Jamshedpur boy Talim Ansari wins two gold medals
Jamshedpur: Climbers from Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF) bagged 28 medals – 10 gold, nine silver and nine bronze on the last day of 23rd East Zone Sport Climbing Competition on Sunday.
Neetu Kumari and Neha Kumari won gold and silver, respectively in the bouldering section of junior girls. Talim Ansari, the international climber from Jharkhand, claimed two gold medals both in junior boys’ bouldering and lead categories. In the junior boys� bouldering category. He defeated Bengal duo of Rohit Biswas (silver) and S.K. Raj (bronze) to the post.
Another climber Aman Verma also proved his talent in the bouldering section for sub-junior boys, clinching gold by defeating Bengal�s Raju Nayak (silver) and statemate Sarfaraz Alam (bronze)
Aman�s sister Anisha climbed to the gold by putting it across teammates Vidula Prakash Abhale (silver) and Simran Kumari in the sub-junior girls� bouldering.
The hosts also picked one more gold in the bouldering category for women through Sangeeta Samad.
TSAF took initiative to organise the 23rd East Zone Sport Climbing Competition, in association with the Indian Mountaineering Foundation East Zone Committee, in which nearly 90 climbers from different age groups would be participating from Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha. TSAF has constructed IFSC standard 15m Speed wall. This is new addition to TSAF Sport Climbing Training Center.
The Tata Steel Adventure Foundation is doing its mite to promote the exciting activity of Sport Climbing. Jharkhand�s first climbing wall – lead climbing, 15 m high was constructed in 2003. Subsequently the Bouldering Wall was constructed in 2014.
Significantly, the IFSC standard 15m speed wall which is a new addition to TSAF Sport Climbing Training Center was inaugurated by Ravi Radhakrishnan, Chief, Aviation Services & Sports, Tata Steel, on November 10, 2017.
Premlata Agarwal (1st Indian Woman to climb 7 summits, recipient of Padmashri and National Adventure Award), Mr Manik Banerjee (Chairman, East Zone IMF), Ashish Kumar (Head, Sports), Hemant Gupta (Sr Manager, TSAF) were also present at the event.
In order to run the activity in a systematic way a Sport Climbing Centre has been developed to provide structured training to people of all age groups. Nearly 50 regular members come daily to benefit from the climbing and to prepare themselves physically and mentally to face upcoming challenges.
TSAF is offering the climbing activity at ones doorstep at low cost. One need not go out of city seeking out rocky areas to climb.
It is significant to note that the first artificial climbing wall in India was constructed in Delhi at the Indian Mountaineering Foundation during early nineties which was fully sponsored by the House of Tatas. The wall was named as the �Tata Rock Wall�. It then spread over in different parts of the country. Indian climbers are now being, prepared for Asian Championships. World open and World cups are regular events of Sport Climbing, which operates under the rules formed by IFSC, the world Apex Climbing body.