Hacker Cinema
The Finisher
2025 · Film · documentary · 47 min
Directed by Jules Campanelli, Finn Melanson
In 2024, Jasmin Paris made history by becoming the first woman to finish the Barkley Marathons, widely known as one of the hardest races in the world and a defining test in ultrarunning and trail running. With over 100 miles of brutal terrain, cryptic course markings, and a near-impossible success rate, the Barkley has long been considered the ultimate challenge in endurance sports. This film chronicles Jasmin’s extraordinary three-year journey (2022–2024) to achieve this groundbreaking feat and features exclusive interviews with legendary race director Lazarus Lake, ultrarunning icons Courtney Dauwalter, Amelia Boone, and Jared Campbell, as well as rare insights from Jasmin herself. Through never-before-seen footage from her home mountains in Scotland, in-depth analysis of her Barkley race strategy, and a deep dive into her endurance athlete mindset, this documentary reveals the resilience and determination behind one of the greatest achievements in ultrarunning history.
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1 comment on Hacker News
I said that I would only abolish them if we could get to the endpoint overnight. Which clearly is impossible, ergo, I would not happily abolish them at all.
I'd happily wear a "I'm here for the D2a race" shirt in such a system.
Most people's paths as sports participants (not spectators) is that they enter a tiered system and remain there. Only a tiny percentage of people rise through that system to become truly national or internationally competitive.
One of the central problems here is that there are conflicts between what's good for the participants and whats good for fans/spectators. They are not always in conflict, but in several important ways, they truly are. 99.99999% of people who run marathons are not Eliud Kipchoge, and are not interested in a system that is designed around his level of performance and competition. But 90%+ of the people who would pay to watch marathons have little interest in a system that isn't built around talents like his. The same is true of almost all sports - solo or team - but it doesn't show up for 80% of them because there is no market for paid viewing of them. Or rather ... there wasn't until YT became what it is today. "The Finisher", a film about Jasmin Paris, the first woman to finish the infamous Barkley Marathons, has had 1.8M views, something it would never have achieved in "legacy" media.