UKC

Shawn Raboutou (13) has done the short and steep Welcome to Tijuana at Rodellar, Spain and thereby his first 8c. Shawn is the son of Robyn Erbesfield-Raboutou and Didier Raboutou, so I guess the tale about the apple and the tree isn't entirely untrue.
Especially so as Shawn's younger sister,...

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=63573

As with Robyn Erbesfield's ABC for kids program, the development of Agility, Balance and Coordination has been a central tenet of the BMC's FUNdamentals workshops since they began almost a decade ago: http://www.thebmc.co.uk/fundamentals Robyn’s holistic approach to developing all round movement skills in very young children is so important when it comes to producing great climbers of the future.

ABC underpins Long Term Athlete Development, a widely accepted framework in sport regarding training regimes for children. If a talented young climber misses out on developing Agility, Balance and Coordination when very young, then work on such skills later on will likely reap more benefits in the long term than focussing on strength, which is so often many a climber’s obsession!

In reply to Jon Garside, BMC:

I had to re-read that article to make sure I wasn't seeing things. 8c at 13!!

Ok, he certainly has the right genes and family background, but that is still amazing!!

One to watch!

Rich.

In reply to Richard White:

Its not something completely new though, Ondra was on 9a at 13

Still mind blowingly impressive however none the less!

In reply to Björn Pohl - UKC: Wikipedia claims Ondra did his first 8c at age 11.. Still, seeing as Ondra doesn't really count (due to not being human) these kids are pretty amazing!!