• Louis Rudd, a 49-year-old British adventurer, just became the second person in history to cross Antarctica alone and unaided.
• Rudd’s achievement comes just two days after an American, Colin O’Brady, reached the same finish line on the Ross Ice Shelf.

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British explorer Louis Rudd has become the second person to ever cross Antarctica alone and unaided, reaching the Ross Ice Shelf on Friday.

One of Rudd’s sponsors, the adventure-apparel company Shackleton,tweeted the news on Friday afternoon, saying the 49-year-old had completed his 950-mile journey. Rudd’s achievement comes just two days after Colin O’Brady, a 33-year-old American, accomplished the same feat.

O’Brady spent 54 days travelling 932 miles across Antarctica, while Rudd completed his own journey in 56 days.

Rudd embarked on a trek across Antarctica in honour of Henry Worsley, a close friend who died in Antarctica while trying to walk from coast to coast in 2016. Earlier this year, Rudd told The New Yorker that Worsley had introduced him to polar exploration, teaching the British Army captain how to survive in minus 60-degree Fahrenheit weather, how to move through blinding whiteouts, and how to spot crevasses in the ice sheet.

The British explorer boarded a plane for Chile on October 25 and flew to Antarctica several days later. He set out on the cross-Antarctic journey at the same time as O’Brady and maintained the lead for about a week.

According to The New York Times, however, O’Brady caught up with Rudd on November 9 and never let the British man get close to him again.

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