Married couple both world champion pole climbers

Some couples might spend their free time running, cycling or swimming together, or perhaps just going to the pub or the cinema if they are feeling more sedentary.

But Dan and Emma Whelan have taken their shared interest to new heights. 80ft (24.3m) high, to be exact.

The couple, from Shropshire, are both world champions in pole climbing, which involves racing to the top of towering fir poles using specially modified spiked shoes and a climbing strop.

This week, Dan won his fifth consecutive world championship at Ragley Hall, near Alcester in Warwickshire, while Emma won her second title.

A tree surgeon by day, Dan got into the sport by going to shows and competitions with his grandfather, who used to compete - having started when he was aged 65 and continued until he was 84, even raising more than £42,000 for Marie Curie by doing so.

Dan started attending when he was just a few years old, then began competing when he was 16 and has never looked back.

Now with five world championships under his belt, he can climb up the 80ft poles in just nine seconds.

For Emma, a customer service advisor, her husband's influence got her into the sport after he took her to a show 10 years ago.

"He said ‘if you're going to keep coming, you may as well climb the pole while you're here’. So I've been doing it ever since," she said.

"[The first time] I got halfway up and didn't want to carry on... but he wouldn't let me come down until I touched the top, so I had to get there."

However, Emma said she was brought up "very competitive" and this soon began to apply to pole climbing.

"I think once I got the bug for it, that was it. I carried on and wanted to just get better and better," she said.

Emma can do the climb in 15 seconds, but her ambition is to do it in 13 seconds, adding: "I'd be happy with that."

As a tree surgeon, Dan thinks the reason many tree surgeons get into the sport is "because we're all quite wood specific".

"It's surprising that you're working with wood all day and then you go and get into a sport that also concerns wood," he added.

And while many athletes or sportsmen will train religiously to make their ambitions a reality, Dan says there is not really any training for pole climbing - perhaps contributed to by the lack of 80ft poles around.

Instead, he says "technique is huge" and that competitors keep their cards close to their chests.

For Dan, his proudest moment is a toss up between winning his first world championship and doing a head-to-head race with his grandfather, which Dan won, "but only just".

Having just fulfilled his dream of winning five championships, he admitted he did not know what the next goal was.

At 29 years old, Dan could be in the sport for a long time if he follows in the same steps as his grandfather.

However, he joked: "I'm not sure my body's quite going to keep up for that long."

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