Adventure sports: Children flex muscles to climb wall

ISLAMABAD: As clouds gathered over the federal capital to provide some relief from days of heat, schoolchildren competed to climb the wall that stood between them and victory.

The Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP), in collaboration with the Capital Development Authority (CDA), organised an inter-school sport climbing championship at the Pakistan Sports Complex on Sunday evening.

Around 50 under-14 students from different schools of Islamabad participated in the outdoors event, which featured an artificial wall with 68 grips.

Most of the participants were climbing the wall for the first time, indicated by the fact that some were not able to complete their wall-climbing attempts. But there were some children who had competed in wall climbing before.

Hanzala Hussain, an eighth grader who studies at the AIMS Education System, said he was no stranger to climbing because of familial connections. Hussain, who is the son of the ACP Secretary-General, said he even had a technique for the climb.

“I have memorised a route for climbing the wall,” he said.

Another participant, 11-year-old Muhammad Hurraira said it was his first time taking part in a proper wall-climbing competition but he had done indoor wall climbing before.

“I have done wall climbing at the Lake View Park,” Hurraira said. “It was really scary at first.”

But he said the fear went away when he got to the top of the wall. So when his teacher told his class about the competition, he eagerly signed up for the contest. Hurraira had also worked out a strategy for the race.

“I will try to be quick and take long strides to catch the grips,” he said.

The championship was organised as part of the Margallah Festival, which the CDA ran through the last week of April and first week of May.

“The championship is to provide an opportunity to aspiring climbers to apply climbing techniques and methods to improve climbing speed,” said Karrar Haidri, the spokesperson of the ACP.

The ACP officials said they will try to hold similar tournaments in the future to raise awareness among youth regarding adventure sports.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2014.