German competitor Ben Dame joined the 4 Deserts Club at The Last Desert (Antarctica) 2022 which was his seventh time at a RacingThePlanet / 4 Deserts Race. When he is not running, Ben is the founder and CEO of HealthMatters.io, a digital health tech company.

Anim Swart, from Canada and the United States, completed the 4 Deserts Grand Slam Plus after successfully finishing The Last Desert (Antarctica) 2022.

Japanese competitor Rena Mutaguchi works at a financial IT company as a support engineer in Tokyo. She loves travelling and running. After taking part in the Marathon des Sables in 2013, she got hooked on stage races. At The Last Desert (Antarctica) 2022, she completed the 4 Deserts Grand Slam Plus, something only 8 people (only 2 women) had achieved prior to the race.

Terumichi Morishita, known as Mori Mori, is an engineer for Toyota in Japan. Mori Mori has an impressive record of ultramarathon results having won the championship in Okinawa Survival Race four (!) times in which he also holds the course record of 55 hours. He also has an impressive finishing time for the 100km distance of 8:46:33; and in a 24-hour race he completed 231km. He finished 69th in UTMF 2018 in under 30 hours; and was 39th in the Marathon des Sables in 2019. In 2022, he completed the 4 Deserts Grand Slam Plus, a feat which only eight people in the world had achieved before.

Ahmed Hussein Al Katheeri from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates is the first Emirati to complete the 4 Deserts Ultramarathon Series. He not only joined the 4 Deserts Club when he completed The Last Desert (Antarctica) 2022, but he also completed the 4 Deserts Grand Slam Plus which means he completed 1,250km of running across the major deserts of the world! Prior to 2022, only eight people in the world had achieved this feat. Ahmed is an expert at ultrarunning having also been the first person from the UAE to complete a 270km, 4-stage race in the Al Marmoom Desert on his home turf and, in addition, in 2019 Ahmed was the first Emirati to finish the Marathon des Sables.

Matthew Cavanaugh, from Colorado, USA, is a military officer in the United States Army and a recent kidney donor who completed the 4 Deserts Grand Slam in 2022. During his races, he represented the National Kidney Registry to demonstrate that life after a kidney donation is not any less, and that it really does only take one kidney to live a full life. In 2021, Matthew decided to donate one of his kidneys to a stranger in Seattle. This kick-started a chain of donations that helped get another seven people off the transplant wait list. Matthew has always been a trail runner, annually completing the 6-day, 120-mile Trans-Rockies Run in Colorado, finishing in the top few (3rd overall in 2021, 2nd before that) and hence his plan to prove that you can continue to live a full life and still run ultramarathons with one kidney. You can read more about Matthew's story in this LA Times article: https://lat.ms/3uLqjOH

Beth Whitman has been an adventurer and traveller for much of her life but only began running in her mid-40s after a lifetime of telling herself that she wasn´t a runner. She now runs a travel company taking people to unusual places around the world. Finally, she ran her first marathon at 50, and ended up running five marathons that same year. She then took on the challenge to complete the 4 Deserts Grand Slam which she completed in 2022.

Julita Ilczyszyn from Poland completed the 4 Deserts Grand Slam 2022. Julita is the mother of two wonderful children, wife to Kris, and a fitness instructor. Through the 4 Deserts Grand Slam, she dedicated each of the deserts to women who fight for a day without pain, working hard to give comfort to their sick children. She raised money for at least one day of relaxation for them, because in their lives they do not think about themselves at all, but only want good for their children.

Elise Zender is from Munich in Germany where is she works in private equity. Through the RacingThePlanet events, she raised money to support the Women Empowerment project of the NGO L'appel, who sponsor scholarships for female education in Sierra Leone. At The Last Desert (Antarctica) 2022, Elise completed the 4 Deserts Grand Slam Plus.

American Michael Williams is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at an emergency facility for critically injured pets at the Animal Emergency Clinic of South Florida in Miami. Married with three children, he still finds time for running having completed ultramarathons around the United States and the world. Michael completed the 4 Deserts Grand Slam Plus at The Last Desert (Antarctica) in 2022.

Michal Gawron from Poland was set to complete the 4 Deserts Grand Slam in 2018 – he completed the Namib Race (Namibia), the Gobi March (Mongolia) and the Atacama Crossing (Chile) but then had to cancel the last race in the series and couldn’t make it to Antarctica. In 2022, he fulfilled that challenge, something previously only eight people in the world had achieved.

John Bezou is a retired Army Officer who joins The Last Desert 2022 from Colorado in the United States. John completed the 4 Deserts Grand Slam when he completed The Last Desert (Antarctica) 2022.

Arthur Azevedo is from Sao Paulo in Brazil. Arthur says: “Running is a passion and being among new, diverse, and international people is a pleasure. At 4 Deserts races, I find them all in one place.” Professionally, Arthur is starting his own practice as an independent board member and business advisor. He is the husband of Arlete and father to Gabriel and Bernardo.

Sumanth Cidambi from Bengaluru, India, first started running for health reasons and it has since become part of his lifestyle. He has become an accomplished athlete, completing more than 13 ultramarathons since his first one at the Atacama Crossing in 2011. When he completed The Last Desert in Antarctica, Sumanth joined the 4 Deserts Club.

Elizabeth (Lisa) Cox is a Pilates personal trainer from North Carolina. In addition to RacingThePlanet / 4 Deserts races, she has competed in many distance events including multiple marathons, sprint triathlons and an Ironman triathlon. Prior to The Last Desert 2022, where she joined the 4 Deserts Club, Lisa said: “I have done four races with RacingThePlanet and I love the organization. I enjoy seeing the world while running / walking through unbelievable terrain.”

Dutch athlete Rene de Klein’s first love is in-line speed skating, competing in cities across Europe in this fast-moving sport. But a challenge from his niece to try an ultramarathon in Chile has sparked a similar passion for long-distance running so he alternates training on skates (on road or the ice) with long distance foot slogs. When he completed The Last Desert (Antarctica) 2022, Rene joined the 4 Deserts Club.

French competitor Yves Garrigue is no stranger to distance running with 25 ultramarathons under his belt including the Marathon des Sables, C.C.C. (UTMB), Grand to Grand, the Atacama Crossing (Chile) 2018, the Namib Race (Namibia) 2019, the Gobi March (Mongolia) 2019 and The Last Desert (Antarctica) 2022. Yves is a lawyer in Montpellier in the south of France.

American Warren Muldoon has completed numerous Ironman triathlons, endurance cycling events and ultraruns. Warren’s journey to the 4 Deserts Club spanned ten years beginning at the Sahara Race (Egypt) 2012 and finishing at The Last Desert (Antarctica) 2022. When he's not on the trails or hitting the roads, Warren is retired after a career in manufacturing with Anheuser-Busch in California.

Jihee Nam hails from Australia and works in Singapore as Director, Creator Partnerships APAC at Meta. She completed her seven-race journey to the 4 Deserts Club at The Last Desert (Antarctica) 2022.

When Marie-Paule is not translating for RWS Translations, she looks to her dog Mika for training runs in and around London where she lives. With a hazy and positively selective memory, she forgot that she said “never again” to herself during her first four RacingThePlanet races, but she still joined the 4 Deserts Club after successfully competing at The Last Desert 2022. Marie-Paule says: “My main objective is to have fun and experience amazing new landscapes, and the sense of freedom and joy associated with being in nature without any electronics or gimmicks. I hope to meet again with many desert friends and have a fantastic time!”