Irish girl youngest at North Pole - Youngest person at the North Pole

Irish girl youngest at North Pole - Youngest person at the North Pole

An Irish endurance runner who travelled the globe running seven marathons in five days has secured another record − his daughter has become the youngest person at the North Pole.

Jaimie Donovan, daughter of Galway marathon runner Richard Donovan, braved Arctic temperatures of -26 degrees to accompany her father to the top of the world on Easter Sunday.

The duo flew to the pole to mark the 10th anniversary of the annual North Pole Marathon which Mr Donovan organises.

The youngster broke the record, previously set by the daughter of British adventurer David Hempleman-Adams in 1998, by just one day.

“It was cold and the helicopter was noisy,” Jaimie said. “I loved the North Pole and I want to go back.”

Jaimie and her teddy bear were standing on the ice at 5.30am on Easter day.

Mr Donovan, who earlier this year set a new record of seven marathons on seven continents in less than five days, said his daughter took the experience in her stride.

“I decided to bring Jaimie and my wife Caroline this year as it was the 10th year of the race and they were long overdue a trip to see what I’ve been working hard to achieve for the last decade. It was a simple coincidence that she seems to be the youngest to stand up there. I was just proud of her very good behaviour and the fact she took the trip in her stride at her age, embracing the adventure.”

According to Guinness World Records, Alicia Hempleman-Adams, born on November 8th 1989, stood at the geographic North Pole aged eight years and 173 days on May 1st, 1998. She had also flown to the pole to meet her father. Mr Donovan’s daughter, born on October 17th 2003, beat the record by one day. The Donovan family will have to apply to Guinness World Records to have the feat verified.

This year’s course had to be patrolled by armed personnel as two polar bears were spotted in the area.

The marathon began on Friday at 9pm with 41 athletes from 18 countries running in -26 degrees across small pressure ridges, ice and snow. The winner was Andrew Murray from Scotland in a time of 4:17:08, while Demelza Farr of Australia won the women’s title in 6:06:36.

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Youngest Girl sets Fastest maths calculation world record - Cherlyn Lee

Cherlyn Lee is only five, but she is a computational whiz.

She correctly answered six out of 10 tasks - each involving the addition of 10 rows of 10-digit numbers - at a mathematical olympiad on May 30. The score is a new Singapore record. The 5min 17sec she took was also the fastest among 345 other contestants, most of whom were older than her.

                                     Cherlyn Lee photo
By comparison, the world record holder is Mr Alberto Coto of Spain, who in 2008 got 10 out of 10 correct answers in 4min 26sec. He was 38 then.

As an additional sweetener, Cherlyn made it into the Singapore Book of Records as one of its youngest individual record holders. The youngest is a 23-month-old girl who swam 100m unassisted.

Cherlyn's remarkable feat is the first visible result of her parents' grand plan to develop her intelligence.

When she was three, her father, marketing manager Brandon Lee, began buying her kindergarten-level assessment books.

Then, in May last year, Mr Lee, 37, watched a

television show where he was introduced to CMA Mental Arithmetic school, which combines the millennia-old abacus as a counting instrument and the system of 'Image Memory' to allow quick and sharp number calculations.

First opened in December 2005, CMA has expanded from its Yishun headquarters to 17 other centres across the island, with 6,000 children having tried its programme.

Mr Lee decided to enrol Cherlyn in the school instead of music and dance classes.

From then on, either he or his wife, Ms Margaret Tan, 34, would spend two hours a day - weekends and public holidays included - to help Cherlyn with the coursework.

'When kids get attention, their interest grows for these things,' said Mr Lee.

Desire and motivation were certainly needed, as the curriculum, meant for children aged 31/2 to 13, was not easy.

To finish the 23-level course, students had to learn on a physical abacus, move on to an imaginary one, and then progress to using a 'two hand, four finger' method to calculate long arithmetic problems in their heads.

The final stretch was the hardest, involving problems which are read aloud, rather than on paper.

Perhaps as a sign of Cherlyn's impending achievement, she began to finish three to four 60-page practice books every week, when other children managed only 10 to 20 pages.

Furthermore, Cherlyn, who turns six on June 21, has been in the school for only 11 months and is almost done with the course. Others usually take five to seven years, said CMA chief executive Tay Shy Ching.

According to her parents, no one needs to make Cherlyn hit the books. 'Sometimes, I say she should sleep, but she will say: 'I want to do Chinese or English',' said Mr Lee. 'We don't force her.' The reticent child was firm about her favourite thing - 'numbers' - and named 'scientist' as a career aspiration.

The Lees intend to carry on with their daughter's intellectual development, eyeing vocabulary and speed reading as important skills to master.

But when the schooling is done, the real-world lessons come in. 'We will begin to teach her how to become a good person, a moral child,' said Mr Lee.

Their second child, three-year-old Xavier Lee, has yet to follow in his sister's footsteps.

As for Mr Coto's world record, Mr Lee feels it is not out of the question, but it is not a priority. 'Maybe we can try, but we don't set it as a target.'

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