Hannah Smith is GB Athlete and a British Bouldering Champion. She started 2020 with an impressive victory to give her the Welsh Junior Bouldering Champion title.
Hannah became hooked on climbing in the summer of 2013 when she was eleven years old. She started climbing competitively a few months later, in November 2013, at the Scottish Youth Climbing Championships. Following this, Hannah competed as a member of the Scottish Youth Climbing Team from 2014 to 2016 before being selected for the GB junior squad in 2017.
Throughout 2017, she competed for Great Britain in multiple international competitions in both lead climbing and bouldering, travelling all over Europe to countries such as Portugal, France and Switzerland. She was also selected to compete in the World Youth Climbing Championships in Innsbruck as a combined athlete (competing in in the lead, speed and bouldering disciplines). She narrowly missed out on a place in the bouldering semi-finals and finished the competition with a combined world ranking of 32nd. As well as international success, she only finished outside of the top two places on two occasions at a national level in 2017.
In 2018, Hannah became eligible to compete in senior climbing competitions at sixteen years old. In the summer, she competed in the senior British Bouldering Championships for the first time where she qualified for the finals and placed 4th. This performance resulted in Hannah being selected for the 2019 GB Senior Climbing team. Unfortunately, Hannah was unable to compete internationally as a senior in 2019 due to clashes with her Highers (Scottish equivalent of A-Levels) but she showed consistency and made finals and 4th place again in the British Bouldering Championships 2019, thus retaining her place.
The 2020 competition season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak and Hannah’s place representing Great Britain has been rolled over into 2021. In September 2020 she will be moving to Edinburgh to study English Literature at The University of Edinburgh. She will continue to compete for GB whilst being a student and is excited to see the improvements that she can make over the coming years.
Notable Ascents:
- GB National Development Squad 2017 & 2019
- GB Senior Climbing Team 2019, 2020 &2021
- Scottish Youth Bouldering Champion x3
- Scottish Youth Lead Climbing Champion 2018
- British Lead Climbing Champion (Youth A) 2018
- British Bouldering Champion (Youth A) 2019
- Welsh Youth Bouldering Champion 2020
- 4th British Bouldering Championships (Senior) 2018 & 2019
- 14th European Youth Cup (Bouldering) Soure, Portugal 2017
- 21st European Youth Cup (Lead) Uster, Switzerland 2017
- 14th European Youth Cup (Bouldering) Soure, Portugal 2019
- 18th European Youth Cup (Bouldering) Sofia, Bulgaria 2019
- 32nd Youth World Championships (Combined) Innsbruck, Austria 2017
- 33rd Youth World Championships (Bouldering) Arco, Italy 2019