AT the tender age of 10 and six months, Huang Heming from Shenzhen set a new record in Yangshuo County of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, becoming the youngest athlete in China to complete the “China Climb” route, which is reserved for a very few elites with a 5.14 difficulty level.

Huang, a student at Liyuan Primary School’s Weipeng campus, was born in Shenzhen in June 2011. Due to his father’s work, Huang used to travel back and forth with his family between Urumqi in Xinjiang and Shenzhen when he was younger.

In August 2017, Huang first encountered rock climbing in Urumqi. He developed a strong interest in the sport and spent half of 2018 training and competing in the U.S.

Huang settled in Shenzhen after attending primary school and spent his free time training in rock climbing gyms and competing in various locations.

From 2018 to 2020, Huang, representing Futian District,became the all-round champion at the Fourth National Kids Climbing Championship’s U7 group and the Fifth National Kids Climbing Championship’s U8 group, as well as the all-round champion at China (Shaoxing) Youth Rock Climbing Open’s U9 group.

“Despite his age, he has made remarkable progress. Completing the ‘China Climb’ route is a huge accomplishment,” Zhang Jiandong, deputy leader of Guangdong’s provincial rock climbing team, was quoted as saying.

According to Zhang, Yangshuo’s “China Climb” route is a difficult field route that many climbers have struggled to scale. “It’s equivalent to the ‘graduate student’ level in terms of education,” he said.

Zhang also said that Huang’s rapid progress is due to his enthusiasm for the sport, rather than his exceptional talent.

“He has talent, but the most important thing is his daily scientific training and the advancement he receives from competing in various contests. His family also supports him to participate in rock climbing, which allows him to put his skills to good use,” Zhang said.

(Zhang Yu)