UKC

11 year old, Ashima Shirashi just keeps taking giant steps. Now she has repeated Joe Kinder's Southern smoke, 8c+, at the Bob marley crag, Red River Gorge.
After a 3rd go 8b/+ the first day and an 8b+ flash the second, it took a few days for the next ground breaking ascent. Ashima was working on...

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=67558

In reply to UKC News:

Holey moley!!

In reply to UKC News:


What are getto holds?

In reply to UKC News:As illustrated like the sport of gymnastics in the future one pitch sport climbs will be dominated by light juveniles . Sorry guys and old ladies but you may have to revert back to multi pitch trad routes to impress.

In reply to USBRIT: Hmm, I'd reserve judgement on that front you know. The first female 9as were climbed a decade ago by a Josune in her 30s (and nobody has bettered that since) and Ondra isn't a juvenile any longer.

I'd be willing to bet that in 10 years time Sasha, Ondra, Ashima, (and many other young names) will all be climbing harder than they do today and the new crop of preteens to midteens will be a grade or half grade behind them.

There are a lot of sports you could choose to compare climbing to and gymnastics is one of the few where young children reliably outperform adults... Infact, it seems child gymnasts are not necessarily so awesome, check the olympic statistics on age of medalists:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/datablog/2012/aug/10/olympics-2012-list-med...

In reply to USBRIT: The strength elements are dominated by the males, so much so the events are different. This will have a knock-on effect to top end power. This young girl is scarily good though!

In reply to UKC News:

That is just scary good.

In reply to UKC News:

Incredible! Really looking forward to seeing the video of that ascent.