Ben Fogle

Ben is heading off to Ethiopia with the charity facing Africa to make a BBC documentary about the disease Noma. Due to be aired in 2010.

Team Qinetiq successfully arrived in the South Pole, coming second in the Amundsen Omega South Pole Race. The team arrived exhausted but elated after nearly seven weeks in Antarctica. The BBC series On Thin Ice, which follows the team over the course of a year will be transmitted in the spring.

Ben has finished treatment for Leishmaniasis and has been given the all clear by a number of doctors to head south to Antarctica with Team Qinetiq. The team leave Cape Town for Novo in mid December and the race will begin at the end of the month. You can follow all the action on the teams website www.teamqinetiq.com and the boys will also send weekly dispatches back to the Weekend section of the Daily Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk every Saturday. A BBC team, led by Alexis Giradet and Camerman Keith Schofield will also be on the snow filming all the excitement for the series, On Thin Ice which will be broadcast in the new year.

Ben would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The third part of the hit series will be on BBC 2 at 18.30 every evening from 1st January 2009. The series involves a journey from the Equator in Ecaudor to the Tropic of Capricorn in Chile. Ben helps teams of unsung hero’s , from Fireman and doctors to Paralympic athletes and Naval Officers, across some of the world’s toughest environments

Ben, James Cracknell and Ed Coats have been training in the Plaine Morte Glacier of Crans Montana with trainer Bernie Shrosbree. The team endured sleep deprivation, hunger and crevaces as they trained at 3000 metres.