Thomas van Tonder has experienced a meteoric rise to the top of world Obstacle Course Racing (ORC). The South African started racing OCR in 2013 and finished second in his first race. Within three years he had turned pro!

Fast-forward to 2019 and, among many other accolades, van Tonder has won 17 Warrior Black Ops Elite races, won the National Championship and Series Championships in 2016 and 2018 (was runner up in 2017). 

Thomas has also has competed in four OCR World Championships and placed in the Top 10 three times. 

2019 was a big year for the 27-year-old, he not only became a new dad this year, but kept his focus solid throughout the season and managed a string of good results toward the end of the year, including finishing second in the 3km and winning the 100m Sprint Race at the OCR World Championship, finishing on the podium at the innovative Red Bull Conquer the Castle and being a favourite in every Toyota Warrior Race he enters locally.

Van Tonder then decided to attempt something that a "normal" person would probably not try, climb up the Soweto towers. Yep, the tours that people normally bungee down!  

In 2020, he wanted to achieve his goal of a 90m rope climb up the iconic towers which he did, climbing  the rope in 09:05. And at the same time, setting a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS ® title for the 50m rope climb at 00:03:19.688. 

You can read more on Thomas here and more about his Rising with the Sun Journey here, and watch this record breaking climb below.