South Korea’s main alpine body said yesterday that it would not acknowledge a female climber’s claim to have scaled the world’s 14 highest peaks.
Oh Eun-sun completed her ascent of 8,091m Annapurna in Nepal on April 27, claiming to become the first woman to reach the peak of the world’s 14 highest mountains, all in Asia’s Himalaya and Karakoram ranges.
She claimed the feat almost 13 years after she first climbed the 8,035m Gasherbrum II in July 1997, but it has been disputed by other climbers.
PHOTO: AFP
The Korean Alpine Federation (KAF) said that Oh probably failed to reach the top of Mount Kanchenjunga on the Nepal-Tibet border in May last year.
But the 44-year-old South Korean has refused to accept the federation’s decision.
The federation said its conclusion was made on Thursday at a meeting of seven leading local climbers who had scaled the 8,586m Kanchenjunga.
“All of the participants shared the view that the landscape shown in Oh’s two alleged photoshots throughout the entire ascent doesn’t seem to match the actual landscape,” KAF secretary-general Lee Eui-jae said.
“They also agreed that Oh’s previous explanations on the process of her ascent to Kanchenjunga are unreliable,” he said.
He said the decision reflected a “confession” from the sherpa who climbed Kanchenjunga with Oh, but claimed that she stopped short of the top.
Oh branded it “a unilateral opinion.”
“All participants were climbers who had doubts about my achievement from the beginning, so their conclusion must have been already set,” she said in an interview with local television MBC.
“It is a mere and unilateral opinion from a federation, and I don’t know how influential their decision can be,” she added.
Oh’s local sponsor Black Yak urged the federation to stop undermining the climber.
“What they are doing to Oh is too harsh, considering there are plenty of other climbers who do not have the proof at all,” a Black Yak spokeswoman said
The federation said it could meet again if Oh provided clearer evidence. Its meeting chaired by KAF head Lee In-jung came after local television SBS aired a special program last Saturday casting doubts on Oh’s claim.
The program highlighted anomalies in photos provided by Oh and interviews from sherpas, local climbers and Elizabeth Hawley, regarded as the leading authority on Himalayan mountaineering in the Nepalese capital.
Hawley leads a team that compiles the Himalayan Database, an authoritative account of all major climbs in the Nepal Himalayas.
Oh has said she sent a video to Hawley proving she reached the top of Kanchenjunga, but Hawley has allegedly expressed an undecided view about Oh’s claim.
“I have the proof, video footage, and that part was clearly solved,” Oh has said previously, adding her claim has also been backed by legendary mountaineer Reinhold Messner, the first man to achieve the 14-peak feat in 1986.
Her Spanish rival Edurne Pasaban has said that the Korean woman had not yet produced documentary proof backing her claim.
“She finished before me, she was first and we congratulated her. But there are still doubts over some summits,” Pasaban said in Madrid in May after climbing the world’s 14 highest mountains for nine years.
The 36-year-old Spanish climber also said she had submitted 14 photos as proof of her climbs to Hawley.
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