The second weather window on Everest has arrived. Amongst those reaching the summit was British climber Kenton Cool who, in making his tenth ascent of the mountain, also fulfilled a long-standing pledge to take an Olympic medal up Everest.

The pledge was made at the closing ceremony of the first Winter Olympics held at Chamonix in 1924. Edward Lisle Strutt was there to accept his medal as deputy leader on the first full Everest expedition in 1922. Although unsuccessful, the climbers reached 8,230 metres, smashing previous altitude records.

By then, many of the team had left for the 1924 attempt, so Strutt accepted the other medals on their behalf. In doing so, as Coubertin recalled in his memoirs, this “courageous Englishman… swore to leave it next time at the top of the highest summit.”

The expedition was backed by the BMC.

Kenton commented before he left for the summit: “If Everest allows me, Great Britain will fulfil its promise to the IOC in the early hours of Friday morning when I place this medal on her summit. I will do this just one day short of the 90th anniversary of the exact day that George Ingle Finch (Australia), Geoffrey Bruce (GB) and Tejbir Bura (Nepal) struck out and reached 27,300ft."

The team left for the summit at 14:30 today and at 19:00 texted from 8,500m to say that they were going strong.They reached the summit at about 00:00.

Kenton was climbing with cameraman Keith Partridge and his regular climbing partner and friend Dorje, one of the best young Sherpas in the Khumbu.They have now summited Everest five times together, and Dorje has summited nine times in total.

This means that Kenton is now in double figures. He has broken his own British and European record for the most summits of Everest, having summited ten times.

"To stand on the summit for the 10th time is simply amazing," Kenton said in a message sent via his expedition team.

Teams from Adventure Consultants, Peak Freaks, Jagged Globe and Benegas Brothers also reached the top, with a final wave expected tonight. 

The BMC ran a successful campaign on the BMC Facebook page alongside Kenton's ascent which also raised £1,000 for the charity Porters Progress UK.

More information

On the BMC Facebook page and Twitter: @team_bmc

The Kenton Cool Facebook page 

Watch the BBC News clip

Tweet Kenton and win Olympic tickets
After some shaky reception, you can now tweet Kenton again @kentoncool. Samsung are also running a competition for six pairs of Olympic tickets if you tweet him via this link. Got to be worth a go - because of the lack of reception, the odds are apparently pretty good. 

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