Boy, 9, aims to become youngest amputee to complete Three Peaks challenge

Daniel Thomas

A nine-year-old boy who became the youngest amputee to climb Wales’ highest peak now has his sights set on conquering the Three Peaks challenge.

Albie-Junior Thomas, from Holywell in Flintshire, was born without a fibula in his left leg and had his foot removed at 15-months-old.

Regardless, at the age of four he broke records by scaling Yr Wyddfa, also known as Snowdon.

The youngster now hopes to climb the tallest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales in less than 24 hours to raise money for Holywell Town FC.

Daniel Thomas

He has already climbed each one individually alongside his dad Daniel Thomas and the pair have embarked on an 18-week training programme in preparation for the challenge on 18 August.

“We’re training a lot, we go to [Yr Wyddfa] every week and we go to the gym,” Albie-Junior said.

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The father-son duo has also done a night time ascent of Yr Wyddfa to practise finding their way in the dark.

“We went about [midnight] to see where we were with navigation as that’s kind of roughly the time we’ll be hitting Snowdon,” said Daniel, a fitness trainer.

“Each week we’re beating our time as well, to try and just push ourselves.”

The pair will begin the challenge by climbing Ben Nevis in Scotland before being driven to Scafell Pike in Cumbria and then Yr Wyddfa in north Wales.

Each mountain trek will be powered by noodles and Albie-Junior’s favourite sour sweets.

The schoolboy said it would be “quite unusual” to become the youngest amputee to complete the challenge and added he was proud of himself for signing up.

Some of his friends have also told him they had been inspired by his achievements.

Albie-Junior added: “One of them went up when they were six and they were really proud of themselves and they were sat there [saying], ‘how does he do it when he was four?'”

Daniel Thomas

Albie-Junior was born with fibular hemimelia, which meant his leg was 5cm (2ins) shorter than the other and his foot was deformed.

His dad said it was a “massive decision” to amputate but having a prosthetic had never held his son back as he learned to walk on a blade.

“It just felt like a normal foot,” said Albie-Junior.

However, gruelling downhill sections of mountain hikes can cause discomfort to the skin where the prosthetic attaches and pressure on the knee.

It means Albie-Junior, who wants to become a paralympian in future, will be checked over between each stage and will need crucial rests in between each climb.

His dad said the task felt like a natural progression for his son.

“You just have to go one better, don’t you? We’ve done all three, we’re just topping up each time,” he said.

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