Sophie Radcliffe (centre) at Fulham Cross Girls’ School. PICTURE: MARC BATES
After conquering mountains in Europe and cycling across America – a Fulham adventurer has taken on a new challenge.
Sophie Radcliffe launched a youth empowerment initiative called TrailBlazers at Fulham Cross Girls School in Munster Road last week.
The 34-year-old will work with Year 9 and 10 girls in a bid to find out what is important to them, what fears are holding them back and challenges they face in life.
Sophie has dreamed of setting up this project for the last 15 years and cannot wait to return to the girls at Fulham Cross and the other four schools across London where she is running workshops in January.
“It is great to see a local role model supporting the young women of tomorrow,” said Cllr Sue Fennimore, Deputy Leader of H&F Council. “We want to give young people in the borough the best possible chance to succeed and achieve their dreams.”
Find out more about Sophie’s TrailBlazers initiative.
More mountains the merrier
The Fulham resident who lives just off Wandsworth Bridge Road recently made a Herculean effort – conquering 10 of the UK and Ireland’s most iconic volcanic landscapes in under 72 hours.
Sophie quit her job in the City four years ago to take on adventure challenges across the globe.
This time out she stayed closer to home as she raised money for Stand Up to Cancer.
The three-day endurance feat included Sophie scaling Ben Nevis – Britain’s highest mountain – in freezing temperatures of minus 10 degrees, abseiling down Bla Bheinn on the Isle of Skye and making a treacherous rain-drenched ascent up North Berwick Law in the pitch black.
“The toughest moment was the descent of Ben Nevis in the dark,” said Sophie. “I was feeling exhausted after 10 hours on the move and full winter conditions, snow, wind and freezing temperatures.
“Knowing that I had another big climb ahead on the Isle of Skye and would only get three hours sleep was tough, but it’s at times like this that my experience doing challenges over the last few years has taught me how to motivate myself, how to focus on the end goal and just go for it.”
Feats of strength
Sophie is the only person in history to have climbed the highest mountains in the eight Alpine countries and cycled between them, climbing five times the height of Mount Everest in 32 days.
Watch her exploits in the video Adidas presents Alpine coast to coast.
She has cycled 300km from London to Paris in 24 hours on nine occasions, completed multi-sport adventure races around the world, raced her bike coast to coast across the USA, completed 100km ultra-marathons, and is a two-time Ironman finisher.
