Parker Liautaud, 19, becomes the youngest and fastest person to reach South Pole

New Delhi: One cannot get as good a Christmas gift as this: Parker Liautaud became the youngest and fastest person to reach South Pole on Christmas Eve.The polar adventurer completed the journey in just 18 days.He broke the record of 24 days held by Norwegian Christian Eide.The 19 year old started his journey from the vast coast of Antarctica to South Pole. Parker and Stoup are pulling an 82 Kg sled, which is difficult to pull in fresh snow.The half French, half American teenager who moved to London from California is a student of Yale University and is studying Geophysics.He is an active environmental campaigner. Liautaud taking snow samplesParker Liautaud spent Christmas Day at the South Pole after arriving on Christmas Eve at the head of the Willis Resilience Expedition, achieving the goal of setting a new record for the fastest-ever unsupported walk. He has set a record for covering 314 miles from Ross Ice Shelf with his teammate Doug Stoup pulling sleds weighing in excess of 80kg over ice and snow, across the trans-Antarctic mountain range, through blizzards and mist in temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees celsius. The teenager now plans to take a well deserved rest after the tiring journey and enjoy Christmas with family. Meanwhile, British schoolboy Lewis Clarke, 16, is currently trying to break Parker's record and was almost halfway to the South Pole yesterday. Liautaud and his team flew to Union Glacier before reaching Leverett Glacier in a truck with scientific and communications equipmentThe pair struggled with the huge Trans-Antarctic Mountains, which at their highest point tower 14,855ft (4,528m) and ate 6,000 calories of food like dried nuts, hot energy drinks to keep their energy intact every day.Liautaud trained hard in between studying and attending lectures, fitting in gym work-outs, long runs and tyre pulling sessions to prepare himself for the trek and as well as building his strength and stamina, he worked on his flexibility as sprains or tears could end his record bid. The team will now spend the next few days in the South Pole before travelling back to Union Glacier where the team can catch a flight out of Antarctic back to Punta Arenas, Chile. The expedition will help to study the deposition rate of Tritium, a radioactive isotope of Hydrogen, across Antarctica. The data collected will be used to better understand the global water cycle, which is important to unraveling the mysteries of climate change. The data collected by the team will show the variability of isotope composition in precipitation across Antarctica and the pair's samples come from ice that has not yet been researched.