“A page of polar history has been written”: Karen Kyllesø, 21, becomes the youngest person to reach the South Pole on skis

(photo d’illustration). duallogic – ENVATO ELEMENTS

Une Norvégienne de 21 ans est devenue dans la nuit de lundi à mardi 14 janvier 2025 la plus jeune personne à gagner le pôle Sud à ski, seule et sans assistance.

One hundred and fourteen years after her compatriot, polar explorer Roald Amundsen, the first to reach the South Pole, Karen Kyllesø, born on May 9, 2003, covered some 1,130 km in 54 days on the Antarctic continent. “It's both fantastic and a little strange”, said the young woman, contacted by the Norwegian channel TV2.

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She pulls a sled weighing about a hundred kg

“I have a feeling of accomplishment and joy of course, but I must also admit that it's a little strange to leave the bubble I've been in for the past two last months”, she said. Karen Kyllesø dethrones the Frenchman Pierre Hedan who, according to the Guinness World Records, was since January 7, 2024 the youngest person to have reached the South Pole, alone and without assistance, at the age of 26.

Very small in size – – 1.52 m and 48 kg – –, Karen Kyllesø pulled a sled of about a hundred kg, twice her weight, to reach the pole which she reached late Monday evening, in temperatures of – 25°C. Once she reached her destination, she said she asked for “pasta bolognese, salad and vegetables” washed down with a can of soda and a small flute of champagne.

In the wake of polar heroes

“It's a page of polar history that has been written”, commented her mentor, the Norwegian adventurer Lars Ebbesen. In 2018, at the age of 15, she had already become the youngest girl to have crossed Greenland on skis. “As soon as she arrived, she asked me: 'Do you think I can go to the South Pole too?'”, recalls Lars Ebbesen.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre praised a young adventurer who “follows in the footsteps of the Norwegian polar heroes”. On December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen was the first to reach the geographic South Pole after a tragic race with the Briton Robert Scott, who would die of cold and exhaustion, along with his teammates, on the way back.