Jet Li photo shoot caps Ash Dykes’ world first expedition along the length of the Yangtze
- The Welsh adventurer becomes the first person to walk the length of China’s longest river
- Mid-journey he is asked to join a photo shoot, to launch actor’s Wuji product line
Ash Dykes was in the midst of an epic attempt to become the first person to walk the length of the Yangtze when he received a call from Adidas. They wanted him to do a GQ photo shoot to launch Jet Li’s new “Wuji” product line. The adventurer flew to Shanghai from Chongqing, did the shoot, got a plane back and continued his journey.
“It was such a contrast. Being in the extreme, then being in a photo shoot and having a make up artist,” he said “Only a few days earlier I was slogging it out in the heat.”
Dykes, 28, completed the 6,437km trek from rural China to Shanghai in 352 days along the nation’s longest river. It marks his third world first after walking solo across Mongolia and the length of Madagascar. As he worked his way through China, his social media following on Sina Weibo and Baidu, two Chinese platforms, grew until he was asked to join the photo shoot.
Dykes was joined by Hong Kong martial arts actor Jacky Heung on the shoot, as the sportswear company wanted a Westerner and an Asian who both represented an “unbreakable story”, Dykes said. Dykes had trained in Muay Thai in Thailand, but he learned basic kung fu from Heung, it said on his website.
As he began to walk through China’s densely populated cities, he was fighting temperatures over 40 degrees, with humidity that made it feel like 55 degrees.