DEPORTES. Al filo de lo imposible

A minisheet is issued on occasion of the Sports series devoted to the television programme “On the edge of the impossible” (Al Filo de lo Imposible). This third edition, made up of six stamps and six vignettes with no postal value, depicts pictures of expeditions filmed in the remote Artic and Antarctic.

The team of Al Filo, dressed in special suits to face the cold waters of the Antarctic Ocean, dived amongst massive blocks of ice discovering the vast biological reserve lying under the ice floes. In this region of the world, sea life develops in a dark and extremely cold habitat; a real challenge faced by the expert divers. Mountain climbing in the Antarctic features in one of these stamps showing the hard work and effort carried out when climbing the frozen and inaccessible peaks such as the Scott, Shackleton and Wendell. Throughout three expeditions, Al Filo has climbed the Land of Queen Maud, the Ellsworth mounts and part of the frozen continent of the Antarctic. Following on the routes of legendary explorers such as Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott or Ernest Shackleton, Al Filo de lo Imposible has carried out some of the most important Antarctic crossings such as the South Patagonia Ice, South Pole, North Pole and the great Trans artic crossing. The stamp depicts a picture of the Antarctic crossing achieved with no mechanical means. To head south and follow the trace of whalers and seal hunters that in the XIX century went deep into the frozen waters surrounding the Antarctic, is the feat the main characters of Al Filo de lo Imposible have carried out on board the sailboat Le Sourire, which features in the vignettes and stamp devoted to sailing in the Antarctic. Also travelling in a canoe amongst the massive fiords that surround the southern Chilean Patagonia is one of the great adventures undertaken by Al Filo de lo Imposible . Its aim: to pay homage to Spanish sailors who in the XVI century travelled amidst the labyrinth of fiords and channels of southern Chile in search of a path towards the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, the Iditarod, considered to be “the last grand race of the earth” that takes place in Alaska , means crossing the distance of 1,800 kilometres in sledges pulled by dogs. Al Filo did it in the style of the old settlers that crossed these lands in order to bring a vaccine to the inhabitants of this region that would save them from death.