Difficulty: Summiteer (Level 3)
Clinging with calloused fingers onto a jagged wall, 10-year-old Veronica Aimee Chik extends a hand up to grab her next hold.
She is nearly 50 metres above the ground. Her success hinges on every shift of a limb and every pinch on a tiny crevice, until she ascends to the top.
When Veronica was five, she took her first lesson at a climbing gym in Hong Kong and fell in love with the sport.
“It can help you use your mind … You can use your creativity,” she said, adding that creativity helped her decide the best techniques for each climb.
At age six, she won her first local competition in climbing.
Her mother, Vivian Wan, recalled: “When [Veronica] was around seven, she said she wanted to be an Olympian. And I was like, ‘Are you serious?’ Because in our family, we never had an athlete before. So we didn’t know what to do.”
Five years after she started the sport, Veronica is still too young to compete in the Olympics, but she has already broken a world record by becoming the youngest person to finish an 8c climb, a grade that is difficult even for seasoned climbers.
Her first big challenge
After a few years of training and winning competitions, Veronica’s coach wanted her to complete an 8b+ climb, a level highly challenging even for seasoned climbers.
For a few months at the start of 2024, Veronica and her father took a four-hour commute every weekend to work on this climb. They went to Yangshuo’s mountains, which have been hailed as China’s climbing paradise.
After Veronica struggled with this climb for months, her parents decided that it was time for her to take a break.
When she returned to training in September 2024, she completed the climb and set China’s record for the youngest climber of an 8b+ route.
Climb after climb
Veronica soon set her sights on the next big goal, this time in Europe. After meeting a coach in Spain, they decided on the 8c route called Fish Eye. This route was an even greater challenge, with only 21 recorded ascents according to the website Climbing History.
But with two weeks of hard work in July, Veronica became the youngest person in history to finish an 8c climb.
When climbing difficult routes, she explained her approach, “Just keep going … Make things enjoyable.”
Veronica currently balances practising five days a week with being a student at ESF Renaissance College. Despite her busy schedule, she hasn’t lost her passion for the sport.
Veronica shared words of encouragement for young climbers: “Follow your dreams ... never give up.”
