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Report nowNicolas Hojac has made history with a spectacular record on the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau. In this interview, he talks about risk, routine - and the formative lessons of Ueli Steck.
The Wings for Life World Run will take place for the 13th time on May 10, 2026. At the largest running event in the world, all participants start at the same time everywhere. If you want to compete with sporting greats such as Marco Odermatt or Simon Ehammer, you can also do so virtually via the Run app.
The flagship run in Zug is already sold out. Numerous organized App Run events take place in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
In 2025, a total of 310,724 people from 191 nations in 170 countries were registered worldwide, setting a new record. A total of 8.6 million euros was raised for spinal cord injury research. Over 11,000 participants were counted throughout Switzerland.
100% of all entry fees and donations go towards spinal cord research and help to cure paraplegia.
Mountaineer Nicolas Hojac, who has already taken part several times and is very much looking forward to it, will also be at the start in Zug: "The great thing about it is that it's a charity run. Anyone can take part. You don't necessarily have to be a runner, but it's still fun. Everyone can bring out the best in themselves."
Although Hojac also cuts a fine figure in the race, his passion is climbing. But the path to becoming a professional climber who can make a living from his profession was "hard and long", as the 33-year-old admits in an interview with blue Sport: "There is no state support for climbing. We are excluded from Swiss Olympic or Sporthilfe. In this respect, the leap to becoming a professional is extremely difficult."
You have to do everything yourself, whether it's training or working with sponsors or the media. According to Hojac, who lives in Spiez, the most important thing is to reach a certain level so that people are interested and there is credibility. "I never thought I would make it myself," he admits. "Mountaineering and climbing were always a big hobby for me. I only started when I was 14 years old, before that I played ice hockey for ten years. I then slowly got into the whole thing and was very motivated and out and about a lot."
The talented climber also benefited from learning from older and more experienced people. "I was out and about with Ueli Steck and got a lot of advice from him. For example, he optimized how to get through the wall efficiently. That was crucial in enabling me to make rapid progress in a short space of time," recalls Hojac, who originally studied mechanical engineering because he didn't really believe he could make a living from his sport.
Extreme mountaineer Ueli Steck (†) as a mentor for Nicoals Hojac.
KEYSTONE
"2017, when Ueli died, was a key year for me. It was also the first year in which I was able to earn money from mountaineering. I then asked myself: if it happens to the world's best mountaineer to die on an acclimatization tour, it could actually happen to me at any time," admits Hojac.
In the end, it was a "gut decision" that prompted him to carry on. "I felt that I had to do what enriched me in my life." But it was important to him that he had a clean risk management system and followed the rules to avoid dangerous things.
A year ago, he set an amazing record against his former friend and mentor Ueli Steck, of all people. Together with climbing partner Philipp Brugger, Hojac managed to climb all three north faces of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau in just 15 hours and 30 minutes, breaking the previous record of just under 25 hours.
Nicolas Hojac with Philipp Brugger in front of the north face of the Eiger.
Red Bull
Hojac emphasizes that they "didn't pulverize" the previous record. "The first ones always have the hardest time. We had clues as to how long they had and what mistakes they made." For example, Steck and Stephan Siegrist only did the tour in June, when there was less snow and ice. In addition, the current generation has more knowledge when it comes to food or has better equipment.
"They also made the mistake of not visiting the last wall and lost time there because they got a bit lost," explains Hojac, adding: "We prepared very well for the project, and in the end it took four years."
The first attempt failed, for example, because Brugger was not in the best of health. After that, the external conditions were not ideal. "We've learned a lot from all these years and have been able to optimize one thing at a time. And at the end of the day, these are all small adjustments that make a big difference in the end," he sums up.
Of course, the risk was not zero on this tour either. "When you're in the mountains as a speed climber, you're sometimes on the move in such a way that a fall could result in an injury. Otherwise it wouldn't be possible to progress so quickly," explains the Bernese climber.
But when he climbs the north face of the Eiger with his climbing partner, they are in a "comfort zone". "We don't actually leave it in terms of the technical difficulties," says Hojac, using an everyday example as a comparison: "Like a normal person walking up a flight of stairs in Migros - I can do that there in this terrain. I feel comfortable there and I really have the skills."
Nevertheless, he has great humility before the north face of the Eiger - the highest north face in the Alps. After all, he knows exactly where the tragedies took place.
"After my return, I didn't really feel happy at first. It usually takes a week or two before you really realize it," he says, describing his emotional state after the historic milestone. When climbing in the mountains, you don't have enough time to process it. Even when he was back down on the Jungfraujoch, he still didn't feel any deep inner satisfaction or joy.
Nicolas Hojac in action.
Red Bull
Hojac does not currently have a project ready to go. It doesn't have to be something completely wild just to do something for the public in one fell swoop. "That's what becomes dangerous when you have the feeling that you have to go even faster, even further, even higher, even more blatantly. If you always want to make this development, then it becomes dangerous in our sport."
Nevertheless, the professional mountaineer, who is sponsored by Red Bull among others, believes that the dangers are overestimated by neutral observers. "If you're doing something difficult, you have to be more secure. That actually makes it safer. That's something that laypeople don't understand," says Hojac, adding: "The north face of the Eiger is not very dangerous per se." On the other hand, there are more dangers lurking in easy terrain where you can't belay well. Of course, his job is more dangerous than an office job. "And the incidents that occur are the dark side of my job," says Hojac.
The willingness to take risks also depends on personality, which is why you can't pigeonhole everyone as being the same. "There are people in the scene ... When I see how they've been on the road for years ... then it's only a matter of time before something happens," he points out. "Ueli was certainly someone who deliberately played the 'risk' card with his speed solo ascents," says Hojac. "But in the end, he had already signed a work contract and wanted to slowly wind down his career. In the end, he died on a simple acclimatization tour. That's tough when you've taken a lot of risks first and nothing happened, but it happened on a simple one," says the 33-year-old fatalistically.
Although you can do your job as a professional mountaineer for "quite a long time", he is not aiming to do it until he is 60. "It's a question of risk, which adds up as long as you're in this business," says Hojac, adding: "For me, it's so realistic that it's between 40 and 50 where I'll go down safely." For him, the world won't end if he has to do something else again.
"The biggest learning was in 2015, when I set the rope team speed record on the north face of the Eiger (3 hours and 46 minutes) together with Ueli," Hojac notes. "At the start, Ueli said that he had a meeting in Bern at 6 o'clock in the evening and that we shouldn't be too slow. I told him that I had a whole day for the north face last time and that it might take longer," he recalls with a laugh.
"I would never have thought that we would reach the summit so quickly. That day, Ueli showed me that you are capable of so much more than you think. I took that to heart on my way," Hojac emphasizes and adds: "You should try to tackle something that is too big or too difficult at the beginning. In the end, you are capable of much more than you originally thought. We experienced this ourselves with the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau project: we calculated that a time of between 21 and 23 hours would be great. We never thought it would be possible in 15.5 hours."
