sport climbing
New sports climbing into
Olympic contention The changes come as part of a new strategic direction for the Olympics, which allows host cities to suggest new sports for inclusion in their edition of the Games.
The Rio Olympics have not yet been run and won – but that hasn’t stopped Scott Forrester from turning his focus to the 2020 Games.
T
he Managing Director of Pulse Climbing in Adamstown is among those celebrating the possible inclusion of sport climbing at the Tokyo Olympics. It is one of five sports likely to be added to the schedule alongside karate, skateboarding, surfing and softball/baseball, with final approval expected to be delivered by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) when they meet during the Rio Games in August.
Forrester said an Olympic berth would generate fantastic exposure for the sport – and hopefully inspire more people to try their hand at both indoor and outdoor rock climbing. “We’re pretty excited that it looks like climbing will be included in the Olympics at Tokyo,” he said. “We see at Pulse more people getting into indoor climbing as a way to get fit as well as a competitive sport, while outdoor climbing is continuing to grow as well.” Sport climbing involves three disciplines – lead climbing (climbing while attached to a rope and harness), bouldering (unroped climbing up to 4m high) and speed
climbing (with two people climbing the same wall side by side). Forrester said as an Olympic sport it would be great to watch. “Disciplines like speed climbing will engage the wider population in terms of a sport that’s exciting and fast-paced,” he said. “Hopefully that would translate over to an interest in bouldering and lead climbing, because for a climber these ones are more interesting, they are about the difficulty of the moves and the endurance required, rather than speed.” The Hunter has a promising crop of sport climbers, including Pulse Climbing’s own Ben Abel, who will spend the next few months in Europe taking part in a number of youth and senior world cup events. Fellow Pulse staffer Annabelle Cleary was also recently invited to train with the Australian Youth squad.
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huntersportsmag.com.au | August - September 2016
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