Team GB's Shauna Coxsey has announced that the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will be her final competition appearance in a senior career spanning over a decade, during which she has earned 30 World Cup podiums, 11 gold medals, an MBE and a coveted spot in the sport's debut Games, while overcoming multiple injuries along the way. Shauna still has ambitions and unfinished business in climbing, though; following the Games, she hopes to spend more time on rock.
Shauna wrote on Instagram:
Shauna will be Team GB's sole representative in Sport Climbing at Tokyo 2020, ending a competition career that began with wins in national youth climbing events over twenty years ago. Following her first IFSC Boulder World Cup win in Grindelwald in 2014, Shauna went on to win the overall Boulder World Cup twice in 2016 and 2017.
Alongside her competition career, Shauna is a co-founder and organiser of the Women's Climbing Symposium. In recognition of her contributions to climbing, Coxsey was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Her Majesty the Queen in 2016.
On rock, Shauna has made ascents of multiple 8Bs and one 8B+ (New Base Line, Magic Wood), becoming only the third woman to climb the grade in 2014.
Shauna will start her Olympic campaign in Tokyo on 4 August, where she will aim to qualify for the Combined Final on 6 August.
Shauna's IFSC competition highlights
• 2019 World Championships Boulder - Bronze
• 2019 World Championships Combined - Bronze (+Tokyo quota place)
• 2017 World Cup Combined (Overall) - Bronze
• 2x World Cup Boulder (Overall) Gold
• 2x World Cup Boulder (Overall) Silver
• 1x World Cup Boulder (Overall) Bronze
Read Shauna's UKC Olympic athlete profile.
Stay tuned for a pre-Tokyo interview with Shauna.
Comments
Very exciting for rock climbing.
All good things must come to an end. She's been at the top of the game for a long time!
She's been a big inspiration in climbing. Hope she enjoys 'retirement' on the rock!
Let’s hope she goes out on a high.
Climbing must be one of only a few sports where you can retire from competition but go on to achieve great things in the same sport (well not exactly the same but essentially the same as far as physical effort and ability are concerned).
Over a decade ? Wow where did that time go?