appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Sumnima Kandangwa

Freelance Editorial Assistant for Style by SCMP


In January 2025, Rahul Sharma ran his first marathon, in Mumbai, India. Months later, he learned of British ultra-endurance athlete William Goodge, who ran across Australia in 35 days, a journey of 3,800km (2,361 miles).
It was all the encouragement the then 24-year-old needed to up his game. Within weeks, the Melbourne-based exercise physiologist had rallied two of his best friends and decided on a goal: he would run 566km (352 miles) from Point Pedro, the northernmost point of Sri Lanka, to Dondra Head, at its southern tip, in six days.
None of the trio – Sharma, Ali Khajeian and Ben Lawson – knew the first thing about ultra-running. But that wasn’t going to stop them.
“I try my best not to be cocky, but it’s just not who I am,” Sharma admits in Born to Fly, a newly released documentary that charts his Sri Lanka run. “I have a big head.”
But why Sri Lanka?
“We didn’t want to follow a blueprint. We wanted to find a country that had never been done before,” says Sharma. Sri Lanka it was then, although, it is not strictly true that no one had attempted it previously; in 2023, Irishman Chris Rickard, assisted by two friends on bicycles, ran a slightly longer route between the same two points in Sri Lanka, in just under 12 days.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Sharma played cricket from a young age, and represented the city’s under-19 team. He stepped away from the sport after a series of injuries.

Having moved to Australia, he started running to help in his recovery from the injuries, and the activity quickly became something more all-consuming.
Challenging himself to run the length of a country wasn’t just a vanity project, though. Driven by a childhood friend’s battle with leukaemia, Sharma aimed to raise A$20,000 (US$13,100) for the Children’s Cancer Institute (CCI), a Sydney-based research organisation.
Eventually, the dates were set: December 24 to 30, 2025.
Lawson, 25, a journalism major who lived with Sharma while the latter trained, liaised with sponsors, the media and the CCI. He also worked closely with Sharma’s coach to ensure that the runner was getting the optimal amount of nutrients, hydration and rest in between training sessions. Lawson came to know Sharma inside out.
But as the day neared, both Sharma’s friends, who had helped map out his entire journey, had to pull out of the actual trip to Sri Lanka for personal reasons.
“It was a hard conversation and, honestly, I didn’t think that Rahul would have that level of understanding,” says Khajeian, who, like Lawson, nevertheless stayed involved in the project, and would direct and produce Born to Fly. “I know internally he was crashing out. But on the outside, he was very understanding and very mature. It just brought us closer to each other.”
Sharma brought in another friend, Mohammed Abdullah, a Sri Lankan who happened to be in the country at the time.

“Rahul is like an older brother figure to me, so this project was important to me because it was important to him,” says Mohammed.
Lawson passed on elaborate spreadsheets to Mohammed for use in tracking Sharma’s heart rate, meals and water intake during his attempt. Meanwhile, Khajeian promised to stay awake in Melbourne, which is four-and-a-half hours ahead of Sri Lanka, to instruct Mohammed and the videographers on capturing the right shots for social media and the planned documentary.
“He’s very artistically gifted,” Sharma says of Khajeian, 23, who has a degree in finance and is behind several of the social-media reels made for Ebb&Flo, the Australian running club started by Sharma. “I always told him that it was my dream to buy him out of a corporate job because he’s just too gifted to be sitting at a desk.”
Finally in Sri Lanka, Sharma spent almost every waking minute of the six days of the attempt on his feet, stopping only to eat and sleep for three hours per night, initially, in a camper van with a malfunctioning air-conditioner. While he ran, his entourage, which included Mohammed, a physiotherapist, two cameramen and the driver, followed in the camper van.
With temperatures soaring, the conditions were brutal.

“I blacked out on the second day. I have no memory of it,” Sharma says. At one point, he tried to remove his socks only to discover the rubber grips had melted and fused to his skin. They had to be cut off with scissors.
Mohammed and Lawson, who were monitoring Sharma’s heart rate and pace, the latter remotely from Australia, suggested he finish in seven days instead of six.
“There was a lot of colourful language,” Sharma recalls. “I was just lashing out at the team, telling them it was not an option.”
Lawson, Khajeian and Mohammed understood their friend’s frustration.
“One of the things we have become very good at as a group is separating our relationship as colleagues from our relationship as friends,” says Lawson. “So I knew that Rahul’s anger at me wasn’t a personal attack on me.”
From day three, Sharma slept during the day and ran through the night and early morning, to beat the heat. But the challenges kept coming.

An old injury returned in his left knee, becoming “the worst physical pain” he ever felt, he says, akin to two knives stabbing into his Achilles tendon with every step. Painkillers could only do so much, so Sharma and his physiotherapist fell into a different rhythm: every five minutes, he would stop, get restrapped and sprayed down to dull the pain, then continue to run.
“My physio had sleepless nights. My whole team was working so hard for me to be able to run,” Sharma says. Mohammed even blacked out from the stress at one point on the final day. “It would’ve been selfish of me to stop or slow down.”
Before his sixth and final day, Sharma was told by his father that several priests were praying for him. “Son, tomorrow you will fly,” he told Sharma over the phone, words that would inspire the title of Khajeian’s documentary. Spiritually revived, Sharma’s pace picked up on that last day.
Born to Fly’s most affecting moment is when Sharma arrives at Dondra Head. He collapses, bursting into tears as loved ones gather around him.
“It wasn’t just the physical pain,” he explains. “I put my team through hell. I didn’t see my friends, but they still came to support me. I hadn’t seen my dad in nine months. We raised money for cancer. We did all of this, and for it to just finish in six days …”
Six days, 13 hours and 22 minutes, to be exact – a time that earned Sharma recognition by the World Book of Records as the “fastest man to run from northernmost point to southernmost point of Sri Lanka”, all 566km of it. He also succeeded in raising the A$20,000 for the CCI.

Khajeian, who says it took him more than a month to put the two-hour documentary together, has been especially inspired by Sharma’s feat: “It has made me realise that the only thing standing between me and my goals is myself.”
Says Sharma, “I don’t know how fulfilled I would be if I was still playing cricket. I never got that feeling of, ‘This is what I was born to do.’ With running, everything just feels right.”
His next goal is to tackle a 1,000km route in Nepal. “I’ve done one world record at 24. It’ll be two at 25, if I’m eyeing to be the greatest of all time.”
Eventually, though, “I want to build a brand or open clinics through which I can help the community”, says Sharma.
“If I can choose to have a world record within eight months, you can choose to do the same in any walk of life.”


AIA invests in young Hong Kong talent with US$100m AIA Scholarships scheme

How Zara Chui aims to find early-warning solutions for fatty liver disease

How King Chan plans to mainstream mental-health solutions in highly stressed Hong Kong

How Selina Wong hopes to expand the reach of traditional Chinese medicine in Hong Kong

Doing Good

‘Born to Fly’ documents Hong Kong-born Rahul Sharma’s world record 566km run across Sri Lanka

Rahul Sharma, a former Hong Kong under-19 cricketer born and raised in the city, became the fastest man to run the length of Sri Lanka. Photo: handout

Sharma ran 566km (352 miles) from Point Pedro, the northernmost point of Sri Lanka, to Dondra Head, at its southern tip, in six days. Photo: handout

Sharma aimed to raise A$20,000 (US$13,100) for the Children’s Cancer Institute (CCI), a Sydney-based research organisation. Photo: handout

Born to Fly, the documentary charting Sharma’s Sri Lanka run. Photo: handout

Sharma (centre) celebrates finishing his run across Sri Lanka with his support team. Photo: handout

Sharma’s World Book of Records certificate confirms him as the fastest person to run from the north to the south of Sri Lanka. Photo: handout

Ride like a champion; a superbike spin around Lombok’s Mandalika circuit

Marco Bezzecchi on a practice run at the Mandalika International Street Circuit, on Lombok, Indonesia, before the 2025 Pertamina Grand Prix, during which the Italian rider clocked the fastest lap the track has ever seen. Photo: Getty Images

The Mandalika International Street Circuit. Photo: Shutterstock

Spectators watch the 2022 MotoGP on a hill near the Mandalika circuit. Photo: Getty Images

A competitor in the 2025 MotoGP. Photo: Getty Images

A media scrum around riders in the 2022 MotoGP. Photo: Ian Lloyd Neubauer

Pit crews fine-tune bikes before a MotoGP race. Photo: Ian Lloyd Neubauer

A qualifying session of the 2023 MotoGP Pertamina Grand Prix at the Mandalika circuit. Photo: Getty Images

Raul Fernandez of Spain and Tech 3 KTM Factory Racing crashes during the MotoGP Pre-Season IRTA-Test at the Mandalika circuit, in 2022. Photo: Getty Images

Rascals in Kuta, a tourist beach town about 20 minutes from Mandalika. Photo: courtesy Rascals 

Ian Lloyd Neubauer on his Honda CBR250. Photo: Mandalika Grand Prix Association

Doing good: in celebration of those making the world a better place

A night charity running event co-organised by Inclufit and Wazup Running Club starting from Tai Ping Shan Street. Photo: Elson Li 

A still of content creator Kate Barr, known online as EduKate, on her Scotland to Hong Kong walk. Photo: @edukate___/ Instagram

Helpers take part in a 4home community cooking workshop. Photo: courtesy 4home

A night charity running event co-organised by Inclufit and Wazup Running Club starting from Tai Ping Shan Street. Photo: Elson Li

The Paws United Charity dog adoption centre in Repulse Bay. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Meet Hong Kong’s unsung hero volunteers as they reflect on their overseas missions and the aftermath of the Tai Po fire

From left: retired family doctor Luke Tsang, operating-theatre nurse Carol Tse and emergency-room doctor Marcus Lo at the Red Cross Headquarters. Photo: Alexander Mak

Volunteers from across the city gather at the Kwong Fuk Estate podium, near the Wang Fuk Court blaze  in Tai Po, to distribute clothes, food and essentials to those affected by the fire. Photo: Sam Tsang

Luke Tsang helps erect a tent in Haiti, 2010. Photo: courtesy Luke Tsang

Tsang on the 2010 mission in Haiti. Photo: courtesy Luke Tsang

Tsang attends to a patient inside an emergency mobile clinic established in the aftermath of the Tai Po fire. Photo: courtesy Luke Tsang

Tsang at the Red Cross’ Hong Kong headquarters in Mong Kok. Photo: Alexander Mak

Emergency-room doctor Marcus Lo at the Red Cross’ Hong Kong headquarters. Photo: Alexander Mak

Lo undergoes training with SOS Mediterranee. Photo: courtesy Marcus Lo

Lo attends to a patient inside an emergency mobile clinic established in the aftermath of the Tai Po fire. Photo: courtesy Marcus Lo

From left: Carol Tse, Lo and Tsang at the Red Cross’ Hong Kong headquarters. Photo: Alexander Mak

Tse with thank-you cards and gifts that she has received throughout her volunteer career. Photo: Alexander Mak

Tse in Haiti in 2010. Photo: courtesy Carol Tse

Tse during a mission in Nepal in 2015. Photo: courtesy Carol Tse

Tse displays some of the cards she has received. Photo: Alexander Mak

How Hong Kong’s all-female Renegades dragon-boating team is making waves

The Renegades, a Hong Kong-based all-women dragon-boat team, train at Stanley Main Beach. Photo: Alexander Mak

Roberta Di Fazio Camilleri, founder and captain of the Renegades. Photo: Alexander Mak

Members of the Renegades warm-up before heading out onto the water. Photo: Alexander Mak

A team training section off Stanley Main Beach. Photo: Alexander Mak

Team Renegades in action. Photo: Alexander Mak

Team members head to their boat for training. Photo: Alexander Mak

The Renegades on the podium after winning first place in the ladies’ category of the Stanley International Dragon Boat Championships, 2025. Photo: courtesy Renegades

Downtime on the beach. Photo: Alexander Mak

Team Renegades train twice a week on the water and once a week off. Photo: Alexander Mak

A group photo after a training session. Photo: Alexander Mak

Women who train together get calluses together. Photo: Alexander Mak

Chinese youths find freedom at Thailand’s Shambhala festival

Zizi, a Chinese participant performing fire spinning at “Shambhala in Your Heart” festival. Photo: David Frazier

Shambhala campsite decorated with colourful flags, with Doi Chiang Dao in the background, Thailand. Photo: David Frazier

Tickets of “Shambhala in Your Heart” festival can only be bought in cash at the door. Photo: David Frazier

Participant names fill the “Shambhala in Your Heart”  guest book, showing a lot of participants from China. Photo: David Frazier

A Chinese hippie at “Shambhala in Your Heart” festival. Photo: David Frazier

Zizi, a Chinese participant in “Shambhala in Your Heart” festival. Photo: David Frazier

Dong Dong pose for a portrait during the “Shambhala in Your Heart” festival. Dong Dong is a 27-year-old who lives in Urumqi, Xinjiang. He works in a maintenance unit for China’s state-owned railway, for the past two years, he has used all of his annual leave for his Shambhala pilgrimages. Photo: David Frazier

Festivalgoers take advantage of Shambhala in Your Heart’s riverside location. Photo: David Frazier

Participants cheering during the “Shambhala in Your Heart” festival closing ceremony, 2026 Photo: David Frazier

A Chinese hippie dancing at drum circle during the “Shambhala in Your Heart” festival. Photo: David Frazier

Group of festivalgoers dancing during the “Shambhala in Your Heart” festival. Photo: David Frazier

Young people in Dali town, Yunnan province. The city has earned the nickname “Dalifornia” in recent years. Photo: AFP

Participants joining the “Shambhala in Your Heart” festival, 2026, Thailand. Photo: David Frazier

PostMag

Passions

Soon after Rahul Sharma began looking for a suitable challenge, he became the fastest man to run the length of Sri Lanka. A new documentary follows his record-breaking feat.


Sri Lanka

Nepal