How long?!?

I was in Zuerich last week presenting at an event run by one of our partners, and I met a dead interesting chap there. His name is Ueli Steck, and his particular area of expertise is extreme mountain climbing - in other words, one of those people, who rushes up mountains by themselves with no ropes.

Unfortunately I couldn't understand everything he was saying at the time as my Swiss German is not too hot, but to cut a long story short he holds the world record for solo climbing the North face of the Eiger. This normally takes a day or two, but he did it in, wait for it, 2 hours 47mins 33 seconds!!!!

Now, two things struck me when I heard that:

• The team record is 6 hours and 50 minutes, so the next time your boss wants to send you on one of those hideous team-building exercises, simply point him at this!  
• If you can climb the North face of the Eiger in less than 3 hours (and it only took him an hour to get down) why does it take so long to choose a President?