Emerging Superstar?

Last weekend’s World Youth Championship victory for Charlotte Durif, who just turned 14 in mid-August, came as no surprise to those who have witnessed the young Frenchwoman’s meteoric rise through the grades. The 5-foot-2-inch, 95-pound girl from Chalon sur Saône, in the Burgundy region of eastern France, has onsighted three 5.13c climbs and more than a dozen other 5.13s in three countries. She did her first 5.13s at age 11. In August, on her 14th birthday, Durif climbed a 5.13d on her first redpoint attempt, after working the route for about an hour. American Katie Brown is the only woman to have onsighted 5.13d.