12 year old South Shields climber with Olympic dreams selected as part of GB development squad

He may not even be a teenager yet, but a South Tyneside climber is already making waves in the UK climbing scene after being included as part of the Great Britain regional team.

Will Duncan from South Shields started climbing as part of family holidays to the Lake District and is now one of the top young climbers in the country, travelling across the UK and beyond to perfect his craft and enter competitions.

"I used to do it and so I just took him along and he absolutely loved it" explains Will's dad, Scott.

"We used to climb the same walls and now if we go anywhere he'll leave us to go on the hardest ones!"

Moving from one session a week to three, the hobby turned into more serious as Scott explained: "After a while we were trying the odd new wall here and there and eventually he joined a team in Durham.

"He entered a regional competition and won that, then we kept training over Covid and kept going and going.

"He's been to a couple of national finals, and the qualifiers for those, no one has really beaten him for two or three years in the North East."

After a podium position in a Scottish competition and after another competition in Southampton he was invited to trial with the Great Britain team, first in London and then Sheffield.

"We're all over the place with this" explained his dad. "Since the start of the year we've been in Sheffield, London, Leeds, Birmingham and in another few weeks we'll be in another six parts of the UK."

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As part of being part of the team, Will needs to maintain a high level of success, which is helped by access to higher quality coaches, as well as a bit of additional self belief.

"It's given him a little confidence boost. I think when we've been to competitions and you've seen kids with the GB top on it may have felt, not intimidating, but maybe as though he wasn't at that level when he definitely was" his dad continues.

"He's pretty resilient, bit he'll try slightly harder climbs now whereas before he may have shied away from them a little more. I really hope this gives him a little boost.

His demeanour has changed slightly, he'll walk into somewhere and he'll be straight onto the harder walks. He's got that self confidence."

In terms of the future, the goal is clear for Will: "I want to go to the Olympics" he explains. "When I'm old enough I want to get on the team for all of Britain. I think I need to be 14 for that."

"I just really enjoy getting to the top [of the wall] and feeling good."

To get to the top of the sport though, family support may need to be matched with other levels of contribution - mainly financial-based.

"The staff at the Simonside wall were great and we've never looked back. St Wilfred's, his school have gone above and beyond. Everyone is behind him but the next step now is try and get a business to sponsor him" explains his dad.

"It would just mean, for example, Northern Ireland in a few weeks. There's a competition called the four nations which I'm not able to go to partly because of cost.

"There's a ropes competition in May which is just too expensive so we can't go at all. If the GB team suggest he should we'll probably have to, but with it being the end of May the cost of travel starts to add up.

"There's another competition we want to go to in Austria. It would be a great chance for a first international competition but we can't afford to do it.

"We haven't got a GoFundMe or JustGiving at the moment, but maybe that's something which may need to be thought about in the future.

"But also it's just great to be able to put Shields on the map. If we can get to these things it's something I'd love to do.

"It's just amazing to think it all just started in Simonside!"