ANYA Forino, from Stroud, recently won the Welsh Climbing Championships for category D Girls (aged 10-11).

The competition was held at Boulders Climbing Centre in Cardiff.

It took place on November 8 and there were over 250 competitors from all over Britain.

It was a competition designed to test climbers’ skill in route climbing, using harnesses and ropes.

Anya was the only girl to top each of the five routes.

She set a personal best that day also by on-sighting her first 7a+, a climbing grade which many adult climbers would struggle with.

Only one other climber that day managed the route - and she was in the next age category up, no boys managed it.

Anya is a Year six pupil, aged 10, at Thrupp School and she won the UK climbing championships of the British Mountaineering Championships Youth Climbing Series (BMC YCS) in 2013 for her category, held in Edinburgh.

She has also won a number of other climbing competitions this year, including South West Regional Championships for category D and ‘The Battle of Britain’ under-12 bouldering category in October (bouldering is when climbers do not use harnesses, falling on to crash mats below instead when they fall off).

She hopes to qualify for the UK finals of the BMC YCS again this year and seems to be in superb form at the moment.

She trains with two teams - The Warehouse Junior Climbing Team in Gloucester, and with The Climbing Academy Bristol squad.

Her coaches are Cailean Harker and Sam Mitchell.

She also won first place (girls) recently in the Stroud Silver Kilometre.

She receives an Elite Athlete Award from Stroud District Council which has allowed her free access of Dursley Leisure Centre’s facilities in order to train more successfully.

Her inspiration is Shauna Coxsey - UK number one and World number two climber.

Like Shauna, Anya began climbing when she was just our year old and she would love to follow in her footsteps.

With her at the climbing championships were other local climbers.

Crystal Hulls (aged 11) who attends Archway School made it into the closely-fought final for group C girls, whilst Tommy Matthews (TCA and GB squad) made it into the semi-finals of group A boys.

Her Warehouse team mates Alex Oates and Roly Foster came second and third in the boys’ group A (15-16) in an extremely tight competition which saw the introduction of a Superfinal to separate the top three boys who had tied for first place.

Tom Frost narrowly missed out on on a podium place in group B boys, coming fourth.