Whenever Prateeksha Arun introduces herself as a sport climber, the assumption is that the 24-year-old is a mountaineer. “The first question people ask is whether I’ll climb Mount Everest,” says the 24-year-old. “People think I’m a mountaineer and I think it’s a very different sport.”
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Relatively new – the global governing body IFSC was only founded in 2007, although the first world championships were held as early as 1991 – sport climbing involves climbing in gyms, indoors or outdoors, on purpose-built artificial walls. While it has gained a foothold in Europe, it is still in its infancy in India.
Sport climbing wasn’t Prateeksha’s first choice either. Born in India, but after spending her first ten years in the United States, her first love was gymnastics. But when she returned to India in 2008, she found that gymnastics facilities were poor and “really unsafe”.
“My father always climbed in the 1990s. He engaged in outdoor rock climbing in Bengaluru. He introduced me to the sport after we returned to India and he kind of stuck. I wasn’t that serious for the first eight years. I was good at it and did it because I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t something I would have considered as a career,” says Prateeksha, 24, an architecture graduate. Her climbing career dates back 15 years.
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The national championships started in the early 2000s and Prateeksha stepped in in 2010. Two years later, the girl from Bengaluru won her first junior national championships. She quickly realized she was the best and nine titles followed – two in juniors and seven in seniors. “I realized this could be something I could have a career in.”
However, the downside was that there were few regular competitions in India. The Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF), which governs the sport in India, was also constantly changing the structure of the competition. “I wanted to compete more and started competing internationally in 2017.”
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There are three disciplines in sport climbing: lead climbing, bouldering and speed climbing. “I am a lead climber and boulderer. I’m not pacing,” says Prateeksha.
The lead involves climbing a 18m wall as high as you can in six minutes using a rope and snap hook. Climbers must use ready-made holds on the wall, which are set according to the level of difficulty. The route is the path that the athletes have to work out during the ascent. The discipline is technical, difficulty-oriented, requires problem-solving, and is designed to test endurance. Each competition has different routes and styles. A single fall ends the competition.
No ropes or carabiners are used in bouldering as the walls are 5m high and fall mats are on the ground. It is also based on difficulty, includes routes, and is a condensed, short, hard problem that athletes are given four minutes to complete across multiple attempts. The focus is on the number of issues completed and the attempts required to complete them.
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Speed climbing is basically a race between climbers, where the route is the same everywhere and the holds are placed in the same places. The main requirement is to climb the 15-meter wall as quickly as possible while competing against each other.
The sport received a major boost after being included in the Tokyo Olympics.
“From 10 years ago to now there is a lot more awareness and acceptance. Because of the Olympic Games, people now consider it a real sport. I remember people at the time asking me, ‘You climb walls?’ What is that sport?’ Now more and more people are getting into the sport and trying it because they saw it in the Olympics. In India there is much more awareness but I would still say it is quite slow going. Until we win something, progress on the number of people climbing will still be slow. We are quite behind in terms of infrastructure, coaching, walls and route setters.”
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Sport climbing also made its debut at the 2018 Asian Games, where India had three participants. Due to its acceptance in large multi-disciplinary events, sport climbing is on the rise, at least in urban areas, with increasing walls emerging in gymnasiums and sports complexes. There are other private competitions.
But participating in international tournaments was not easy. Although she was doing well – her father owns an internet service company (BBNL) in Bengaluru – she always lacked the financial resources when she needed to travel, stay, train and compete, especially in Europe. Travel uncertainty also resulted in rising costs for Prateeksha during the Covid-19 pandemic. Prateeksha almost gave up the sport.
“Luckily I found the Go Sports and Dream Foundation. They contacted me about a sponsorship. I’m so grateful, without that I wouldn’t have been able to take part in these competitions,” says Prateeksha. Her sister is a badminton player and represents the USA.
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Funding at the right time helped her attend the relevant events and qualify for the Hangzhou Asian Games in September and October. The qualification is also a great relief for Prateeksha’s family.
“My family felt that this was finally going somewhere because I had been winning national championships in one form or another since 2012. It had plateaued in the process of winning national gold medals. When I qualified for the Asian Games, I felt like something was going right. I finally made it onto one of the big stages we dreamed of,” says Prateeksha, who is part of the Indian team of eight (two). are reserves). She will compete in lead and bouldering.
“The long-term goal is the Olympics, which I’ve dreamed of since I was a child. “My father has had the Olympic dream since I was three,” said Prateeksha, from Innsbruck, Austria, where she trains at the climbing center – which ranks among the best climbing facilities in the world.
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Prateeksha will compete at the World Cups in Villars, Switzerland (June 30th to July 2nd) and Chamonix, France (July 14th and 15th). “The goal at these World Championships is to get to the semi-finals. So far no Indian has managed that,” says the first Indian to reach the final of the Asian continental bouldering competition in the Philippines last November.
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