth that cut his legs and barbed wire fences.
“I kind of gave up on that dream of breaking the world record somewhere in that forest after crossing the barbed wire,” he said. “There was no path. I was walking in streams, climbing over fallen tree trunks and walking through high razor-sharp grass and my legs were full of cuts.”
He said of the prison he was in: “It was an old building, lots of things were falling apart, it was in pretty bad shape, kind of humid - kind of what you would imagine a Russian jail looks like. So not a nice place but not a violent place (but) it was a pretty safe place.”
His cycling shoes were the only footwear he had so he wore them when he appeared in court in Russia in relation to his illegal border crossing. While he initially tried to tell the guards he had crossed the border unintentionally, they knew what he had done.
Though he has been through an ordeal, he insists he is as committed to his racing and record-breaking ultra cycling.
“I am just going to keep riding my bike, and racing ultras and trying to break records,” he said. “Not this record but other ones for sure.”
