Russell Amelia (Great Britain)

Russell Amelia

Amelia Russell succeeded in reaching the North Pole accompanied by her friend Dan Darley in the spring of 2010. Despite terrible conditions for making headway.

Spring 2010 : accompanied by her friend Dan Darley, Amelia was put down at Cape Discovery on 26 February 2010. The team is attempting the North Pole without external assistance. Just like the other teams that are on the same route this spring, the Dan/Amelia couple have had to face strong negative drifts. By and large, they lose at night the distance that they had won during the day. The end of their adventure was particularly trying because the conditions were horrendous. On 22 April, for example, when they were taking a well-deserved twelve-hour rest after having walked/skied for 18 hours non-stop, they found themselves exactly 5.5 kilometres from where they had stopped twelve hours earlier - in the wrong direction of course. On 25 April, after 57 days 19 hours and 50 minutes of suffering, the couple reached the North Pole. Out of the four expeditions that have tried the adventure without resupply this spring, the Darley/Russell couple is the only one to have made a success of that courageous formula. Amelia is the third woman to have made a success of this trek and the first British one to do so.

Amelia (27 in 2010) has always been very active and whilst at school represented her County (Hampshire) at athletics, also making time to compete at both national and European level with her County youth band. This led Amelia to her first big sporting event...the 2000 Sydney Olympics (she was one of only 10 British musicians performing in the Opening Ceremony).

She then went to Trinity College, Cambridge, primarily to study medicine, although she managed to find plenty of time for other pursuits.

Amelia learned to row in her first year and soon got a place in the College first boat, which culminated in becoming Head of the River in 2007 (coached by Dan), as well as winning the Boston Rowing Marathon in a coxed four in 2005 and narrowly missing out on the course record.

Amelia represented her College and University in athletics, learned to fly with the RAF University Air Squadron, and continued to enjoy music, playing with the University Brass Band.