Climbing is what I do.

Big mountains are a completely different world: snow, ice, rocks, sky, and thin air. You cannot conquer them, only rise to their height for a short time; and for that they demand a great deal. The struggle is not with the enemy, or a competitor like in sports, but with yourself, with the feelings of weakness and inadequacy. That struggle appeals to me. It is why I became a mountaineer.

People respected my experience, they hire me, they pay me what I am worth to coach their team.

I think that people ran out of oxygen and don't really know what happened up there, maybe some of them just made things up because they weren't sure what had happened.

This year my role is clear: I am a coach, a coach to sportsmen.

I respect Everest very much.

Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.