May 15, 2016 by Shyam G Menon

IFSC WORLD CUP, NAVI MUMBAI – DAY 1

Photo: Shyam G Menon

Forty climbers – 20 each in men and women – have qualified for the semifinals of the 2016 IFSC World Cup in bouldering being held in Navi Mumbai. There were no major upsets. The top three in the qualifying round for men were Jeremy Bonder (France), Jongwon Chon (Korea) and Kokoro Fujii (Japan); in the women’s segment the top three were Melissa Le Neve (France), Akiyo Noguchi (Japan) and Miho Nonaka (Japan). As many as eight Japanese climbers made it to the semifinals in the men’s section. Iran, Russia and Germany had two climbers each in the semis while France, Korea, Slovakia, Canada, Czech Republic and Austria had one climber each. Of the 20 women climbers who moved up to the semis, five were from Japan, four from Austria, three from France, two each from Great Britain and Canada and one each from Chinese Taipei, Korea, USA and Germany. The semifinals and finals will be held on May 15. Saturday is a working day for many. Despite this, the opening day of the World Cup was attended by a good number of people. Please find below some photographs from Day 1:

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. All the photos used in this article were taken by him. He would like to thank Pravin Shinde for allowing the use of his camera for the days of the World Cup.)

May 15, 2016 by Shyam G Menon

INDIAN CLIMBING’S PROBLEMS OF A DIFFERENT SORT

Photo: Shyam G Menon

In climbing, problems are on the wall.

In Indian climbing, problems exist off the wall too.

Nothing was more evocative of what happened to the Indian team at the 2016 IFSC World Cup in bouldering in Navi Mumbai, than this remark by a team member: it is easy to don the country’s colours; doing justice to it is another. This is my last bouldering competition at this level. If you participate, you must prepare well first. Else, don’t participate. It was said honestly, sincerely. Being host country, India fielded one of the biggest contingents. None of the Indian athletes made it past the initial qualifying round. Not that the qualifying round at a World Cup is easy; it is difficult by domestic climbing standards. But a miracle was hoped for by many in the Indian climbing community given a World Cup had come to India.

The climbers in the team provided many reasons. Although it was known that a World Cup was scheduled to be held in India, team selection and training didn’t happen well in advance. While the last national championship in climbing took place in the last quarter of 2015, team selection for the World Cup was done only by April 2016. Actual training, team members said, would have spanned a fortnight at best. A couple of them also availed loans and spent money from their own pocket to attend a climbing competition in Singapore. They thought it would help. According to some of the team members I spoke to, what is missing in India is a whole ecosystem that prepares you for competition climbing. To begin with, there are very few Indians travelling abroad to participate in international competitions, essential if a climber is to shoulder the pressure that comes with competing in an arena filled with people. The more you compete, the better you become at handling the pressure. Second, you need competent route setters at home who will challenge you and push you in line with the type of routes seen at competitions. “ You need a good coach, you need a good route setter,’’ one of them said.

Third, while the route setter can imagine, the software in the mind transforms to hardware on the wall through a bank of climbing holds. Software and hardware are mutually connected. There are no big climbing gyms in India; certainly none of the sort that can be compared to the facilities some of the foreign athletes train at. This leads us to a fourth point – Indians get to touch for the first time, many of the holds and voluminous features used on climbing walls only when they travel to compete overseas or a World Cup comes to town as it did in May 2016. They are not familiar with certain types of holds, especially the big volume holds and features, which typically cost more to purchase in the market and which are found more and more on contemporary competition routes. Foreign athletes on the other hand are so familiar with some of these holds that they are able to guess well on seeing a hold, which part of it may be capable of hosting grip. As was evident on the opening day of the Navi Mumbai World Cup, Indian climbers lose time figuring out how to grip a hold or feature, often at the starting portions of a climbing route. Fifth, traveling abroad and participating in competitions is an expensive proposition. Few Indians have the financial muscle for this. Some, including those driven by passion and borrowing for the purpose, manage to compete overseas. Going there for a precious learning experience denied at home, they return with few discernible results that home federation and sponsors can take notice of. As Indian climbers participate in international competitions without being able to make an impression, the outcome reinforces the feeling in officialdom that the whole exercise of going to World Cups is basically futile. “ This becomes a vicious cycle. Unless you support the athlete consistently and for long, he or she is not going to gain experience and without experience you cannot hope to make an impression at competitions like the World Cup,’’ a team member said.

Lack of resources is typical of developing economies. One of the interesting things happening in climbing is that even as it is recognized as a sport with European roots, at present its growth is driven a lot by the Asian market. Affordability cannot be ignored in such contexts. The Navi Mumbai World Cup is itself an example of this drift – climbing’s rising popularity in Asia helps endorse the case for a World Cup in India. At the same time, budgetary constraints saw one of the walls used in the competition being fabricated locally. That is the affordability paradigm at work. Sean McColl is Athlete President in the Athlete Commission, which represents the interests of climbers in the World Cup circuit. I asked him if any athlete exchange programs or special funds to train athletes from the developing world were being thought of as climbing journeys to new geographies. He said nothing has been thought of yet. Potential reasons for it ranged from a lot of the administrative and developmental work in climbing being done on a voluntary basis to the athletes’ own busy schedules. However the IFSC, he said, does what it can to spread the software of climbing, like courses for judges; the rationale being that if climbing infrastructure and know-how grow, then climbing of good quality will follow. As my question was posed against the backdrop of Indian climbers and their feeling that lack of competition experience was doing them in, Sean highlighted another angle: Asian teams like those from Japan and Korea, have had athletes come for their first World Cup and yet make an impression. He had a point. For instance, climbers from Iran are familiar to the Mumbai climbing community thanks to the previous visits they made to participate in the Girivihar annual climbing competition. Iran had two athletes in the men’s semifinal. Singapore’s Ashraf is similarly known to the Mumbai crowd. Although he didn’t reach the semis, he put up a creditable performance. “ It may also be a case of having to work on strength,’’ Sean said as he prepared to leave the venue late evening, having watched the women’s qualifying round.

In the audience at Navi Mumbai, witness to the collapse, was a large contingent of sports administrators and officials overseeing Indian climbing. One thing is clear. The time for excuses is over. Indian climbing either gets its act together and goes about improving the quality of climbing or stays content hosting World Cups. A rising generation wants creative thinking and results to show so that they can stand shoulder to shoulder with the best in the world. The journey will be tough. But the least everyone can do is – make it happen.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)

May 14, 2016 by Shyam G Menon

“ CLIMBING IS ALWAYS EVOLVING” – SEAN MCCOLL

Sean McColl (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Born 1987, Sean McColl began climbing in 1997. He has been competing for the past 18 years. Hailing from North Vancouver in Canada, he was the Canadian youth champion every year from 1999-2005. Since he started competing in the World Cup circuit, he has won four events (two in lead climbing, two in bouldering) and been on the podium another 23 times. Sean is one of those rare multi-disciplinary athletes in the complete sense. According to Wikipedia, he was overall winner in the men’s category in 2014 and runner-up in 2011, 2012 and 2013. He represents the athletes’ interests in the competition climbing world. In Navi Mumbai to participate in the 2016 IFSC World Cup in bouldering, he spared time to reply to the following questions from this blog:

You have been in competitive climbing for a long time; your first gold medal at the Youth World Championships was in 2002. How did your life in climbing move towards competition climbing? Was it intentional or something that happened along the way?

I have by nature always been quite a competitive person. Growing up, I loved sports and when I found climbing I was naturally drawn towards competitions. Winning my first World Championships in 2002 helped fuel my drive and love for competitions even more. I still love competing! There is nothing quite like it.

Was being at the Youth World Championships a fine stepping stone for you to graduate to the senior circuit, involving the IFSC World Cups and the World Championships? How long did it take for you to find your groove in the senior circuit?

Being involved in youth climbing helped me drive my passion. It also helped that because I was climbing during my growth years my muscles were driven more towards that of a climber. Someone who didn’t start climbing till 20 might have a harder time forcing their bodies towards that of an athlete. Finding my groove on the open circuit took quite a few seasons and that was before there was ANY infrastructure in place. In Canada, we still struggle to have good training for athletes after their junior days, but with the Olympic bid, my fingers are crossed that everything will get brought to a new level.

In the many years you have been at World Cups and World Championships, who are the boulderers who have earned your respect – the ones you felt were a class apart?

There are many boulderers that have since retired and some still on the circuit that I sincerely respect. To name them all without forgetting one is too risky. The person who I looked up to the most in my incremental years was Kilian Fischhuber of Austria. His patience, precision and strength in the most clutch of times are inspirational.

How intense is life in the World Cup and the competition climbing circuit particularly for athletes participating in more than one discipline like you? Does a full season take a toll on the body, not to mention repeating it year after year? Right now, are there too many World Cups or is the number apt?

I find the balance of world cups in a year, very good. This balance is carefully kept and with my position as Athlete President on the Athlete Commission, I have a big hand in debating in which order and when competitions are held. It is a balance between event organizers, the national federations, the IFSC and the athletes. Without one of these parts, competitions will not be at the standard that we strive for.

The season takes a big toll on the body, and even more so when you do multiple disciplines. I have always had the goal of doing both disciplines because I don’t like to be labelled as a certain type of climber. I am just in love with climbing and all of its aspects.

Is there anything that apex organizations like the IFSC should keep in mind from the athletes’ perspective, when they design their annual calendar of events? Is there anything they are missing now?

As Athlete President, they hold my opinion (and that of all climbers through me) in very high esteem. They count on me to bring the voice of all climbers to the board of the IFSC. When they are lacking in certain areas I device strategies to not only solve the issue but make things better. Climbing is always evolving.

You have competed and won in all three disciplines – lead climbing, speed climbing and bouldering. Are these naturally synergic; how did you manage to keep them synergic in terms of both training for the event and competing? And most important – how did you contain the resultant wear and tear on your own self?

I find that there is minimal wear and tear on myself by doing all three disciplines. As I said previously, I want to be the best climber that I can be and not be labelled as a certain type of climber. I want to be an elite athlete, not only a lead climber. I like the stamina of lead climbing, mixed with the raw strength of bouldering mixed with the fast precision of speed climbing.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently as a competition climber?

As my crew of friends live by: “No Regrets!’’

Sean McColl (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Besides being a successful competition climber, you have also been a coach. What would you tell young people taking to the sport of climbing?

I would tell them to find something in climbing that they truly love, and follow it. A coach can only bring a competitive climber so far. The willingness to get better must be rooted in the athlete. Training is not something that you do in a day, a week or month but a yearly sequence of events that shape you as an athlete.

What is your personal view on the potential debut of climbing at the Olympics? Do you also share the concerns expressed by some others with regard to the Olympic ideal reportedly seeking to recognize the best overall climber from a sport that has three distinct disciplines? Will recognition of an overall winner – something similar to being a decathlete – dilute respect for competence in the individual disciplines?

I am very excited about the possible inclusion of sport climbing in the Olympic Games. In an ideal world, we would have been given eight medals (speed; boulder, lead, combined) for both men and women. Unfortunately, the IFSC was only offered two and I agree that an overall competition will show the strength of each discipline without leaving anything out. Assuming we get the vote in August, it will not matter which `discipline’ is eventually chosen for the Olympic Games, the whole sport will be brought upwards by the decision. The end goal would be to have the eight medals I referred to offered for the 2024 games! Fingers crossed.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)

May 13, 2016 by Shyam G Menon

IT’S TIME FOR ART

From the 2014 edition of Girivihar's annual climbing competition, the series that paved the way for a World Cup in India (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

From the 2014 edition of Girivihar’s annual climbing competition, the series that paved the way for a World Cup in bouldering in India (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Updates from May 13, the eve of the IFSC World Cup in bouldering at Navi Mumbai, will be appended suitably to the article titled `IFSC World Cup: Countdown Begins in Navi Mumbai,’ posted earlier. Please visit this article and that, for a comprehensive overview.

“ All we need is a watch painted on that hold and it would be like Salvador Dali’s painting,’’ I told Prashant.

We sat on the stands, two fans of climbing observing route setters at work on a climbing wall.

If earlier in this blog I called their work, art, it is for a valid reason. A climbing wall; sculpted and painted imaginatively and sporting colorful holds and features, resembles abstract art. Tad, like an Alexander Calder piece, albeit frozen still, stuck to a surface. A climber weaving his way up, adds mobility to the installation effect. The route setter’s intervention is where competition climbing on artificial walls, makes the transition from the cold nuts and bolts of the wall’s engineering, to the art of its facade. In some ways, it encapsulates the peculiar attraction climbing offers – it is math and art at once, it is disciplined training and intuition, it is straight lines and fluidity. It is time, for India’s first World Cup in bouldering; 82 athletes have registered (17 from India, the rest from overseas), the competition commences in Navi Mumbai tomorrow, May 14.

The last couple of days in the run up to the World Cup were a bit tense.

The most critical piece of hardware at a climbing competition is the wall. The marine container bearing one of the walls for the World Cup – a bouldering wall dispatched by one of the biggest names worldwide in the business of climbing walls, shipped in from their facility in China – was brought straight to the venue from the port. Much was expected from this imported wall. Made by an experienced company it was to be benchmark. Upon assembling however, challenges cropped up. There were issues with aligning the wall to the stage, there were mismatched components and some nuts and bolts had not been included in the shipment. After a year spent preparing for the World Cup, this was a disappointing moment for all. It cast a pall of gloom at the venue. But not for long. The manufacturer’s technician and event organizers put their heads together and came up with an optimal solution. The mismatched portions of the modular wall were rectified locally. The team of climbers entrusted with installing the two walls, got cracking. They got the wall’s base aligned. The installation of frames and panels started. Issues with fit and finish emerged. Raju, the carpenter who has regularly contributed to Girivihar’s walls, was recruited to assist with some of the panels. Eventually the imported wall was up. The lengthy process delayed the wall becoming available for the route setters to work on it. By noon May 11, the route setters, having already done much work on the locally fabricated wall which was in place earlier, commenced their work on the imported wall, designing climbing routes the moment a face was ready. By late evening May 12, the imported wall hummed with route setters’ activity. DJ and music system had arrived at the venue; music fueled the route setters’ work and Prashant was lost in his favorite song playing on the big speakers – Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters.

From the 2014 edition of Girivihar’s annual climbing competition (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Christophe Billon, IFSC’s Technical Director for the World Cup, is the person who has final say on competition proceedings. I asked him what he thought of the two walls. To begin with he pointed me to the fact that the two subjects in focus were bouldering walls, which, unlike lead climbing walls, don’t go up very high. That makes challenges in design and fabrication easier to handle. He couldn’t immediately recall previous instances wherein the IFSC had gone along with a locally fabricated wall for a World Cup. Navi Mumbai that way appeared to be treading less visited terrain if not breaking new ground. Although he had asked for a couple of changes here and there, on the whole, he felt that the locally fabricated wall was stable and well built. “ Its fit and finish is good,’’ he said. The imported wall, he conceded, had ended up a bit of a disappointment. But the silver lining is that the two walls are so different in shape and character that taken together, a rich variety of climbing routes to challenge the athletes is possible. “ In combination, the two walls work well,’’ he said.

The Navi Mumbai edition of the IFSC World Cup in bouldering is the first World Cup being held in India. The World Cup in climbing is a series of competitions held annually in various countries, under the aegis of the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC). Each edition culminates in podium finishes with points accumulated to crown overall winners by the end of every series. The Navi Mumbai edition, organized by the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) and Girivihar, falls close to the middle of the series currently underway. In trends so far this World Cup-season, the women’s field has been dominated by Shauna Coxsey of Great Britain, who with her last win at Chongqing in China, has notched up an incredible four straight wins. Although she is at present leader by a sizable margin, there are strong, experienced climbers like Akiyo Noguchi of Japan in the field. With only less than half the journey done so far, much can change going ahead. In contrast, the men’s segment appears filled with closely matched competitors; consequently, it has been a see-saw battle in the run up to Navi Mumbai. Although a host country in 2016, sport climbing has a relatively recent history in India. The 17-member Indian team at the Navi Mumbai World Cup includes some of the best young climbers in the country.

The finished wall, painted and ready for the route setters to start their work (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

The wall that was locally fabricated for the World Cup, painted and ready for the route setters to begin their work (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

While IMF is the host federation, the work at ground level has been done by Girivihar, Mumbai’s oldest mountaineering club. CIDCO, the agency which designed and built Navi Mumbai, extended their Exhibition Centre in Vashi as venue for the World Cup. There were many challenges along the way, the most consistent of which was perhaps, funding. To address the resource crunch, one of the climbing walls was locally fabricated to IFSC standards. A round of crowd funding was done. In the final stretch of preparations, Tata Trusts stepped in with a financial grant. That was oxygen. From the confines of a hot, sweaty warehouse in Taloja, the locally made wall traveled in dismantled form to the venue in Vashi and was put together at site. Painted and with route setters working on it fixing colorful holds and features, it looked every bit the art work, climbing walls remind of. Two evenings later, the imported wall joined in, providing company.

It’s time for the athlete’s art.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)

May 9, 2016 by Shyam G Menon

THE PUZZLE MAKERS

From front left: Mathias Woitzuck, Gen Hirashima, Laurent Laporte and Manuel Hassler (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

May 8 was a hot day.

At the venue of the upcoming World Cup in Navi Mumbai, the shade of CIDCO’s Exhibition Centre and sunlit day outside harbored an indistinct disparity. It was warm even in the shade. Warm enough for two of the four gentlemen, waiting for a climbing wall to be ready, to take off their T-shirts. A third, who had visited India before and climbed at Hampi and Badami, had chosen a vest over a T-shirt. Manuel Hassler, Mathias Woitzuck, Laurent Laporte and Gen Hirashima, hailing from Switzerland, Austria, France and Japan respectively, formed the four member-route setting team dispatched by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) to the Navi Mumbai World Cup. Praveen C.M, one of the best sport climbers in India, was expected to join as a fifth member.

Manuel was Chief Route Setter; Gen and Praveen, aspirant route setters wishing to grow their skills by working with the experienced. Laurent was the most experienced; he had begun route setting for international competitions conducted by sport climbing’s apex federation, at a time when the IFSC wasn’t yet born and sport climbing was still overseen by the UIAA, currently dedicated to mountaineering. The wall imported for the competition, had arrived and not been installed yet. The quartet admired the locally fabricated wall from far; they checked it up close. Then, the inevitable happened – they imagined routes on it. Doing so, they moved their arms to reach non-existent holds, raised their legs to step on invisible footholds and let the body flex this way and that for balance, generally swaying like ballet dancers.

Four components complete a World Cup ecosystem – athletes, route setters, judges and spectators. You have a good competition, when all four blend beautifully. Of these four, the one role functioning akin to a sensitive instrument gauging the ecosystem is the route setter. All serious route setters are themselves good climbers. That’s because a sense of body movement is critical to set routes that challenge climbers. But here’s the interesting thing. Most of us equate challenge and difficulty with moves requiring strength to execute. However, strength and power and are only two of the several aspects shaping a good climber. A good climber is a composite of many other talents too including the ability to solve a set of climbing moves that resemble a problem on a route; climbing creatively, handling the overall pressure of competition and taking risks while climbing.

When route setters stare at a blank wall defined yet only by its angled faces, they can imagine different configurations of climbing holds and features on it, to create routes. They work once a wall is ready to host climbing holds. When they work, designing a collection of routes ahead of competition, access to the wall is restricted. No photography is permitted because these routes are the puzzles at the heart of a competition. But it isn’t as simple as accumulating a bank of puzzles, tucking it away and monotonously pulling it out one by one from the kitty during the course of a competition. Route setters sway like grass in the wind for a valid reason. They sense which way the wind is blowing at a competition underway. Their imagination and response to real time stimuli is what keeps a competition entertaining. That means you may pull out routes from your kitty but the going will be dynamic, with changes in response to a live situation and state of competition. According to the team now in Navi Mumbai, route setting at the start of the World Cup season is a bit of a guessing game for the athletes are returning from a break and well deserved rest after the preceding competition season. You give challenges and gauge response for a sense of where the field stands. As the season progresses, the vagaries slowly fade and trends creep in. The athletes warm up to peak performance. The route setters draw into their bank of routes and play the virus in the system, keeping the going edgy and unpredictable with their creativity in route setting, building each competition to an interesting final. While doing so, they also listen to local stimuli, which is where the spectators matter.

One of the walls for the World Cup, painted and ready for the route setters to start their work. This wall was fabricated locally (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Spectators nowadays fall into two categories – there is the audience physically present at an event; there is the global audience available through live-streaming over the Internet (the Navi Mumbai World Cup will be streamed live). An engaged audience, aware of climbing and its nuances eminently adds to the quality of proceedings. Marathon events worldwide are remembered by the cheering runners receive. As in running, competition climbers love support and encouragement. It motivates them to perform. It builds a climbing competition’s ecosystem. It is among stimuli, the route setters in the wings listen to. Since variety and edginess are essential ingredients for enjoyable competition, route setters too are used with discretion. One team doesn’t do the route setting for a whole World Cup season. The IFSC has its list of qualified, experienced route setters and multiple teams work on the many competitions of a World Cup season. This ensures that a single line of imagination does not dominate the routes set for a season. Each of the four route setters now in Navi Mumbai, have their individual preferences as regards climbing problems and climbing styles. They work as a team to make sure that all this is available at hand as ingredients and yet no one climbing style or type of problem unnecessarily dominates and characterizes a competition. This versatility – the desire to have a diverse tool box for one’s work – appeared kept alive by the individual route setter too. Laurent for instance, was clear that he valued having his personal climbing straddle both lead climbing and bouldering without entrapment in one.

As regards concerns – thoughts weaned from the experience of having set routes for many years – they said that perhaps the competition season’s length needs revisiting. Climbing is a demanding sport. As anyone who has attempted a challenging climbing route will tell you, the act drains you. Athletes on the competition circuit are climbing as best as they can; one competition after another. While the World Cup at Navi Mumbai is focused on bouldering, there are athletes taking part in both bouldering and lead climbing. It elicits a toll as the season progresses and in a circuit where athletes are one of the fundamental building blocks, tired athletes can affect that all important ecosystem. Should there be fewer competitions so that the ecosystem stays robust? – That could become something to think of. In the same vein, another important factor which may impact the route setter’s art is climbing’s potential debut at the Olympics. While details are not yet known, what has so far appeared in the media, seems to indicate a drift to acknowledging the best climber overall as the Olympic ideal. Competitive climbing currently straddles three distinct categories – lead climbing, bouldering and speed climbing. Like the temptation in science for a theory of everything, it will be interesting to see how the journey to the Olympics influences the route setter’s art.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)

May 7, 2016 by Shyam G Menon

“ GET INSPIRED BY OTHER CLIMBERS, YET GO YOUR OWN WAY’’ – KILIAN FISCHHUBER

Kilian Fischhuber (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Born in Waidhofen/YBBS on Aug 1st, 1983, moved to Innsbruck in 2002 and started career as a professional climber; 1.75m tall and best known for a versatile style of climbing with penchant for powerful and dynamic moves. Relaxed but determined in approaching goals; foremost relaxed……

The above is how Kilian Fischhuber has described himself on his website. One of bouldering’s most successful competition climbers with quite a few victories at the World Cup and European championships to his credit, Kilian is from Austria. No stranger to India and Indian climbers, he has climbed in Hampi and Badami. In the run up to the first World Cup in bouldering to be held in India (at Navi Mumbai, May 14-15, 2016), Kilian granted an interview by email to this blog. Excerpts:

What are your memories of your first World Cup?

My first World Cup was in 1999. I travelled to France for rock climbing in Ceuse, Orpierre and the like. I joined the event in Gap without any expectations or pressure. There was no such thing as an Austrian team. As far as I remember, my friend Reini Fichtinger who I was travelling with also competed. I ended up 22nd and thought there might be a potential to enter the finals (at that time, 20 people went to the second round which was the finals).

You are one of the most successful competition climbers in bouldering. What did you do to stay fit and competitive? How much time did you invest in climbing? People spend hours at offices. Can you tell us how a day in climbing’s office was like, for you, in your World Cup years?

I trained more in my early twenties; less later. I needed to build up strength and work on my weaknesses. By the time I turned 25 I had developed a solid climbing style and was one of the stronger athletes in the field. The years after that I profited most from my experience and trust in oneself.

Climbing is a powerful sport, taking breaks is necessary and rock climbing can help you develop your technique and style. I usually trained five times week. Always two days on, one day rest.

Kilian Fischhuber, Anna Stohr and Jakob Schubert (Photo: courtesy Kilian Fischhuber)

Which were your finest moments in the sport at the competition level?

That would be – winning my first World Cup by a large margin in Erlangern, Germany in 2005, becoming European Champion in 2013 and winning my last World Cup in Innsbruck, Austria in 2014.

How intense is the competition at the World Cup? Were you and your fellow climbers at World Cups always competitors seeing each other so, or did you pick up good friendships that have stayed strong past your competition years?

I always saw the other competitors as people to learn from. At the end of a round you were in a good position if you performed well, no matter what the others did. In climbing you don’t have a direct opponent. You are challenged by the `problem’ / route and yourself.

What does ` competition’ mean to you? Do you see it as a phase in an athlete’s life or is it what you always live by? If it was a phase, then what is the driving force for you in climbing nowadays?

I probably did 100+ World Cup events and I feel confident saying that I am not a competitive person, I actually shy away from comparison. Competing was always a sort of game, interaction with others and yes, a challenge. The uncertainty and the pressure to perform well at a certain moment of time always held something alluring for me. Nevertheless, I am glad I got rid of the pressure.

Can you explain what difference you find between competition climbing, done typically on artificial walls, and climbing in the open, on natural rock as you do often now? Is there a drift to the purer ethic in this and is the purer ethic being out, free and climbing rock?

For me, both are climbing. I prefer climbing outside, especially when combined with trips and longer stays. But gym climbing can also be very entertaining. I am against a strict classification that goes hand in hand with how to value what.

While it is good to be sponsored, as a competition climber how did you handle the knowledge that sponsorship is dependent on performance and if performance falls, sponsors may stay away? Was that ever a source of pressure?

Well, sometimes, especially when under-performing you might feel pressure. In my case though, I could always rely on sponsors who saw beyond single achievements. Most of the companies have been supporting me for more than five years. Long term cooperation definitely helps to reduce the pressure.

Kilian Fischhuber at an earlier edition of the World Cup (Photo: courtesy IFSC)

You were a top athlete in a sport that wasn’t part of the Olympics. If all goes well, climbing may debut at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Do you see climbing’s entry into the Olympics as a major development? If so, what impact will it have on the sport?

This will very much depend on how climbing will be implemented in the Olympic circuit. If the IFSC prefers to push for an Olympic discipline that has never been tried and does not exist, then I see it rather critically.

The first set of young people aspiring to be full time climbers has just emerged in India. Some of them will be participating in the Navi Mumbai World Cup. What advice would you give them, both in terms of how to handle themselves at top level competitions like the World Cup and in terms of making climbing their profession?

Get inspired by the other climbers, yet go your own way. Don’t be pushy but take your time. In competition climbing a lot depends on experience, hence time is of the essence.

What climbs occupy you nowadays? When do we see you in India next?

I am currently teaching in high school, I even showed my students some pictures of Hampi and Badami. I will climb professionally again after July, when school ends. I hope to make it back to Badami in December.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. Please visit the Ganesha series of articles on this blog for more on Kilian Fischhuber.)

May 7, 2016 by Shyam G Menon

TWO FILMS

Illustration: Shyam G Menon

I watched The Jungle Book for the first time in Bengaluru.

A successful animation film with several re-releases to its credit, I saw the movie in the early 1980s. It was screened at Rex Theatre on Brigade Road. I recalled this ahead of watching the film’s 2016 version at Mumbai’s Sterling Theatre, replete with 3D animation and contemporary movie stars providing voice to the characters. Further, keeping aside Jason Scott Lee’s Mowgli from the 1994 version, the main protagonist of Rudyard Kipling’s book was a human being on screen and not an animated character. While some people have said that the old 2D animated version is their preferred benchmark, things have changed for me – I embrace Jon Favreau’s creation as benchmark in my times with one difference: I thought Baloo’s song (The Bare Necessities) was more enjoyable in the earlier film. Maybe it’s because I was a lot younger then, less cynical, less critical and more spontaneous. Years later, as life took its twists and turns, among them bringing me to the outdoors and the mountains – I have often wondered: if not the bare necessities, what is it that I am seeking?

Image: courtesy Disney India

One knew that after Richard Parker, the tiger in Life of Pi, Shere Khan would be convincing despite animation. What one did not anticipate was Idris Elba. His Shere Khan remains for me, a force haunting Kipling’s jungle. From the menace Elba creates, flows the dark, ominous mood of the film, a trait that sets it apart from the more child friendly approach of the earlier version. But then, today’s child growing up with smartphone, is also arguably a more media immersed junior, for whom the earlier film may at best be fodder for a submission in class on how technology evolved. Of the people who voiced the characters in the earlier movie, only George Sanders was known to us at that time. In days preceding the Internet, old film magazines brought home Hollywood and Sanders was there in some of the issues I used to thumb through. Even then, a few of the voice actors in The Jungle Book, including Sanders, were no more by the time the curtain raised that evening at Rex Theatre. In the 2016 version, I could appreciate the main voices for these were actors of my time. I could also appreciate what seemed to me paradoxical choices that clicked beautifully. Thus for instance, Ben Kingsley’s voice – even and measured in how it registers aurally, seemed apt choice for Bagheera. Christopher Walken as King Loius – I wasn’t sure. Till I experienced it and felt the psychopath sort of terror – so not Shere Khan like – that Walken’s laidback, negotiator of a voice can bring. Bill Murray as Baloo was a breeze. What didn’t convince was Kaa, the python. It had one mesmerizing scene all to itself and then, was gone.

Above all, this will be for me a Neel Sethi movie. After seeing the earlier version, I was left with memories of Bagheera, Shere Khan and Baloo. With the 2016 version, Mowgli joins that list. Sethi does not essay his role harking of innocence. He brings an element of smart contemporary youngster to the frame, creating in the process, a bridge between city and jungle. I suspect, for a generation experiencing The Jungle Book in the age of reading’s progressive decline and walking as they do through its plot with Sethi’s Mowgli for company, Favreau and Disney may have replaced Kipling as creator of the story. In the business of making an impression, that is a measure of how effective you were.

In the latter half of the 1980s, I saw a remarkable film at a film festival in Thiruvananthapuram. I went to see The Mission because of Robert De Niro but came off knowing the talents of Roland Joffe and Jeremy Irons as well. For me, Irons is among the great classically trained British actors of his generation; the sort with commanding screen-presence. Indeed in his case, that presence literally lurks in the frame waiting to explode. A few things define the Irons of cinema – an apparent discipline, intensity and voice. It is hard to have him in a supporting role and not lose the film to him. But if you are a film buff, you don’t mind that for losing a film to an actor of Irons’ calibre is rarely a bad experience. That’s what happened with Race; that’s what happened with The Man Who Knew Infinity. In the latter, it also helped flesh out and establish the respective characters of G.H. Hardy (played by Irons) and S. Ramanujan (played by Dev Patel), not just for the individuals they were but also the backdrops shaping them.

Jeremy Irons (left) and Dev Patel in The Man Who Knew Infinity (Please note: this photo was downloaded from the Facebook page of the movie.)

I do not know much about Ramanujan beyond what I gleaned of him from the film. In the movie, he comes across as gifted in an almost mystic way; his mathematics by intuition versus Hardy’s math by proof, his tendency to spontaneously get started on equations and that dialogue – that his goddess, Namagiri, puts numbers on his tongue. There is always a bit of struggle in how the visual arts and directors, actors therein, portray genius. A similar struggle exists in The Man Who Knew Infinity and Ramanujan occasionally felt contrived. At times the mathematician’s earnestness, isolation and genius seemed tad overboard in the portrayal. But then like I said, I don’t know how Ramanujan behaved in real life. Those who researched know best. Wikipedia describes Ramanujan as an autodidact, a person who is self-taught. A lacuna to my mind, in the film, was the dearth of material on how Ramanujan reached the level of proficiency in mathematics he had by the time he wished to publish. That proficiency may have drawn much from things deeply experiential, like the relationship between self and ecosystem with math embedded in its living traditions. Equally, in conservative society with life and lifestyle rigidly defined, the abstract world of numbers may become a liberating private refuge. All this went unexplored in the film, which starts with the adult Ramanujan finding a mentor in his boss, Narayana Iyer.

Matthew Brown’s movie was more about the Hardy-Ramanujan-Cambridge equation. Not for a minute am I saying that the Cambridge chapter is unimportant or uninteresting. The characters in that chapter have been presented well; the ambiance created by Hardy, J. E. Littlewood and Bertrand Russell is wonderful. Had it not been for them, we won’t have Ramanujan the way he is known today. Still, Cambridge is where the man was vindicated; he was formed elsewhere. Can a story of genius vindicated be complete if the formation of genius is not explored? This film deserves to be seen. Reports said that the movie was a challenge to make because funding was hard to come by. It is a good effort and as usual, Irons is a class act.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)

May 6, 2016 by Shyam G Menon

WAKING UP TO A SECOND CHANCE

The outdoors is not about achievement; it is about being there. Senior NOLS instructor, Shantanu Pandit, sketched this temple in Solang Nallah, Himachal Pradesh, years ago when he was a leading the hiking and camping season there for Mumbai based-outdoor company, Countryside (Illustration: courtesy Shantanu Pandit)

The outdoors isn’t all about achievement. It is also about being there and taking in worlds different from what one is used to. Senior NOLS instructor, Shantanu Pandit, sketched this house in Solang Nallah, Himachal Pradesh, years ago when he was leading the hiking and camping season there for Mumbai based-outdoor company, Countryside (Illustration: Shantanu Pandit)

This article is about a NOLS course I did in 2011. Shantanu Pandit helps bring in a touch of the mountains with his sketches. NOLS courses in India are held in Uttarakhand.

It had been a hard walk.

Not so much for the terrain or the duration. It was the weight in my backpack. I wasn’t used to hauling so much. Plus there was fatigue and ego. Once again in the outdoors, I was on the wrong side of age. I was among the oldest in my batch, if not the oldest. Anger, kindled from an earlier mountaineering course at an Indian institute, where everything had been partial to its dominant age group of the early twenties – worked its way into my blood. New to altitude and snow, I felt I was denied training and instead parceled off into existence as mediocre specimen. The word for it was `grade’; it graced everyone’s certificate like pedigree. From that certificate flowed, for all practical purposes, mountaineering’s hierarchy in India. Not again such imprisonment by grade, I said, as I pulled hard and raced off from everyone else on the first day of a Trip Leader India (TLI) course with the India branch of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).

Some hours earlier, we had been dropped off on the approach to Karmi village in Kumaon, the eastern half of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It was hilly all around. As the crow flies, the snow-capped peaks of the Himalaya were not far off. It was day one. The jeeps left and a sense of you-are-on-your-own descended. We would be out for a little less than one month. Just then, the end seemed long way off. I looked at my course mates. Two or three were faces familiar from previous trips to the outdoors. The rest were strangers. The course began systematically with instructors emphasizing foot care (that’s the part of the anatomy you would use the most on a long hike), hydration and periodic breaks for refreshment. But I was in a different world haunted by old memories. I am unsure whether I adhered to the instructors’ advice. I saw the course as another tsunami of youth at my heels, waiting to sink my ship. Evening we halted to camp, gathering in a circle as NOLS loves to do. I remember sitting down on my backpack, in that circle. Then the world tilted like a ship deck heaving in stormy sea. Eventually the ship turned turtle and a peaceful darkness took hold.

On my NOLS course, my planned redemption from `B’ grade at old mountaineering institute, I had fainted!

Damn.

A temple in Solang Nallah, Himachal Pradesh (Illustration: courtesy Shantanu Pandit)

A temple in Solang Nallah, Himachal Pradesh (Illustration: Shantanu Pandit)

We had been divided into tent groups. Each group was self-sufficient in shelter, food and cooking equipment. I don’t quite remember where I woke up or who I saw first. Was it my tent mates? Was it my instructors peering down at me? Anyway, I was told I came around to my senses, with some chocolate. That evening my tent mates quietly took care of me. Nobody made an issue of the fainting spell; nobody bothered me unnecessarily. I introspected, tracing the episode to both old anger and perhaps more importantly, long hours chair-bound before the computer, back in Mumbai where I eked out a living as freelance journalist. Not only had that life been increasingly sedentary but income had drastically dropped too, affecting nutrition. Once a rock climbing addict, I was forced to reduce my visits to the crags after I lost my erstwhile disciplined life to incessant typing. Typing for my life I would say, because as freelancer I was paid only as per what I wrote; there is no salary or security. Now I was paying for it. In my tent, I felt like an idiot. I expected to be sent out, packed back to the NOLS India base in Ranikhet. Such was the legacy of the old mountaineering course in my head. The outdoors is all about performance, right?

Mercifully, that didn’t happen.

We had three instructors. The course leader was Margo van den Berg, an American of Dutch origin. Competent climber, she kept a studied distance from all till we approached course’s end. She carried a sketchbook in which she collected drawings of outdoor scenes. If I recall right, she also liked to dance and did something similar to a polka once. The second instructor was Ariel Greene; American, strong hiker, well read and majored in literature, also accomplished musician. A rather quiet individual, he was capable of engaging conversation on subjects that captured his interest. The third was Pranesh Manchaiah; Indian, at that time one of the best rock climbers in the country. He was very approachable and the active interface of the instructor team with the students. They must have discussed my case. The next morning, they made sure to check on me. I also knew I was probably being observed. But that was it – day two, kicked off like any other day. I had made a mistake. It seemed alright. What mattered more was – would I learn from my mistake?

I liked that approach, that second chance.

Kitchen tent, from a trip in Ladakh years ago (Illustration: courtesy Shantanu Pandit)

Kitchen tent, from a trip in Ladakh years ago (Illustration: Shantanu Pandit)

I sorely needed it. The combination of mountaineering institute, climbing club and my own limitations as climber had jammed me into a funk. An unexpected high altitude hike with a friend, who was a NOLS instructor and the way he taught me some simple steps in snow craft, got me thinking of this outdoor school. How about doing a NOLS course? – I thought. I started with a first aid course, which made sense for I was already working occasionally as an outdoor educator. Even in that course, taught at Ranikhet, the NOLS teaching style stood out. A typical class was of modest size, not the too many which characterized Indian scenarios. Modest size meant better attention and observation. There was fun. Yet there was a high degree of personal ownership among all. That dreaded word `grade,’ which plagued my old mountaineering course wasn’t prominent. The times it grew prominent were when Indian students featured it in their private discussions for we worship life by degrees, grades and such licenses for exclusivity ingrained in us. Worse, unable to live without A, B and C grades for distinction, we focus our teaching efforts on the most promising. At my old mountaineering institute, I remember explicit encouragement and support for the naturally talented, while the stragglers lived like failures. The NOLS faculty on the other hand, seemed to see teaching as exactly that – teaching those who don’t know. Indeed I would say, the less you know something, the better a NOLS course works for you, provided you are there to learn. At the end of the first aid course, there was a test. It went by like a breeze for free of fearing grade and genuinely wanting to be good at what we did, we had studied well every day. Each of us got a certificate valid for two years. NOLS was clear that rusted skills didn’t mean much. After two years, you re-certify.

My experience of the first aid course made me curious. The school’s philosophy seemed to agree with my own belief – you are as good as how often you are in the outdoors, not what grade you hold from an old course at mountaineering institute. I also liked the reduced machismo in the air. Quite unlike the Indian habit of viewing the outdoors as domain of the tough and seeking champions in everything, the tenor at NOLS seemed to be to make people comfortable in the outdoors with the champion bit, left for personal pursuit. What they did was put the basics like risk assessment, camping skills, navigation and Leave No Trace in place. In India, NOLS ran mountaineering and backpacking courses. The regular courses have one major drawback. They are expensive. However the Indian branch had a local outreach programme structured for educators – that’s the one I chose to do after my first aid course.

The first time I heard of NOLS was at my longstanding mountaineering club in Mumbai. We were on a diet of regular rock climbing in the local hills with occasional visits to climb mountains in the Himalaya. We were a rough, tough lot, shaped by climbing and eminently capable of turning our backs on anyone who deemed us crazy. We had need only for each other. What we didn’t know was how much that made us inward looking, measuring everything and everyone through the prism of climbing and to that extent, not different from settled society which views the world through the prism of well settled life. We often poked fun of NOLS, which seemed tame with its emphasis on safety, risk assessment et al and its pronounced appreciation for hiking as right context to teach outdoor curriculum. Climbers look down on hikers. In the company of my club, I submitted myself to measurement by climbing grade, worshiped super humans and wept at my measly strengths in the field. There was also another reason, I guess, why NOLS was looked at the way it was, in the Mumbai climbing circles I was exposed to. Clubs are a great way to start off something. But over a period of time, they can lose the ability to be self critical and become a self righteous fold of the mutually familiar. At the time I did my course, I found NOLS quite different compared to the outdoor club and mountaineering institute, I was coming from.

View from Khardung La, Ladakh (Illustration: Shantanu Pandit)

On our NOLS course, we had contour maps, compasses to orient them; indeed compasses using which we could have gone through the old routine of bearing and back bearing – the works, tying ourselves up in a math most of us hate. At NOLS, past map-orientation, our instructors encouraged us to keep the compass aside. A major component of navigation was observation of context. We slowly learnt to pick out features from the surrounding geography and locate them on the map. Looking around became important. As you looked up from traditional entrapment by performance and immediate world, you saw mountains, passes, even your fellow students. Throughout my NOLS course, I struggled with navigation (I still do). It was an indication of how much I had to get away from tunnel vision and impatience. I remembered my first mountaineering expedition in the Zanskar Himalaya, where I had once spent a long time frantically looking for the rest who had moved fast and disappeared from sight. Since then, having people ahead and within sight had been my map, my sense of security. Now map in hand, I was looking around, using my head even as it loathed math.

Mountains are lovely classrooms. Long hiking days and path-finding often threw up fantastic junctures for an instructor to intervene. Entrusted with responsibility and beset with error and challenge, the students opened up to learning. We learnt to work as a team, co-operate and have fun. I recognized this fun quickly as the inexplicable bonhomie I knew from my climbing crags, that sheer delight of being in the outdoors with others who love it. Describing it is difficult, probably not required. The difference on the NOLS course was this – we discovered it wasn’t magic but something we could create. We were not annoyingly judgmental. We were accommodating, willing to explain our problems with the world and each other, contributing thus to a quality missed in Indian education – a safe learning environment.

For example, I was, still am, a very average cook. But even the worst cook gains confidence and tries to improve when your turn to cook is accompanied by supportive tent mates and cooking is part of field curriculum being taught. That said, for many Indians, cooking is akin to the loss of vertical as stamp of high adventure. What has cooking – usually identified with the ladies – got to do with the macho outdoors? In Indian context with premium on masculinity, it takes the sheen off adventurer expected to handle nothing but ropes and gear. Cooking at NOLS addressed a very fundamental point – if you can’t take care of yourself in the outdoors, how can you say you are adventurer chasing peak, pass or summit? If you exist, your chance of reaching the destination is more. On such simple things ranging from cooking to personal hygiene, listening to team members and learning to lead, ran a NOLS course. The concept of self-sustained expeditions, which form the backbone of all NOLS experiences, is perfect backdrop for these dynamics to unravel.

A scene from Ladakh (Illustration: Shantanu Pandit)

A scene from just outside Karzyok, Ladakh (Illustration: Shantanu Pandit)

Many days of hiking went by. Roughly put, our route ran east from Karmi towards Munsyari, hugging modest elevation but having enough rough terrain to make the hiking experience span walking on proper trail to bushwhacking. Doing the latter with students as navigators and instructor passively accompanying till the evolving situation warranted intervention, we had some long strenuous days. Split every morning into self-contained hiking groups, I remember one extended day that slowly slid to late evening, destination not yet reached and students beginning to get nervous. Margo who walked with us was however cool. She occasionally checked the geographical features around to gauge direction, played silent spectator to our team management and scouting trips and when darkness approached, stayed calm for after all we were a self-contained group. It brought alive that load in my backpack as my survival kit and not excuse to show-off my ability to haul weight. As things turned out, my group did reach the assigned camping spot to a warm welcome of flying snow balls from the rest of the batch, arrived earlier. It was early summer in the Himalaya. Snow was around in shaded areas and the higher reaches of our route. Often, it rained, making the world wet-cold. Our last camp was at Dhapa, high on the banks of the Goriganga near Munsyari. By then we had crossed two other major river valleys en route, those of the Pindar and Saryu rivers, besides other minor valleys identified with local streams. Every time we climbed up from a valley to height, we would see the snow clad Kumaon Himalaya not far away.

Slowly but steadily, I had become fit as a fiddle; happy to be out. I could have turned around and asked the guy who fainted – are you me? The near 25 kilo-backpacks were a load, no doubt. But we knew the pattern – it weighed most just after re-ration and tapered slowly towards the next re-ration. So we cooked and ate. We attended classes despite weather gone bad, wearing rain coats, puff jackets and wind cheaters under a tarp propped up by tree branches and trekking poles, for shelter. We saw each other in the light of headlamps. We waded through cold streams, kicked steps on snow and bushwhacked. At camps, we took classes; something, anything that you could share with your fellow students or teach them. From strangers, we evolved to friends. I remember young Zanskar, who thanks to his familiarity with Kumaon, was a walking encyclopedia on local flora and fauna. I remember Joshi, who everyone remembers, for the rhododendron-paratha he made. I remember quiet, solid Soumitra. I remember the ever upbeat Amrit. I remember Vinay, Anish, Stanzin, Kamakshi, Tara, Hitendra, Ravi, Manjunath, Shaleel. We got along well.

Then one day, close to course’s end, your instructor – they assigned one as mentor for each student – met up with you to discuss evaluation and grade. I appreciated the personal meeting, the discussion and the detailed evaluation with explanations. A, B, C or shades in between – they told you why. Most important – it wasn’t a certificate that dovetailed as input for a bureaucratic administration of access to the mountains, saying: a person with this grade can do this, that grade can do only so much…so on and so forth. They weren’t gifting me a straight-jacket for life as the Indian mountaineering institute did. The NOLS certificate felt like an evaluation in time, a snapshot in life. What a snapshot shows of you at 20 isn’t how you would be at 40, which in turn may not be how you are at 60. Life is a journey. It is for you to decide what to do with it. A snapshot isn’t all of your life at one go. It is just a slice, a pointer.

I liked that.

I felt free.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. This article was developed from a piece originally written and published in The Outdoor Journal [http://www.outdoorjournal.in/] in early 2014. My gratitude to Shantanu Pandit for asking me about the old article and making me want to share it afresh.)

April 28, 2016 by Shyam G Menon

“ I AM BY NATURE A SOLO RUNNER’’

Breeze Sharma (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Breeze Sharma spoke with no intent to impress.

There was an air of – this is what I am; take it or leave it.

He minced no words in his description of the emergent world of Mumbai running. In particular, how support and sponsorship grace mostly the media savvy.

Breeze wasn’t wrong in his perception. A couple of weeks after we met him, Outside magazine ran an article on the same problem as felt in expeditions. It would be easy to say that what is going wrong in the matrix of money, media and marketing can be set right by further tweaks to technology or that the maze can be negotiated by hiring consultants adept at the task. The real issue is something else. It has to do with what drives the matrix, dominance by the matrix and the distortion it brings.

It was a hot summer morning.

Breeze sat in the café, like runner trapped, mind lost to what he must do. He had just finished a long run in the morning and after meeting us, would head out for another session in the blazing sun. In the middle of busy city with people ensconced in the air conditioned comfort of their cars and offices, a lone runner adding mileage on scorched road. Breeze is among Mumbai’s best known ultra-marathon runners. He was preparing for the Badwater Ultra Marathon, a foot race enduring extreme temperature variations and elevation change, often described in the world of running as the toughest event around.

Breeze on Kang Yatse (Photo: courtesy Breeze Sharma)

Breeze on Kang Yatse I. This is the main peak, not the shoulder many climb to (Photo: courtesy Breeze Sharma)

“ I don’t think I got accepted at Badwater because I am a runner. I am a mountaineer,’’ he said. Born January 1974 into a large family in Jaipur, Breeze Sharma considers mountaineering his first love. He did his mountaineering courses from the Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering in Batot, the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) Uttarkasi, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering and Allied Sports, Manali and the High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) in Gulmarg. Long haired and tattooed, Breeze, works with the Indian Navy; on the civilian side. He has been associated with the navy’s Adventure Cell for several years. Climbing mountains, he has been on peaks like Nanda Kot, Bhanoti , Friendship, Shitidhar, Chamser Kangri, Lungser Kangri, Deo Tibba, Baljuri, Kang Yatse, Shinkun East, Shinkun West, Ramjak, Mentok Kangri, DKD-II and Independence 50. The altitude involved in these climbs, ranges from 17,000ft to 22,000ft. A bachelor, he stays in Mumbai, in a house close to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (it is the biggest forest within a city anywhere in the world), getting occasional visits from the park’s slithery residents. Aside from mountaineering and running, Breeze also handles snakes.

It was Mumbai runner Suresh Pillai who introduced Breeze to running. Suresh is a colleague in the navy. “ Breeze was very active in the Adventure Cell. I had accompanied him on some treks. I told him that he should get into running, that he will enjoy it,’’ Suresh said. Breeze’s first running event was the Vasai-Virar Marathon of 2012, incidentally the same year that he began running. Starting almost 25 minutes late, Breeze finished the full marathon in 5 hours, 38 minutes, last in the field. Nobody saw him finish. Suresh had to intervene and get him a finisher’s medal. “ I was interested only in the full marathon,’’ Breeze said when asked why he didn’t pick any of the smaller distances at his first running event. Discouraged by his showing, he left the finish line, thinking he didn’t have what it takes to be a good runner. However, the opposite unfolded. Following his Vasai-Virar experience, Breeze started to run regularly. He ran the 2013 Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM) under navy quota, completing the full marathon in 4 hours, 31minutes. His next full marathon was in Chandigarh. Then, in October 2013, he ran his first ultra-marathon, the 80km-Bhatti Lakes Ultra, running the distance in 11 hours, 22 minutes. He ended third in that race. In December 2013, he ran a 100km ultra in the Nilgiris, lapping up the distance in 15 hours, 29 minutes. “ With this race, I came to accept that ultra-running is my passion,’’ Breeze said. He set his eyes on a hundred miler (161km). That happened with an event in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, where he ran 161km in 34 hours, 56 minutes to place second.

From Himalayan Crossing (Photo: courtesy Breeze Sharma)

June 2014, found him running 80km in 10 hours, 46 minutes at the Shimla Ultra. Next he opted for a multi-day race spanning July 7-11 and covering 335 km, called Himalayan Crossing. Between the Shimla Ultra and this multi-day race, Breeze embarked on an expedition to Deo Tibba. At Chikka, he was bitten by a Russels Viper. Fortunately, the bite was on a finger, with that much distance, anatomically, between area of bite and vital organs. Only one fang made contact. Rushing him back to Manali, his guide alerted the District Magistrate and ensured that a helicopter was kept on standby. In another stroke of luck, enquiries revealed that the relevant antivenin was available at a hospital in Kullu. Breeze was brought unconscious to Kullu, where the antivenin was injected. He survived; he was discharged eight hours after regaining consciousness. It was a narrow escape. It left him with ten days to attempt the Himalayan Crossing. Its route straddled an average elevation of 12,000ft. As it turned out, he was the only one running. Starting from a village in Spiti, he ran the distance, crossing the Kunzum La and Rohtang La (both high passes) en route. He completed the run in 55 hours, 45 minutes. “ It was in this event that I discovered the endurance runner in me,’’ Breeze said. Suresh put it in perspective, “ Breeze has very good endurance because of his mountaineering activity.’’ The Himalayan Crossing – which earned him a place in the Limca Book of Records – happened in July 2014.

Running in the Himalaya (Photo: courtesy Breeze Sharma)

On August 3rd, Breeze ran the 12 hour-stadium run in Bengaluru, covering 92.8km to place fifth. He also ran the Mumbai Ultra of August 15. As if this wasn’t enough, Breeze reached Ladakh in September to run the Khardung La Challenge. In November 2014, still in running mode, he ran 162km to secure third place in the 24 hour-segment of the Bangalore Ultra. Then he ran for a second time, the 100km ultra in the Nilgiris, completing it in 14 hours, 29 minutes. “ I ran the maximum number of ultras I have done so far, in 2014,’’ Breeze said. Inderpal Khalsa is a young, promising ultra-marathon runner. He has run a few ultra-marathons with Breeze. “ One thing I have observed is that he has very strong will power and his mind is determined and focused. I have seen him on extreme terrain, unwilling to stop, just looking down and continuing to run at a slow pace. He can run for hours and hours without a break because he focuses on strength training and spends a lot of time in the mountains,’’ Inderpal said.

In early 2015, four days after SCMM, Breeze ran a 24 hour-treadmill challenge, covering 196.64km, earning him a place in the Limca Book of Records. In February, he repeated the ultra in the Rann of Kutch, running 100 miles in 28 hours, 55 minutes. Breeze won this race. Then an unexpected twist occurred, one that dealt him a severe mental blow. At noon, April 25, 2015, a devastating earthquake struck Nepal shaking up the Everest region with considerable damage inflicted as far away as Kathmandu. Over 8000 people died, more than 20,000 were injured. The temblor triggered a major avalanche at Everest Base Camp. Among those buried under the snow was Breeze Sharma. For over a decade, the mountaineer and ultra-marathoner had been saving up money for an expedition to Everest. Everest is a costly affair. He sank his savings into the project and borrowed some more. His plan was to climb both Everest and Lhotse. All that effort and a chance to attempt the summit, ended up under the snow. Buried by avalanche, Breeze eventually broke through to the surface. In the hours that followed at camp, he had an injured woman die in his arms. In all, 21 people died due to the avalanche at Everest Base Camp. The experience rattled him. Atop the trauma of earthquake and avalanche, was the spectre of returning home to a huge debt. “ I was bankrupt,’’ Breeze said. Laid low by these developments, he quit running. It was one of those dead end scenarios when nothing appears to work positively for human being.

From the ultra-marathon in the Rann of Kutch (Photo: courtesy Breeze Sharma)

Breeze, during the ultra-marathon in the Rann of Kutch (Photo: courtesy Breeze Sharma)

One of those who kept in touch with Breeze during this phase was Vijaya Nadar. She lives in the US. “ Breeze struggled to fund his Everest expedition because a sponsor who had promised ten lakhs for the same had to decline and some other funds he was banking on wasn’t released on time. Some of his runner friends had promised to help raise funds; that too didn’t happen. It led to a panicky situation. He had no money to even buy insurance, before the trip. But he left for Everest all the same. After the earthquake and avalanche, he not only had to come to terms with his failure but also the mountain of loans – around 15 lakh rupees – which he had taken from his family and friends. He was broke and absolutely sure that he will not be able to recover. I would tell him to get back on his feet, though I myself wondered how. But all credit to the guy, he cleared his debts in six months and got back to running,’’ Vijaya said. The navy also helped. However some things precious, were lost. A keen biker, Breeze kept a small collection of motorcycles. He sold off his Harley Davidson, two Enfield Bullets and a KTM Duke to help repay the debt. In August 2015, Breeze ran the 24 hour-stadium run in Bengaluru, in an indifferent manner. He walked for 7-8 hours. “ I was not at all happy with my performance,’’ he said. Looking for a metaphorical summit to push himself onward in life, he found Badwater. The iconic ultra-marathon starts 279ft below sea level in the Badwater Basin of California’s Death Valley and ends at an elevation of 8360ft at Whitney Portal, the trailhead to Mt Whitney. The race can see day time temperatures soar above 50 degrees Celsius. The course is 217km (135 miles) long. Not every ultra-marathoner finishes Badwater.

Among eligibility criteria for Badwater is that an applicant must have done three 100 milers. Breeze already had two 100 milers to his credit, both done in the Rann of Kutch. He needed one more. That manifested in December 2015. He ran a 100 miler in Pune called the Western Ghats Ultra. “ There were six participants. I would call this the toughest race in India. The last 85km is steep,’’ Breeze said. He ended up first, finishing the race in 27 hours, 20 minutes. He could now apply for Badwater. The race is scheduled for July 18, 2016. So far from India, only Arun Bhardwaj has completed the race. Breeze’s Badwater attempt is happening just 26 months after he got into ultra-running. That’s why he calls himself a mountaineer first, for it was in the mountains that he acquired the mind needed to take on challenges and physical hardships. “ Ultra-running is a game of the mind. I am by nature a solo runner,’’ he said, an observation mountaineers will quickly identify with. “ Breeze enjoys running solo. He occasionally runs with company but mostly likes running alone,’’ Suresh said.

On the podium after the Western Ghats Ultra (Photo: courtesy Breeze Sharma)

When we met Breeze for a chat, he was very much into the training phase for Badwater. He had run 30km that morning and was set to do another 30km in the evening. Overall, his preparations for Badwater entailed covering 5000km in four months in various conditions. The month preceding our meet-up, he had been logging on the average over 40km per day. That doesn’t mean he runs every day; it is an average. “ I don’t run every day. But I do heavy workouts in the gym. I run whenever I am in the mood to do so,’’ he said. You need a support crew when running the Badwater ultra-marathon. “ For crew, besides me it will be Craig Foster, who has run several 100 miles in the US, and has crewed at Badwater four times. It will be his fifth with Breeze. Then there is Avasa Singh, who is a very enthusiastic runner herself and preparing for her first 100 miles,’’ Vijaya said. There will be a mini van trailing the runner stocked with food, hydration needs, medicines, foot care essentials, extra shoes and importantly – ice boxes to cool the runner should the temperature be extreme. Some of the crew members will also occasionally pace the runner to keep him motivated. Between the preparations now underway for Badwater and the earlier Western Ghats Ultra, which set him up to apply for the race in California’s Death Valley, Breeze returned to the Rann of Kutch in February 2016, to run an ultra-marathon there for a third time (this one was different from the first two, it was called ` Run the Rann’). He finished first.

One suspects the Breeze Sharma-story is never complete without a mountain in the head to climb. Apart from the running, the Badwater chapter has its other challenges – mainly cost. Fresh from his struggles to repay debts over Everest, Breeze was trying to raise the six to seven lakh rupees he needed for Badwater. It isn’t an easy task. It can be frustrating when the world’s capacity to support is partial to those playing by its PR rules. Breeze is not naturally wired for it. “ He needs to get more support but because he is not in the front line and not engaging in publicity with his running, he loses out,’’ Suresh said.

Conversation over, Breeze left the same way he spoke.

We shook hands and he walked off without looking back.

(The authors, Latha Venktatraman and Shyam G Menon, are independent journalists based in Mumbai. Please note: the timings at races and the list of mountains attempted / climbed are as provided by the interviewee.)

April 24, 2016 by Shyam G Menon

IFSC WORLD CUP: COUNTDOWN BEGINS IN NAVI MUMBAI

The organizing team at the World Cup venue during Fabrizio's visit (Photo: courtesy Anushka Kalbag)

The organizing team at the World Cup venue during the recent Navi Mumbai visit of Fabrizio Minnino, IFSC Jury President (Photo: courtesy Anushka Kalbag)

Updates to the main article are provided at the end. Please scroll down for the latest results and team standings in the run up to the IFSC World Cup in Navi Mumbai.

Before us was a street of baked earth.

To its either side were rows of warehouses.

In one, a big pedestal fan hummed, blowing a cool breeze to counter the afternoon heat.

The floor and sides were stacked with plywood acquired for the task at hand. Drills, electric saws and tool boxes lay ready for use. Abhijit Burman (Bong), his shirt gathering sweat despite the fan in the corner, poured over diagrams and waited impatiently for his Man Friday from competitions past, to appear. He did – walking in at a measured pace, his face, intense and expressionless yet just a muscle twitch away from breaking into a smile at old team getting together. There was Bong, there was Raju the carpenter – a duo that has built several walls over a decade of climbing competitions at Girivihar – and by the side of the room, the first set of steel frames for the biggest climbing wall they have worked on so far.

Photo: courtesy IFSC

The detailed drawings of this wall had been approved by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC). The wall, built locally to IFSC specifications, will host the qualifying rounds of the IFSC World Cup due this May 14th and 15th in Navi Mumbai. The semi-finals and finals would be on imported walls. After it is fully fabricated, the locally built wall would be transported as modules to Vashi, the venue of the World Cup and put together at site. The warehouse was in a far corner of Navi Mumbai and suddenly, the atmosphere of design, drawings, the sound of metal and machinery, animated conversation about wall, and Raju, reminded of Girivihar and mountaineering. Climbers focus best, when there is a challenge. You sensed challenge in the warehouse, you sensed focus. Less than a month remained for the first World Cup in climbing to grace Indian shores.

Photo: courtesy IFSC

It was in mid-2015 that a team of climbers from the Mumbai based mountaineering club Girivihar visited Munich to get a ringside view of a World Cup competition held under the aegis of IFSC. The team was in the German city because just a few months before, the IFSC had granted its approval for a World Cup in Navi Mumbai to be hosted by its official representative from India, the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF), and organized by Girivihar. The World Cup is a series of competitions held annually worldwide, attended by some of the best international climbers. It showcases cutting edge climbing. The Indian pitch was for a World Cup in bouldering. In India, mountaineering zipped to early prominence. A lifestyle sport, free by nature, rock climbing awaited the right generation, age group, maybe even apt juncture in economic development, to take off. The IMF diligently held its own annual climbing competitions (six zonal competitions dovetailing into a national final, every year) to select the Indian sport climbing team, conducted workshops and did what it could to promote the sport. Sport climbing is growing. But in huge country of 1.3 billion people, it is very small; a far cry from cricket, which almost shapes national imagination. What the Girivihar team saw in Munich amazed them. The retail awareness about climbing stunned. The venue hadn’t been advertised a great deal, nor was there any big buzz surrounding the event. Yet anyone who was interested in climbing was there. “ It was wonderful to see the level of awareness about climbing they had,’’ one of the team members said. The observation wasn’t without reason.

Photo: courtesy IFSC

Back in India the team members climbed at the crags of Belapur in Navi Mumbai. The crags are located on the edge of Mumbai-Navi Mumbai, its existence threatened daily by the relentless push of urbanization. On the other hand, for 11 years in a row, Girivihar had successfully conducted an open climbing competition, originally on natural rock at the Belapur crags, slowly gravitating to bouldering on artificial walls. At its peak, the annual event had attracted 192 climbers from all over India. A few thoughts emerged behind the scenes, as this competition series progressed. First, there was definitely expertise accumulating with Girivihar to organize climbing competitions. If the IMF helped, projects could be more ambitious. Second, the annual competition was encouraging bouldering and sport climbing. It has seen climbers from 11 foreign countries participate so far. The competition typically concluded in a rock trip by visiting climbers and locals, to an Indian climbing hotspot like Hampi or Badami. This interaction encouraged Indians to improve their climbing skills like an adjunct to what the IMF was already doing. Third, the competition was popularizing the sport; taking it to a larger audience. This was critical for continued climbing in the Mumbai-Navi Mumbai region because with crags under pressure, the future had to be either greater public empathy for the sport resulting in better preservation of the climbing crags or the empathy manifesting as more artificial climbing walls in the region. Climbing’s priorities survive in society, if climbing is active and visible. Fourth, every time Girivihar organized a competition it had to search for adequately certified judges, for in India’s small world of climbing, the talent pool to judge was also commensurately small. It was a case of small ecosystem begging to be nudged bigger; put one’s shoulder to what the IMF was already doing. The trends pointed to a possibility: why not try and organize something big like a World Cup? If the sport grows as a result, it benefits all who love it.

Photo: courtesy IFSC

The idea was good but the club needed to wait for the right time. They had to be at a point where the climbing competence you see at a World Cup won’t be drastically beyond what you see in Indian climbing. There was the need for relevant connect. Climbing – lead climbing, speed climbing and bouldering – is set to debut at the Asian Games of 2018. When the Rio Olympic Games happens, the International Olympic Committee is expected to take a call on what new games should take to the field at the Tokyo Olympics of 2020. The short list at hand includes climbing. While that is the future, at the 2015 Asian Youth Championships, Indian climbers secured four podium finishes. That’s a measure of the rising talent among young Indian climbers. Appearing on the scene in India were also youngsters gate-crashing into the truly high grades of rock climbing in Hampi and Badami (for more, please see the Ganesha series of articles on this blog), not to mention those seeking to make a career as professional climber. The inflection point the Girivihar team was looking for, seemed reached in 2014-2015. The club wrote to IMF. India’s apex body in climbing responded positively. In league with the IMF, a pitch was made to bring the World Cup to India. First half of 2015, the IFSC approvals came through. The organizing team found itself in Munich, getting acquainted with how a World Cup is organized so that they can replicate the finesse and efficiency in Navi Mumbai.

Photo: courtesy IFSC

Once back in Mumbai, tasks were identified and teams formed. Veteran climber, Franco Linhares, led the team overall; Bong became Event Organizer and Vaibhav Mehta, Sports Manager. Behind the scenes, an important role in terms of managing the World Cup campaign was essayed by Kiran Khalap, a senior professional in advertising and marketing who is also a climber. By club standards, the project was capital intensive. The local Navi Mumbai administration responded well to the project’s needs. CIDCO, the agency which planned and built Navi Mumbai provided the city’s Exhibition Centre near the Vashi railway station, as venue for the World Cup. The big challenge for the organizers was funds and sponsors. Worldwide, in 2015, an estimated 35 million people were into sport climbing. Of that, 50 per cent are under 25 years of age, according to the IFSC website. In India too, climbing has a young following. In principle, this matrix should attract sponsors. Over the last couple of years, amid bleak economic conditions worldwide, the Indian economy had remained one of the bright spots. However that did not mean companies were in a mood to splurge. Two challenges dominated. First, climbing is still a small, growing sport in India. It is far from being a popular sport that immediately grabs sponsors’ attention. Second, given climbing’s profile in India, the easiest candidates to be sponsors may have been medium sized businesses. During dicey economic times, this segment prefers to keep investments relevant to core business. All the same, the organizers did find potential sponsors; they also did a round of crowd funding. Preparations for the World Cup progressed. Cost cutting options were thought of. Building the wall for the qualifying round, locally, was one. The IFSC supported the move. In April third week, when Fabrizio Minnino, Jury President, IFSC, visited Navi Mumbai to meet the organizers and check out the venue, he paid a visit to the warehouse to see the wall’s fabrication as well.

Photo: courtesy IFSC

The World Cup in climbing is quite similar to Formula One in that there are several World Cup events in a year at different venues worldwide with climbers picking up points as the season progresses and an overall winner declared at the end of it all. The 2016 World Cup season in bouldering kicked off on April 15 in Meiringen, Switzerland. As of April 21, thirty six competition climbers – some of them, the world’s best – had registered to participate in the Navi Mumbai edition of the World Cup. Present in the list were the 2015 men’s champion in bouldering, Jongwon Chon of Korea, the leader (just after Meiringen) in the men’s segment from the 2016 season of the World Cup, Alexey Rubtsov of Russia and the leader (again, just after Meiringen) from the women’s section, Shauna Coxsey of Great Britain. Countries represented included Austria, UK, Iran, Russia, USA, Korea, Slovakia and Taiwan. Also enrolled were the likes of Sean McColl (Canada), Rustam Gelmanov and Dmitrii Sharafutdinov ( both Russia). After Meiringen, the 2016 World Cup season in bouldering travels to Kazo in Japan and Chongquin in China. Then in mid-May, it reaches Navi Mumbai.

Photo: courtesy IFSC

Brig. M.P. Yadav, Chairman, Sport Climbing, West Zone has been coordinating efforts on behalf of the IMF. As host country, India is automatically offered reserved participation slots for its athletes. It is understood that an Indian contingent comprising 16 promising Indian climbers have been shortlisted for a training camp ahead of the May World Cup. Those selected include some of the best young Indian climbers like Aziz Shaikh, Vicky Bhalerao, Tuhin Satarkar, Irfan Shaikh, Sandeep Maity, Kumar Gaurav, Somnath Shinde, Mayuri Deshmukh, Nehaa Prakash, Smriti Singh, Dhanushri and Sidhi Manirekar.

In Navi Mumbai, the countdown has begun for a rendezvous with climbing’s best in May 2016, the scheduled time for India’s first IFSC World Cup.

Shauna Coxsey (Photo: courtesy IFSC)

Update: Shauna Coxsey consolidated her lead in the women’s segment while the see-saw battle for leadership among men continued, in the run up to the Navi Mumbai World Cup in bouldering. By late evening May 1, results in bouldering from the World Cup competition at Chongqing, China, became available. The men’s section was won by Tomoa Narasaki of Japan. Jan Hojer of Germany placed second while Jongwon Chon of Korea came third. The women’s section was topped by Shauna Coxsey of Great Britain followed by Akiyo Noguchi of Japan and Miho Nonaka of Japan. For Shauna Coxsey, this was her fourth consecutive triumph at a World Cup bouldering competition; the previous woman to do so was Akiyo Noguchi in 2014. Of six places on the podium across both men’s and women’s sections at Chongqing, the Japanese secured four. Of the six climbers named above, all have already registered to participate in the upcoming World Cup in Navi Mumbai. In terms of national team ranking, Japan topped at Chongqing followed by France and Great Britain.

The winners at Kazo (Photo: courtesy IFSC)

Post Chongqing, the leaders in the men’s segment in the 2016 World Cup series in bouldering are Alexey Rubtsov ( Russia / 177), Rustam Gelmanov (Russia / 165) and Kokoro Fujii (Japan / 155) in that order. The leaders in the women’s segment are Shauna Coxsey (Great Britain / 300), Melissa Le Neve (France / 203) and Miho Nonaka (Japan / 154). In terms of national teams, the leaders were France (536), Great Britain (438) and Japan (412) in that order. The next halt for the World Cup in bouldering is Navi Mumbai, where the competition is scheduled for May 14-15.

A wall gets ready: Raju, the carpenter who has worked on almost all the competition walls Girivihar built. (Photo: courtesy Pravin Shinde)

A wall gets ready: The wall, brought in from Taloja, assembled and put together at the venue. (Photo: Pravin Shinde)

As of May 9, the number of athletes registered to participate in the Navi Mumbai edition of the World Cup, stood at 83 with India sending in a 17 member-team. Countries represented at the event were Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Great Britain, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Netherlands, Nepal, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Slovakia, Taiwan and USA. A couple of days before the Indian team registered, a four member-team from Germany had signed up. Among those in the team was Jan Hojer. A day before the Germans, the French had enrolled; their team included Melissa Le Neve and Fanny Gibert. Early morning April 26th, the number of athletes registered for the World Cup in Navi Mumbai was found to have increased from 36 to 50, thanks to the entry of a 14 member strong-Japanese contingent. It included Akiyo Noguchi, the defending women’s champion from the World Cup bouldering series of 2015 and Kokoro Fujii, who was third in overall ranking among men after the Kazo edition of the World Cup. Akiyo Noguchi is one of the most successful competition climbers from the women’s category.

The finished wall (the locally fabricated one), painted and ready for the route setters to start their work (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

At the Kazo World Cup in bouldering held over April 23-24, Rustam Gelmanov and Shauna Coxsey topped in their respective categories. The results, top three, were: Men – Rustam Gelmanov (Russia), Michael Piccolruaz (Italy) and Kokoro Fujii (Japan); Women – Shauna Coxsey (Great Britain), Melissa Le Neve (France) and Miho Nonaka (Japan). Post Kazo, the leader rankings in the 2016 series were Rustam Gelmanov (Russia / 128 points), Alexey Rubtsov (Russia / 126) and Kokoro Fujii (Japan / 100) in men’s, while in women’s it was Shauna Coxsey (Great Britain / 200 points), Melissa Le Neve (France / 160) and Fanny Gilbert (France / 94).

Meanwhile in a separate development, Tata Trusts have provided a financial grant as support to the Navi Mumbai World Cup. The Tata Trusts are among India’s oldest, non-sectarian philanthropic organizations. They own two thirds of the stock holding of Tata Sons, the apex company of the Tata group of companies. The Tata group is India’s biggest industrial conglomerate and from the perspective of the World Cup, a name that has in the past, supported mountaineering and climbing in India. The first successful expedition to Everest from the state of Maharashtra (where Navi Mumbai is) was supported by Tata.

The supporting frames of the second wall being put in place (Photo: Pravin Shinde)

As of May 8, the locally fabricated climbing wall, earlier taking shape at the warehouse in Taloja, had been installed at the venue in Vashi, painted and ready for the route setters to commence their work. A team of four route setters from IFSC have arrived for the job. By May 9, work on assembling and installing the second wall – an imported one – was well underway. Access to the walls is restricted when the route setters are at work.

May 13: The athletes have arrived. Their registration at the venue commenced at 5 PM. Here are a few photographs from the registration area:

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. The competition photos used in this article were downloaded from a link to a photo stream, provided by IFSC. All photos from the registration area are taken by Shyam G Menon)

Outrigger

In Search of Interesting

IFSC WORLD CUP, NAVI MUMBAI – DAY 1

INDIAN CLIMBING’S PROBLEMS OF A DIFFERENT SORT

“ CLIMBING IS ALWAYS EVOLVING” – SEAN MCCOLL

IT’S TIME FOR ART

THE PUZZLE MAKERS

“ GET INSPIRED BY OTHER CLIMBERS, YET GO YOUR OWN WAY’’ – KILIAN FISCHHUBER

TWO FILMS

WAKING UP TO A SECOND CHANCE

“ I AM BY NATURE A SOLO RUNNER’’

IFSC WORLD CUP: COUNTDOWN BEGINS IN NAVI MUMBAI