South Korean becomes first woman to climb world's 14 highest mountains

Top of the world: Oh Eun Sun, 44, celebrates on South Korean television after reaching the top of Mount Annapurna in Nepal

Achievement: Miss Oh has become the first woman to climb all 14 of the world's mountains higher than 8,000m

Record: The climber had to turn back hundreds of yards from the top of Annapurna in a previous climb after bad weather and high winds

A South Korean mountaineer became the first woman to scale the world's 14 highest mountains, officials have said.

Oh Eun Sun, 44, was captured on live television as she reached the summit of Mt Annapurna in the Himalayas to claim the record.

But her closest rival, Edurne Pasaban of Spain, has accused her of cheating by failing to reach the highest point on one of her climbs.
Miss Oh crawled on all fours to reach the summit of Mt Annapurna yesterday, before pulling out a South Korean flag and shouting 'victory!'

Officials said the mountain was the last of the 14 peaks above 26,247ft (8,000m) she needed to climb to set the mark.

She reached the summit - 26,545ft above sea level - 13 years after she scaled her first Himalayan mountain, Gasherbrum II, in 1997. She scaled Everest in 2004.

Footage on KBS showed her breathing heavily after each step in -29C temperatures at the top of the mountain.

She said after reaching the top: 'I'm so happy, and I would like to share this joy with the South Korean people. Thank you, thank you.'


Dispute: Spanish climber Edurne Pasaban claims Miss Oh failed to reach the top of Mt Kanchenjunga

South Korean president Lee Myung-bak said the country was 'awakened to her great spirits of challenge'.

He added: 'She is really great and I'm proud of her.'
Ang Tshering, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, said the South Korean deserved the title.

She said: 'We recognise her achievement as the first woman climber to scale all the highest mountains in the world.

'We are all happy and proud of her achievement.'But Ms Pasaban has publicly questioned whether she had in fact reached the top of Mt Kanchenjunga - the world's third-highest peak - which is partly in Nepal.

She told The Times last week that Miss Oh's sherpas had told her that she did not reach the highest point during the climb last year.

She claims photos taken of that trek did not clearly prove she had reached the top.

She said: 'All I want is one thing - that people should tell the truth. This kind of thing - I don't like it.'

Ms Pasaban has only the 26,330ft Mount Shisha Pangma left to climb to achieve the feat.

Expedition coordinator Song Hea-kyong said the Ms Oh's team was in good health and was making its way down to the base camp. They are expected back in Katmandu by the weekend.

Miss Oh tried to climb Mt Annapurna last year, but turned away just hundreds of yards from the top because of bad weather. Snow and high winds also stopped her from making the trek last weekend.

She said she would be carrying a photograph of Ko Mi-young, a lifelong rival who fell to her death last year while descending from Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth-highest peak.