PEMBROKESHIRE: First woman up Britain’s hardest ropeless sea cliff climb, and she did it on her second go

Twelve metres of overhanging rock above the Celtic Sea, no rope, no harness, and nothing underneath but open water.

Shauna Coxsey has become the first woman to climb The Olympiad at Skrinkle Haven on the Pembrokeshire coast, and did it on her second attempt.

The style is called deep water soloing. There is no rope and no gear, and the sea takes you if you come off.

The route runs up a wall overhanging at 45 degrees and is graded 8b, which is why it is generally described as the hardest deep water solo in Britain.

Coxsey’s is the sixth ascent since Neil Gresham established the line in 2012, and the first by a woman, according to Red Bull.

Not all six were done without a rope. Steve McClure made the second ascent in 2021 by placing gear as he went, which changed the sum entirely and earned the route a trad grade of E10.

The name is not an accident either. Gresham climbed it on 27 July 2012, the day the London Olympics opened.

Fourteen years later it has been climbed by an actual Olympian. Coxsey was the first British climber selected for Team GB when sport climbing made its Olympic debut at Tokyo, where she finished tenth, and she retired from competition straight afterwards. She won the overall Bouldering World Cup in 2016 and 2017 and was appointed MBE in 2016.

“Olympiad is one of the most captivating climbs I’ve ever seen,” she said. “I wanted to climb it from the moment I first saw it, but I was braced for a battle.”

The sea is the complication. “With the tide, temps, wind and humidity, it feels almost impossible to get perfect conditions,” she said.

She had expected a long fight with it. “Sending this route on my second try from the start was not at all what I expected, and I still can’t quite believe it.”

She then jumped off the top, which she says surprised her as much as anyone.

Gresham said it was Coxsey’s first deep water solo of any kind. “Yet it’s Britain’s hardest; no other woman had attempted it before, and she did it quickly,” he said, adding that there had been good conditions on only one day.

The previous fastest ascent belonged to Josh Ibbertson, who worked the route over three sessions from the ground up.

Coxsey now heads back to Switzerland and a boulder problem called Hazel Grace Sit in the Gotthard Pass, graded 8C.

The route itself is not going anywhere. It has been climbed six times in fourteen years, and the sea below it will still be there for the seventh.

Author

Kit Peters

Kit Peters is a journalist and the editor of Swansea Bay News, covering Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire since 2020.