Sehili said that he went on a bike ride from the outskirts of the capital of Portugal, Lisbon (RIA Novosti wrote that the start was on July 1), covered 18 thousand km and planned to end his journey in the Russian Federation, 200 km from Vladivostok.
According to him, when he got to the Chinese-Russian border, he discovered that with an e-visa he could only cross it by train, and he was already late for it. The next flight was only supposed to be in 24 hours, which meant that a new world record could not be set (the current record belongs to the German Jonas Deichmann – 64 days, two hours and 26 minutes).
Therefore, Sehili decided to get to the Russian Federation on foot, through a dense forest and past barbed wire fences. He told reporters how, climbing over barbed wire and fallen trees with his bicycle, covered in cuts, he gave up his dream of breaking the record and surrendered to “Russian customs officers.”
According to the Frenchman, at first he tried to deceive the Russians that he had unintentionally crossed the border, but “they saw through everything,” and Sehili was put behind bars for 50 days – he was placed in a pre-trial detention center in Ussuriysk, Primorsky Territory, 100 km from Vladivostok.
Sehili was kept in four different cells (sometimes with up to eight people in them) and fed bland food, which caused the cyclist to lose weight, develop an ear infection and a “distressing cough.”
On October 23, he was released (the Dozhd TV channel reported that he was ordered to pay a fine of 50 thousand rubles, that is, about 26 thousand UAH), although he was threatened with two years in prison, and on October 26 he flew out of the Russian Federation via Thailand.
The Frenchman told Reuters he would continue to participate in cycling marathons and “try to break records,” but not the one associated with Russia.
