Scaling new heights

Mumbai has been put on the world map by becoming the first city in India to host a rock climbing world cup. We look at the rising popularity of climbing and its future in India.

While Navi Mumbai is often considered to be a far-flung cousin of Mumbai, the satellite city was at the centre of all attention earlier this week when the rock climbing world cup came to India, for the first time ever. A surprisingly raucous crowd cheered and hooted while over 80 athletes from 20 countries, including 17 Indian participants, lunged and gripped onto colourful pieces of artificial rocks at the CIDCO Exhibition Centre, Vashi.

The climbing world cup is held annually by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) and has previously been held in countries like Switzerland, Japan, and China, with the fourth edition of this event being held in India. While the sport consists of three disciplines—bouldering, lead, and speed — the Indian edition of the cup tackled only the bouldering bit, with Japan dominating the winners’ list. The country took home most awards, with Miho Nonaka and Kokoro Fujii winning in the women and men categories respectively. None of the Indian participants, unfortunately, made the cut past the qualifiers.

While even the Asian Games for 2018 and the 2020 Olympics have listed climbing as an official sport, the Indian audience was largely unfamiliar with the activity. When the event started, they were greeted with an artificial five-metre wall created to simulate the difficulty of trying to climb a mountain. On cue, 3,500 people over the period of four days gasped, clapped and whooped, much to the delight of visiting athletes.

“We didn’t expect this big a crowd,” said Elise Sethna, of Canada. “It’s easier as a climber when you have a cheering crowd, because you build off their energy.” Anne Fuynel, marketing and communications officer, IFSC adds that the crowd turnout was unexpected. “There was a whole lot of crowd present even for the qualification rounds. Some of the world’s best climbers have attended the event and they can’t wait to be back,” she said.

Pune-based 18-year-old Mayuri Deskhmukh, a participant at the event mentions that the infrastructure for climbing needs an overhaul in India. “We don’t even have equipment to train for a world cup yet. This has been a learning experience for me though. While I didn’t get through the semi finals, I will try again next year,” she says. Mayuri has been climbing since the past four years and despite injuries enjoys the sport. “In the beginning even my parents thought this was a boys’ game. I showed them videos to assure them and they’re now supportive of me climbing,” she says with a grin, even as the crowd cheers, egging on a participant to stretch out towards the final handhold on top of the wall.

It was no mean feat to get an event of this magnitude down to Mumbai, reveals Franco Linhares, president of the world cup organising committee. “This was a tedious process,” he says.

“It took about two years to make this event happen. We underwent stringent checks with the IFSC officials themselves flying down to check on our infrastructure. The last world event was held in Munich, Germany, where we went to observe the arrangements. IFSC officials on the day of the Navi Mumbai event qualifiers told us that our competition was on par with that of Munich,” he beams.

According to IFSC rules, if a world cup event is pulled off successfully, hosts are offered the event again for two more years and Franco feels that Mumbai will remain a favourite. The idea that a rock climbing world cup could be a recurring event in the country is an exciting prospect for the future of the sport for Indian Mountaineering Foundation, the apex body for mountaineering in India. Says Colonel Ajit Dutt, chairman of the national sport climbing committee, “This is just the beginning for us. In India rock climbing is only about 20 years old. We have a lot of infrastructure coming up, especially in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. Schools and colleges are starting to embrace the idea of rock climbing, as there is no better form of workout than this. Corporate houses too have started indulging in this to build fitness and strength in their employees.”

IFSC says that it has seen a 50 per cent hike in the number of climbing gyms across the world in the past few years. India, however, has a long way to go before it is able to send athletes onto the international level for climbing.

“We’re still far behind on the standards,” says chairman of sport climbing, IMF West zone, Brigadier Yadav. “We need to train our people better, we need to brainstorm. The biggest problem is to arrange for funds to send our athletes abroad for training and get trainers from outside.”

Colonel Dutt recounts how despite financial crunch, a team from India bagged four medals for climbing in the Asian Youth Championship held in Malaysia last year. “Climbing is not recognised as a sport by the government of India. Once that hurdle is crossed, things will look better,” he smiles optimistically.