A boost for climbing

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TO encourage the sport of climbing among more people in the city, the inaugural Vertica Asia Speed Climbing Competition 2009 will be held next month.

Held in conjunction with Adventure Show Asia 2009, the event is jointly organised by Able Two Events Sdn Bhd and Team Delta Rovers Malaysia.

It is presented by the Mad Rock Climbing Club and is endorsed by Tourism Malaysia.

The two-day competition, which is set for Oct 10 and 11, will be held at the Mid Valley Exhibition Centre. Open to both men and women, the competition has four categories based on gender and age.

The Men’s Open and Women’s Open categories have no age limit while the boys’ and girls’ categories are limited to those below 18 years of age.

There will be four winners in each category with RM15,800 to be won.

Able Two Events director Farouk Nurish said the competition was aimed at promoting the sport and introducing climbing to those who were not aware of it yet.

He said the competition would be a good opportunity for the climbing community in Malaysia to take part in.

“That is why we are keeping the competition small. We want more people to come,” he told reporters at Mid Valley on Thursday.

He added that the organisers had plans to expand the number of categories next year based on its popularity this year.

Meanwhile, the competition’s chief judge Francis Low said the competition would focus on speed climbing and the judging format would follow the classic style.

“There are many aspects of wall-climbing but we chose to base the competition on speed-climbing as it is more interesting for the public to watch,” he said.

Low added that all participants would climb two routes and their points would be added and divided to create consistency in speed.

The best 16 will qualify for the final round an the winners will be chosen through a knockout round.

Low said to provide a fair game, all participants would not be allowed to go on the competition wall before the competition.

“We are expecting about 50 participants and they will be mostly beginners and intermediate climbers,” he said, adding that there would be a climbing wall open for the public to try on Oct 9.