Meet Shauna Coxsey, the Olympic climber training in her Yorkshire basement

Coxsey has had to deal with Tokyo 2020’s postponement, writes Lawrence Ostlere, but she has embraced her unique home setup and launched a YouTube channel: think Joe Wicks meets Spider-Woman

Shauna Coxsey (Red Bull)

It is around this point in lockdown, as the novelty of wearing pyjamas at 3pm well and truly wears off, that the mind drifts to the parallel universe we left behind. It’s natural to imagine a scuppered holiday, to take a moment during government-mandated daily exercise to stare wistfully at a closed pub, to wonder whether this is karma for all those prayers to the God of Admin to pause time, please, just for a week or two.

Shauna Coxsey has more reason to wonder than most. As one of the world’s best climbers, the 27-year-old should be honing her extraordinary skills for the Tokyo Olympics this summer, where she stood a serious chance of winning a medal and becoming a household name with it. But with the Games pushed back to 2021, without events or formal training to attend, Coxsey has had to improvise.

“Luckily, I have a great space to train at home,” she tells The Independent. “I have a skiErg [like a rowing machine, but pulling on ropes from above – an exhausting business] in the garden shed, I have been getting out on my bike too, and our basement is dedicated to training.”