(UPDATE below) South Korean woman's claim of tackling world's fourteen highest peaks in doubt

Frankly, I blame Hwang Woosuk for all this.

As I mentioned a few days ago (here, too), Oh Eunsun is poised to be the first woman to reach the summit of all fourteen peaks over 8000 meters, but her next closest rival, Edurne Pasaban of Spain, is apparently claiming that Ms Oh may be cheating:

The two rivals met at Annapurna base camp on 7 April over a cup of tea. "It was a very pleasant chat… we laughed a little. It was good," Pasaban wrote in her blog.

But this week, after Pasaban's descent from Annapurna to Kathmandu, the gloves came off.
She began to voice doubts that Oh had reached the top of the world's third-highest mountain, Kangchenjunga, which both of them tackled in May last year.

Crucially, she sowed seeds of doubt in the mind of the world's most respected keeper of Himalayan mountain climbing records, Elizabeth Hawley.

Miss Hawley, an 86-year-old American, told the BBC that following her conversation with Pasaban on Thursday, she was altering her unofficial but authoritative Himalayan Database to mark Oh's ascent of Kangchenjunga as "disputed".

The stakes are certainly high (get it? high!): If Ms Oh is disqualified, Ms Pasaban gets all the glory and Apolo Anton Ohno will be awarded the bronze.

All kidding aside, this is some serious business, so much so that fellow alpinist Ko Miyoung died last year in the same race for these lofty bragging rights.

UPDATE (April 25, 2010):
Ms Oh's ascent of Annapurna has been delayed until Tuesday because of winds and snow. From AFP:

A 10-member team including Oh and a KBS producer on Friday reached camp three, located at a height of 6,400 metres (21,100 feet).

But they started descending on Saturday morning after giving up efforts to reach the next camp, at a height of 7,200 metres, because of strong winds, KBS TV reported.
Oh and her colleagues were planning to descend to a lower-level camp and wait for the weather to clear. Avalanches and ice falls have claimed the lives of dozens of climbers attempting to summit Annapurna.

Annapurna is particularly dangerous because it is both technically difficult and avalanche-prone, and it has a much higher death rate than Everest, the world's highest peak.
Oh, who was defeated by Annapurna last year, made the decision to delay her assault on the peak after being told by radio from her base camp that it would be snowy and windy at the weekend, Yonhap news agency said.

I'm glad they're putting safety over glory.

A truly amazing race

[above: An embarrassed Oh Eunsun realizes she left the "Tokto is our land!" banner back at camp.]

South Korean climber Oh Eunsun is racing against time and a Spanish woman for bragging rights of being the first female to have climbed the fourteen peaks over 8000 meters.

From The Times:

A Spaniard and a South Korean are neck and neck in a race to become the first woman to climb the world’s 14 peaks over 8,000m (26,247ft).

Edurne Pasaban of Spain reached the 8,091m summit of Nepal’s Mount Annapurna, one of the deadliest mountains in the Himalayas, on Saturday, leaving her with one peak to climb.

Ms Pasaban, 36, is scrambling to get back down and across the Chinese border into Tibet to begin her ascent of Shisha Pangma — the smallest of the 14 at 8,027m — early next month.

Meanwhile, Oh Eun Sun of South Korea is acclimatising at Base Camp Two on Annapurna — the last of her 14 peaks — and is expected to make a push for the summit next Sunday.

Although Ms Oh, 44, appears to have the advantage, the race hangs in the balance as Annapurna is more difficult: it has been scaled by about 130 people but has claimed the lives of at least 53. Ms Oh was beaten by fog and blizzards on the mountain last year.

Either woman could be foiled by avalanches, equipment failure or health problems, especially in the “death zone” above 8,000m, where oxygen levels are a third of those at sea level.

I think this is exciting, though one wonders why, considering how long these peaks and these women have been around, it is coming down to the wire like this. I just hope neither one of them does something foolish in order to be first.

UPDATE:
Another blog post, about doubts about her record.