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Mountaineering · INDIA

R Surya Prasad

Schoolboy mountaineer from Anantapur; began training at five; his official award profile credits him with scaling Mt Kilimanjaro on 5 April 2022 (single-origin award-dossier material — no expedition record found); received the PMRBP 2024 (Sports) aged nine, Andhra Pradesh’s only recipient that year.

Nine in January 2024 (official sources); date of birth not published

Andhra Pradesh · India

R Surya Prasad in full snow gear holding the Indian flag during his high-altitude mountaineering training
R Surya Prasad holding the Indian flag in the snow — the press photograph circulated with his award coverage; it is not a Kilimanjaro summit photograph
Image source ↗ · The New Indian Express
Source photograph · credit and provenance below

BEHIND THE RESULT

The achievement

R Surya Prasad was nine years old in January 2024 when he received the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in the Sports category — the only recipient from Andhra Pradesh among the 19 children honoured that year. Surya is from Anantapur and studies at APRS in Kodigenahalli village, Sri Sathya Sai district, where he was in Class 5 when the award was announced. His father Shiva Prasad is a farmer and his mother Pramila a homemaker. His coach, Purushottam of Dharmavaram, says that after noticing the boy’s interest in climbing, his parents had him trained first near Bhuvanagiri, then at Gandikota, and later in Ladakh.

Kilimanjaro

His formal mountaineering training began at the age of five. According to his official award profile, on 5 April 2022 he scaled Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania — at 5,895 metres the highest mountain in Africa — and displayed images of eminent figures at the summit as a gesture towards social empowerment. From rock faces near home to the roof of Africa is a long road for any climber, let alone a primary-school student.

A spark to explore

If you had to train for years towards one big goal, what would you choose — and who would you want in your corner? That is a question from us, not part of his record.

Source-based story · the activities are prompts for readers.

Open the article edition →

The achievement, in context.

Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar

Schoolboy mountaineer from Anantapur; began training at five; his official award profile credits him with scaling Mt Kilimanjaro on 5 April 2022 (single-origin award-dossier material — no expedition record found); received the PMRBP 2024 (Sports) aged nine, Andhra Pradesh’s only recipient that year.

2024-01-22 · Supporting source ↗

Sources you can explore.

The New Indian Express · Anantapur report, 20 January 2024 ↗Regional news report

PIB · official PMRBP 2024 awardee list ↗Official award list

Original source ↗

Another spark to discover.

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