A 21-year-old Norwegian woman became the youngest person to reach the South Pole on skis, alone and without assistance, on the night of Monday to Tuesday, her entourage announced on Tuesday.
One hundred and fourteen years after her compatriot, polar explorer Roald Amundsen, the first to reach the South Pole, Karen Kyllesø, born May 9, 2003, traveled some 1,130 km in nearly 54 days on the Antarctic continent.
“It’s a page of polar history that has been written,” said his mentor, Norwegian adventurer Lars Ebbesen.
The young Scandinavian dethrones the Frenchman Pierre Hedan who, according to Guinness World Records, was since January 7, 2024 the youngest to have reached the South Pole, alone and without assistance, at 26 years old.
Very small – 1.52 m and 48 kg – Karen Kyllesø pulled a sled weighing around a hundred kilos, twice her weight, to reach the pole which she reached late Monday evening, in temperatures of – 25°C.
At 15 years old, in 2018 she had already become the youngest girl to have crossed Greenland on skis. “As soon as I arrived, she asked me: Do you think I can also go to the South Pole?” recalls Lars Ebbesen.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre hailed a young adventurer who “follows in the footsteps of Norwegian polar heroes”.
On December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen was the first to reach the geographic South Pole after a tragic race with the British Robert Scott, who died of cold and exhaustion, with his teammates, on the way back.
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