Over 200 people completed the Seven Summits Challenge at Manchester Climbing Centre last weekend (26/27 April), raising over £30,000 for Christie's hospital - one of Europe's leading cancer care centres.

After a gruelling 24 hours of climbing, participants had smashed this momentous challenge nearly 4 times over.

The event - the brainchild of 10 year olds Molly Foster (of Heaton Chapel) and Sophie Hamilton - was devised to raise money for The Christie Hospital (where Molly’s mum is a patient) by climbing 43,322 metres, the same distance as the combined height of the tallest summit on each of the seven continents. After setting off it quickly became apparent that the ambitious participants were set to break that target and by the end of the 24 hours they had managed to collectively climb over 161,000 metres, raising over £30,000 for Christie’s.

Teams from around Manchester stepped up to the challenge with aplomb and soon found themselves feeling a tad competitive. There were no prizes for guessing which team managed to climb the most; John Dunne, owner of the Manchester Climbing Centre and world class climber, and his team featuring Dave Barrans and James Pearson from the British Climbing Team managed to climb a massive total of 15,710 metres.

Stuart Manning, who plays Russ Owen on Hollyoaks also took part and climbed in a team with Molly and Sophie. After completing his climb he said; “I’m absolutely knackered but it was great fun. The girls were fantastic and the fact that they came up with such an original way to raise money for charity is amazing.”

John Dunne, speaking after the event, said; "It was great to see such a driven group of people pushing each other towards and beyond our goal. The fact that we all managed to climb so much further than originally anticipated says a lot about the people who entered the challenge. Their desire to raise money for Christie’s has been an inspiration, so I can only hope that we get such a positive response next year and smash our targets yet again!”

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