Xavier, or Xavi for short, is 10-years old and lives in the south coast of England near Chichester. Learning to ride a pedal bike at three years of age, biking has progressed from a hobby, to a passion and finally into an obsession! His first love is downhill riding and he started competing in downhill races in 2021, gaining his first podium and numerous top 5 places against children 2-3 years older than himself. He also loves adventure riding and Xavi has completed some pretty huge and epic trail rides in the French Alps, the most significant of which was a full descent from the 9000ft snow covered summit of Mt Saulire as a wee 8-year old!

However, it almost all went wrong for Xavi before it even started when as a one year old he developed a serious and potentially life threatening kidney disease. He was rushed into Southampton Hospital and was given less than a 5% chance of not requiring life saving kidney dialysis, significant kidney complications and a long road to recovery. However, at some point during that ordeal, a miracle kicked in and Xavi’s kidneys began to heal themselves and he was able to leave hospital just over a week later with nothing but blood pressures medicines to take. However, many children in the ward were not so lucky and two children with the same condition died during the time Xavi was in hospital.

10-years later, both Xavi and myself are committed to undertaking a challenge and a fundraising campaign that can help us, in some small way, say thank you to the amazing staff at Southampton Children’s Hospital who were so instrumental in Xavi’s recovery. It was for this reason that we are undertaking the 2022 Ben Nevis World Record Descent,