The Paris 2024 organizers aim to make young people the prime beneficiaries of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. One of their key legacy goals is to scale up climbing opportunities for children in the city, along with improving accessibility to open-water swimming in the River Seine and transforming areas around Olympic venues into new neighborhoods.
The Climb-Up gym in southern Paris, the largest indoor climbing center in France, stands as a beacon for the sport. Despite being an outlier in a city with a shortage of high-quality climbing facilities, it highlights the potential for growth in youth climbing. France is home to three million children under five, and according to staff at Climb-Up, this is the perfect age to start sport climbing.
“It’s more practical to learn climbing when you are young; you are lighter and more mobile,” says Cathy Bremaud, communications director at Climb-Up. “Children are much more comfortable with heights than adults. They always find a solution to climb the wall and get up high, despite being smaller and potentially more scared because they have seen fewer things in life.”
Climbing made its Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020, combining three disciplines: lead climbing, speed climbing, and bouldering. For Paris 2024, speed climbing has become a separate event, where competitors race side-by-side up a 15-meter wall. Lead climbing and bouldering remain combined, focusing on point-scoring rather than speed.
Bouldering involves climbing walls no more than 4.5 meters high without a rope, requiring only a pair of climbing shoes. With its inclusion in the Olympics, the climbing community now has a clear pathway to success and recognition.
Since opening in 2021, Climb-Up has witnessed a significant increase in younger members. “When you’re very young, your first reflex is grabbing or grasping,” says Simon Brusco, climbing development manager at Climb-Up. “Here, that works well because people in Paris are always looking for something different, and for the young ones, a place like this works very well. We put in place fun activities for them.”
The Olympics have a unique ability to bring lesser-known sports into the spotlight. Climbing is one of those sports, and with the Games organizers determined to unlock youth potential for the future, they plan to hand over the Olympic climbing center to the local community once the Games are over. This legacy aims to inspire a new generation of climbers in Paris and beyond.
Reference(s):
Olympics scaling up climbing opportunities for young Parisians
cgtn.com
