Xu Zhuoyuan, a 16-year-old girl from Changsha, Central China's Hunan Province, reached the top of Mount Qomolangma on Monday, becoming the youngest female athlete in China to reach the highest peak in the world from the south slope, according to media reports.
 
Xu reached the summit of Mount Qomolangma, commonly known as the Mount Everest, at 5:42 am on Monday local time after nine hours' climbing, the Changsha Evening News reported.
 
This year marks the 70th anniversary of first human being summiting Mount Qomolangma.  

Xu is currently a freshman at a high school attached to Hunan Normal University. She left Changsha for Nepal on April 15, and started her trek from Lukla on April 21, and arrived at Mount Qomolangma base camp on April 28, where she began her training for climbing the peak. Xu set out from C4 camp on the south slope at an altitude of 7,950 meters at 10 pm Beijing time on May 14.
 
Xu Jianglei, the father of the girl, is known as "the first person in Hunan to climb Mount Qomolangma." Influenced by her father, Xu Zhuoyuan said she wanted to climb Qomolangma when she was 12 years old.
 
"Human beings are small in the face of nature, and we should treat nature with reverence, especially in proximity to Mount Qomolangma," Xu told the media. She brought her father's gloves used when reaching Mount Qomolangma, hoping that as a kind of inheritance, to witness her dreams being realized. Xu hopes to continue her dream after graduating from college.

In March, Xu Jianglei launched a crowdfunding program to raise money for her daughter to climb Mount Qomolangma, which has triggered controversy among netizens, according to media reports.
 
In May 2022, 13 members of the Chinese Earth Summit Mission 2022 scientific expedition team successfully established an automatic meteorological monitoring station at an altitude of 8,800 meters, the world's highest of its kind, on Mount Qomolangma on the China-Nepal border, achieving the milestone task of the country's second comprehensive survey to the roof of the world.