Wellington Climber Qualifies for Youth Olympic Games

Wellington Climber qualifies for Youth Olympic Games

Sarah Tetzlaff from Wellington is the first ever New Zealand climber to qualify for the Youth Olympic Games. She secured her qualification by placing first in the Combined under 18 climbing competition at the Oceania Climbing Championships in Noumea, New Caledonia at the weekend. She saw off competition from Australian and New Caledonian climbers to place first in speed climbing, second in lead climbing and fifth in bouldering giving her the overall highest placing in the combined disciplines.

The Youth Olympics will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2018. Climbing will feature for the first time in the full Olympics in Tokyo in 2020.

The New Zealand team took home a haul of seven gold medals, two silver and seven bronze medals – the country’s best result in an Oceania competition in 20 years. Other gold medals in individual disciplines went to Lucy Whitehead (age 18) from National Park for under 20 speed climbing and bouldering, Oliver Soar (age 18) from Hamilton for under 20 bouldering and George Sanders (age 20) from Wellington for open male lead climbing. Tetzlaff also took the gold medals in the individual disciplines of speed and bouldering for under 18s, giving her a total of three gold medals.

The three disciplines of competitive sport climbing are: lead climbing where climbers aim to get to the top of an increasingly difficult high route using a rope for safety; bouldering where climbers tackle low level technical problems without ropes; and speed climbing where the climbers race each other on a set 15 metre high route.

ENDS

For more information contact: David Sanders, President, Climbing New Zealand -

www.climbing.org.nz secretary@climbing.org.nz

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