Hong Kong mountaineer Ada Tsang (foreground) reached the summit of Mount Everest in a record time of 25 hours and 50 minutes on Sunday. Photo: Handout
Hong Kong’s newest sporting hero is also our greatest ever. Ada Tsang Yin-hung has climbed Everest in world record time, 14 hours faster than the previous best female climber. Not a particularly sporting place, Hong Kong has few great sportspeople. Ada can go to the top of the list.
This incredible feat a week ago was by a former Hong Kong life-style teacher, 44, who says, “Aim high, expect high and you can achieve high.”
It was Ada’s third attempt at climbing the world’s highest mountain. She left Everest base camp at 1:20 pm, climbed non-stop and summited at 3:10 am the next day, 23 May. Her climb took 25 hrs 50 mins*. Everest is 29,032 ft or 5.5 miles high. Near the top it’s called the Death Zone. About one per cent of climbers who attempt Everest die. May two years ago was an especially bad time. Eleven died.
What’s Ada doing now? She’s off to Mt Lhotse, a few feet shorter than Everest, to “knock the bastard off” too, paraphrasing Edmund Hillary, the New Zealand mountaineer who was first to climb Everest in 1953 with Sherpa Norgay Tenzing.
Ada Tsang Yin-hung reached the summit of Everest at Nepal time 3:00 am Photo: Instagram
Frankly, at BUZZ we wish our new hero would come home to the fawning by the press, tickertape parade, Gold Bauhinia Star and dinner at Government House she deserves.
One of the best books for understanding the enormity of the task that Everest climbers take on is John Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. Krakauer climbed the mountain during the 1996 disastrous season when eight climbers from two expeditions died on Everest.
- The previous record holder was Phunjo Jhangmu Lama of Nepal who took 39hrs 6mins
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