Andy Pollitt

Andy Pollitt, born Robert Andrew Pollitt in Prestatyn, North Wales, on 26 October 1963, was a British rock climber and one of the most prominent traditional and sport climbers of the late 1980s and early 1990s. He completed more than 350 climbs and made important first free ascents on Welsh and gritstone crags, among them The Hollow Man, the first E8 in Wales, in 1986 and Knockin' on Heaven's Door, the first E9 on gritstone, in 1988. In 1992 he repeated Punks in the Gym at Mount Arapiles in Australia, one of the first routes graded 8b+, after 44 days of work spread over two years, and retired from climbing that day. He emigrated to Australia in 1993 and worked as a rope access technician in Melbourne. His 2016 autobiography, Punk in the Gym, described his bipolar disorder. He died of a cerebral aneurysm on 13 November 2019.