Spanish extreme athlete emerges into daylight after 500 days living in cave

FILE PHOTO: Beatriz Flamini, a Spanish mountaineer who has been isolated for 500 days in a cave is pictured during her daily life at the cave in Motril, Spain in this screen grab taken from a handout video in November 2021. Dokumalia Producciones/Handout via REUTERS.

MADRID (Reuters) -A 50-year-old Spanish extreme athlete who spent 500 days living 70-metres (230 feet) deep in a cave outside Granada with no contact with the outside world has told how the time flew by and she did not want to come out.

Beatriz Flamini, an elite sportswoman and mountaineer, is said by her support team to have broken a world record for the longest time spent in a cave in an experiment closely monitored by scientists seeking to learn more about the capacities of the human mind and circadian rhythms. She was 48 when she went into the cave, and celebrated two birthdays alone underground.