In May 2014, Poorna Malavath, then aged 13 years and 11 months, became the youngest Indian and youngest girl in the world to summit Mount Everest
With Mt Denali in North America, Telangana-based mountaineer Poorna Malavath has climber seven tallest peaks in all the seven continents. Instagram/poorna_malavath
Telangana-based mountaineer Poorna Malavath has achieved another feat of completing the ‘Seven Summit Challenge’ by scaling seven tallest mountains in all the seven continents. On 5 June, Malavath climbed Mt Denali (6,190 metres), the highest mountain in North America.
According to an NDTV report, Poorna’s summit was confirmed by her coach Shekhar Babu.
“Poorna Malavath spoke over satellite phone after coming to lower camps from the summit and shared the news of her successful summit. She is very happy to climb this mountain,” he said.
Who is Poorna Malavath?
Poorna is an Indian Mountaineer from Pakala village, Nizamabad Mandal, Telangana State. Daughter of Lakshmi and Devidas, who are farm labourers, Poorna joined the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society for her education in a nearby district at the age of 11.
According to Femina, she got access to better food, improved classes and an opportunity to begin training for mountaineering at her residential school.
Her talent was spotted by IPS officer RS Praveen Kumar, who was posted at the school as the secretary. To improve school dropout rate, Kumar decided to implement extracurricular activities, notably rock climbing.
According to Forbes India, Poorna was selected among 110 students from government-run schools across Telangana to go on a five-day excursion to Bhongir, a local rock-climbing mecca. At the end of the five-day camp, Poorna learnt the basics of balancing, bouldering and rappelling and stood first.
A total of 26 of the 110 students, including Poorna, were selected to go for further training to Darjeeling for a period of three months.
Upon returning from the Darjeeling camp, 13 of the 26 students were shortlisted for further training. At this stage, Kumar set his sights on an Everest expedition for Poorna. She was coached by Shekhar Babu through hard training that included running 20-25km per day, volleyball playoffs and yoga sessions.
Poorna’s journey of scaling seven summits
In May 2014, Poorna aged 13 years and 11 months became the youngest Indian and the youngest girl in the world to summit Mt Everest. Earlier in the expedition, the young mountaineer fell ill at an advanced base camp due to insufficient acclimatisation.
As part of her mission, the 22-year-old has climbed Mt Everest (Asia) at 8,840 metres, Mt Kilimanjaro (Africa) at 5,895 metres, Mt Elbrus (Europe) at 5,642 metres, Mt Aconcagua (South America) at 6,961 metres, Mt Cartensz Pyramid (Oceania) at 4,884 metres, Mt Vinson (Antarctica) at 4,892 metres and Mt Denali (North America) at 6,190 metres.
With inputs from agencies
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