Going to Extremes : Cover Model Is Top Competitor in Rough Wilderness Sport

Sarah Odell survived a recent 340-mile race through Utah’s least-hospitable wilderness by tromping through icy waters, clawing up forbidding cliffs, eating little and sleeping less.

Maybe now they’ll stop calling her Sarah Odell, model.

She has spent eight years in front of the cameras for the likes of Elle, Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Bazaar, exploiting her blond curls, robust cheekbones, blue eyes and lean, 5-foot, 11-inch frame. But to anyone on hand when the Redondo Beach resident and her team took third in the Eco-Challenge May 3, glitzy photo shoots in designer clothes must have been beyond imagining.

The race--an eight-day couch potato’s nightmare up and down cliffs and through frigid streams on horseback, mountain bike, boat and foot--is the newest trend in “extreme sports,” designed to take participants to the limit. Typically, the field includes a mix of triathletes, soldiers and outdoorsy types--with nary a fashion model within miles.

The Eco-Challenge’s slogan, “We eat iron men for lunch,” proved to be no idle boast: Only 21 of 50 teams finished.

“Kate Moss would die in this event,” as organizer Brian Terkelsen put it.

But for Odell, 27, no problem. She admits no fear, prefers horses to humans and likes nothing more than being in the wild by herself, she says. And as far as extreme sports, she does it for fun.

“I’m not an elite athlete, but I’m very mentally strong,” she said. “Where others need hot baths and hotels rooms, I can suffer freezing-cold canyons and going without sleep.”

Odell has done this before: Twice she took part in Europe’s Raid Gauloises, on which the Eco-Challenge is based. And she will do it again, in an invitational event called the Extreme Games, set for June 25 through July 1 in the backcountry of Maine.

She got interested in extreme sports after modeling started to lose its appeal. Despite four cover photos on Australia’s version of Cosmopolitan, she found it hard to maintain her confidence, she said, after realizing that looking her best wasn’t always enough to get her the top assignments.

Still, despite what such a sport does to her nails, Odell sees extreme sports as her avenue back into the profession.

Odell offers as an example Gabrielle Reece, who is showing up on her share of magazine covers after making her name in women’s volleyball. “I’d like to do the same thing, but for extreme sports,” she said. “As an athlete, it would be more fulfilling and enjoyable than it was as a nameless face.”

And, of course, it’s easier to keep in shape. Odell never stops training, buzzing from her Beverly Hills gym for strength training to the beach for a jog or to a local pool for a fast 2,000-yard swim.

She does most of her commuting on a mountain bike, since she has not owned a car in her year in Los Angeles. The native of England figures she easily puts a few hundred miles a week on her bike.

As Terkelsen says, it’s her anti-cover-girl mentality that gets Odell through physical ordeals.

“She may not fit the mold, yet she embodies what this is all about,” he said. “Just because she’s a model doesn’t mean she can’t be strong.”