Sports Climbing in Olympics

Climbing has been around since man discovered mountains. There has always been a certain romanticism associated with it, and it has generally been kept out of the purview of international sport. Yet, there have been moments in the past when climbing has been competitive, not in the literal sense, as was the case in one of the most renowned battles between the Swiss and the Brits to first climb Mount Everest.

All that is likely to change as sport climbing will take centre stage at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. It was announced at the 129^th session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Rio de Janeiro in August, where in addition to sport climbing, four other sports – Surfing, Karate, Baseball/softball and skateboarding were included. Indoor climbing became a sport in itself and is today known as Sport Climbing.

According to International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) there are 25 Million people climbing regularly around the world, with 39% below the age of 18 years. The IFSC currently has 87 member federations, up 25% since it was founded a decade ago. Currently Sport climbing has three formats – bouldering, speed climbing, lead and it practiced on an artificial wall of varying heights, depending on the format. Bouldering features problems, which an un-roped climber must crack in a given time by getting to the top of the route – the climber who makes the maximum top, wins.

Speed Climbing sees two roped climbers go head to head on identical routes, where the first to get to the top wins. Lead involves roped climbing where the climber who goes the highest in a fixed time wins. Route setters are handed the task of designing the routes. These routes setters are climbers themselves and at times, they attempt the route before the competition to analyze it. The difficulty of these routes keeps increasing with each round.

There could not be a better venue for sport climbing Olympic debut than Japan. Yuji Hirayama triumph at the Lead World Cup in 1998 – the first by an Asian – and again in 2000 triggered a revolution for the sport that today has around 800,000 followers in more than 400 indoor facilities in the country. Things have been more organized with the Japanese since, with a coach, manager and a video team that travels with the climbers and analyze their performance. For the record, Japan took top spot in the national team ranking for bouldering in 2016.

However, the sport is dominated by climbers from Europe, where it has been practiced for decades. While France, Germany and England are some of the top countries in terms of facilities, sport climbing has seen a massive leap in popularity in Austria. In 2008, the country had 141 clubs, with 23,170 climbers, which jumped to 176 clubs and 64,140 climbers by 2016.

India has been a proving ground for a number of climbers over the years. Though India remains a hub for climbing and sport climbing is slowly finding its feet, it still trails the rest of the world. Indoor climbing facilities have cropped up in the metros, and the outdoors remains regular jaunts for the dedicated ones. But the sport is still governed by the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) whose focus remains on mountaineering expeditions organized by them.