Meet Jamie Clarke

Just an ordinary guy living an extraordinary life

Champion Athletic Wear wanted a unique ambassador to lead the expedition. Someone grounded in sports and fitness but with enthusiasm for other parts of life. Jamie is dedicated to personal fitness through weight training. When he's not at the gym, Jamie is running 12 flights of 551 stairs at the Calgary Olympic park ski jump with his endurance coach Syl Corbett, a world-class mountain runner. But Jamie also loves to eat pizza, drink a beer, hang out with his buddies, and take his eight-year-old son Khobe to Calgary Flames hockey games.

The Calgary, Alberta, native has climbed all Seven Summits, trekked 700 miles across Arabia's Empty Quarter by camel, and has traveled from New York to Hong Kong to Paris to inspire Fortune 100 executives with tales of high adventure. In 2010, Clarke will return to Nepal as the leader of Expedition Champion in an attempt to summit Mount Everest for the second time.

In 1988, Clarke, who was a three-time national Canadian junior champion cross-country skier, contracted mono and missed his chance to compete in the Calgary Olympics. The disappointment was so great that Clarke packed his skis away and focused on climbing mountains. At age 22 he was invited to join the "Climb for Hope Everest Expedition,", as the team communications specialist. To raise funds, Clarke would wake up at 3 a.m. and report on traffic for a local radio station. Then he'd spend ten hours a day on the phone working on expedition planning, followed by a few hours at the gym, before showing up for his DJ shift at a local bar—all this for the opportunity to troubleshoot unwieldy satellite gear at base camp.

In 1994, Clarke returned to Everest on a mission to summit. He eventually climbed to 25,500 feet, but due to illness the team was forced to abort the expedition before reaching the summit.

A few years later, on May 23, 1997, at 6:50 a.m., Clarke finally reached the top of the world.

So why go back?

"I do it for the love of adventure," Clarke says. "But I also want to inspire people to think differently about their lives, ponder new possibilities, and think about how they interpret hard work."

"When I was 25, I felt as though I was eight-feet tall and bulletproof," says Clarke. "But now I'm not training to be a hero. I'm training because I have a commitment to be healthy, alive, authentic, and engaged in my two kids' lives. I want to know in my heart that I can do this safely. I might fail miserably, but it certainly wasn't for lack of trying."

Pictures Jamie Clarke