Jharkhand, Maharashtra dominate maiden climbing meet in Jamshedpur

154 players from 12 states attend the championship

Jamshedpur, Dec. 24: The inaugural edition of �Tata Steel Sport Climbing Championship 2019�, a three-day (Dec 21-23, 2019) open competition for young climbers between the age group of 6 and 16 and organised by Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF), concluded today.

The championship becomes the first such competition in India to follow the combined format (lead, speed & bouldering) which will be used in Olympics 2020. The competition also included speed relay team event.

A total of 154 young and aspiring champions, including the current national champions, took part in the three-day event held in the city of Jamshedpur. The championship witnessed participants from around 12 states including Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi. Players form Jharkhand and Maharashtra dominated the competition with a tally of 14 medals out of 18 medals in the individual performance events.

The prize distribution ceremony, organised at the championship venue – JRD Tata Sports Complex, Jamshedpur, was graced with the presence of Chanakya Chaudhary, VP, Corporate Services, Tata Steel, Bachendri Pal, India�s ace veteran climber and TSAF�s Mentor.

TSAF plans to make this championship the flagship annual climbing event in India that will introduce this new and emerging international sporting event to the Indian youth and help identify and groom potential talent to represent India in the 2024 Olympics. This annual sporting event is also a new platform to involve the community at large and facilitate a wide adoption of climbing in India and create a network of institutions and stakeholders to increase the reach of the sport.

Climbing is now an Olympics event and has been included in Tokyo Olympics 2020 for the first time. Climbing is now becoming an urban sport and is getting popular with schools and even defence forces setting-up climbing walls. More than 25 million people in the world regularly try climbing as a sport. Tokyo, Germany and France have more than 500 climbing gyms while India alone has around 100 good climbing walls accessible to kids and the general public.