Valentina Ukrow is competing at the age of 16 at the World Climbing Youth Championship in Arco, Italy. Representing Chile, she is contesting Lead and Boulder at an event that brings together the leading young international climbers from 18 to 25 July. It is her second Youth World Championship appearance after competing in Seoul in 2023, but her presence carries a significance that goes beyond any result. When she was ten, she was diagnosed with bone cancer and doctors warned that she might never climb again.
Climbing had been part of her life long before the illness. Ukrow started at the age of three after discovering a climbing wall at a relative’s home and entered her first competition when she was four. By seven, she was training twice a week, increasing to three sessions by the age of nine. She combined indoor training with outdoor climbing and travelled to Denver, United States, in 2019 to train at ABC Climbing Gym. Her family still regarded the sport as a way of life rather than a future professional career. “Climbing makes me feel happy. I feel free and part of the planet,” she later explained in an interview with ‘La Tercera’.
The impact that led to the osteosarcoma diagnosis
Her life changed in October 2019. Valentina struck her right arm against a wall and began experiencing pain that did not disappear in the following weeks. Her family took her to a doctor and an X-ray revealed that it was not simply an injury caused by the impact. Specialists detected an osteosarcoma in the ulna, close to her elbow. “I was a little scared. I didn’t know what bone cancer was when I was ten,” the climber recalls in testimony released by World Climbing during the Youth World Championship in Arco.
For her mother, Yenly Espinosa Chau, the diagnosis introduced a possibility that had previously been unimaginable. Doctors explained that the illness could endanger the life of her only daughter. “I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t say anything. It was really the worst feeling a parent can experience,” she recalls. Valentina began chemotherapy, which caused her to lose around seven kilograms, significantly reduced her strength and eventually left her unable to walk normally. The pandemic also complicated arrangements for an operation that could not be delayed. Surgery removed the tumour and part of her right ulna, but left her with reduced mobility and limited support in her wrist.
A climbing wall inside her bedroom
During treatment, specialists also raised the possibility that she might never climb again. Valentina focused much of her attention on proving that prognosis wrong. “I never thought about giving up climbing. I thought about putting in as much effort as possible so that I could do it again,” she explained. Even at her weakest, she tried to remain active within her physical limits. Returning was not simply about recovering a sporting activity: “It is a very important part of my life. It makes me feel better about what happened and what I am doing now.”
In June 2020, three months after the operation and once she had received medical clearance, Chilean climber Luis Birkner brought that possibility into her home. Birkner, the founder of Climbing For a Reason and a close friend of the family, built a small climbing wall in Valentina’s bedroom. Pandemic restrictions and her physical condition still prevented her from returning to conventional training, so she began recovering her movement without leaving home. “The first time I climbed again was incredible,” she recalls. The wall transformed a clinical recovery into a gradual return to the activity she had chosen as a child.
Adapting her body before returning to competition
The process required more than determination. Losing part of the ulna altered how her right forearm functioned and reduced the stability of her wrist. The professionals supporting her had to modify exercises, rebuild muscle strength and find ways for her to compensate for those limitations. Valentina gradually reconstructed her technique until she was able to train and compete again. Her recovery attracted the attention of sports doctor Jean Romagnoli, who highlighted her ability to maintain a high level of performance through muscular development and adapted movement. In 2022, she topped a Chilean youth league ranking and became national champion in her category the following year. At 13, she competed against rivals as old as 16 at the Youth World Championship in Seoul, finishing 36th in Lead and 43rd in Boulder, her first results recorded by World Climbing.
She also attended training camps in Spain and continued to earn podium finishes in Chilean national competitions. In 2024, she won the opening round of the National Cup organised by the Chilean Mountaineering Federation -FEACH- and continued her progression towards the under-17 category. Arco now represents the next stage of that journey. Ukrow is no longer training simply to recover what she lost, but to move closer to the World Cups, reach international finals and travel through climbing. Away from the circuit, she dreams of climbing Fitz Roy in Patagonia and is considering studying medicine without leaving the sport behind. Her mother views those ambitions through the perspective provided by the illness: “Life is about enjoying yourself and trying to fulfil the dreams you have.” For her family, the most important victory came before any competition result: “Her recovery was the gold medal. That is our gold medal for her.”
Last related articles
