Bharath Pereira was five when his eyes caught on an unusual sight: a person scrambling up a tall, slightly irregular surface speckled with holders of different shapes and colours at Sri Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru. He doesn’t know why, but that sight thrilled his infant mind.
The same year, he had a go at sports climbing for the first time and managed to climb three-fourths of the wall. Since then, climbing has been a major part of his life.
“As a kid, all you want is attention and people telling you ‘Wow! That was so good’. And, I did pretty well for a kid,” recalls Bharat, now 18, as he sits on a tall wooden stool overlooking the walls at the Equilibrium Climbing Station – one of the few climbing gyms in Bengaluru – at Indira Nagar.
Along with Manipur’s Maibam Chingkheinganba and Maharashtra’s Shreya Nankar, Bharath will be part of India’s first sports climbing contingent at the Asian Games, beginning on August 18 in Jakarta.
It won’t be the 18-year-old’s first time in the Indonesian city – he clinched three bronze medals in the Asian Youth Championships there in 2010. At the same time, the Asian Games will be his first-ever major multi-sport event.
Bharat’s competed at the continental stage before and has won medals at the youth level. Last November, he became the first Indian sport climber to qualify for the third edition of the Youth Olympics to be held in Argentina, which will be held in October next year.
“I was talking to Jude Felix [the former Indian hockey captain and the coach of the U-19 boys team] – he is my dad’s friend – and he told me there’s going to be free food at the Asian Games. So, I am excited,” Bharath jokes, straight-faced.
The free food aside, he is looking forward to meeting peers and rivals from his sport and athletes of other sports.
“In India, not many people focus on sports. But you go there, you stay in the Asian Games village and it’s all about sports. Everything is about sports. You get to meet so many people,” he says.
TYPES OF CLIMBING
Speed: Two climbers secure safety ropes to themselves and attempt to scale a 15m-high wall, set at an angle of 95 degrees, faster than their opponent.
Bouldering: In bouldering, climbers scale as many fixed routes on a 4m-high wall as they can within four minutes. The routes vary in difficulty and climbers are not permitted to practise climbing them in advance.
Lead Climbing: Lead climbing involves athletes attempting to climb as high as they can on a wall measuring more than 15m in height within six minutes.
(Note: At the Olympics, the medals (one each for men and women) will be decided based on the aggregate of all three events. Three medals each for men and women – speed, speed relay and combined – will be on offer at the Asian Games in Jakarta.)
Sport climbing in India
For sport climbing in India and Bharath, the Asian Games is very important. A medal there (which, he admits, is incredibly tough to win) will get him and the sport what he wanted as a kid: attention.
Sport climbing – a four-decade-old sport – is also yet to receive the kind of popularity that Bharath is seeking for the sport. According to the International Federation of Sports Climbing, the first competitions in the sport were organized in the former USSR in the late 1940s, but they were almost exclusive to the Soviet climbers. It was only after the eighties that sport climbing began making its presence known around the globe, spurred by the success of a competition held in Bardonecchia, Italy.
According to the Indian Mountaineering Federation, sport climbing in India kicked off during this time, when foreign climbers visited the country and brought climbing-specific equipment with them. The sport soon took off and training walls were built.
In 2016, sport climbing was officially included in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. If India wants to fancy its chances there, then climbers like Bharath need access to the necessary infrastructure and training.
‘For me, everything is about climbing’
Bharath says that, so far, India has very few walls that match the Olympic standards. The one at the Equilibrium Climbing Station in Bengaluru, for instance, isn’t the required 15 meters in height and Bharath has to make do with a shorter wall.
Climbing – especially speed climbing – is all about muscle memory, he says. Training on different walls, hence, can put him at a position that is disadvantageous compared to his rivals from other countries, who have constant access to the best infrastructure.
But with the help of his elder sister Sonali, who is also a climber, he customised the wall – inserting the holders, marking them with white tapes – at Equilibrium overnight in order to get ready for the Asian Games.
Bharath’s ready to lose sleep for climbing. In fact, one of the reasons he sleeps is because, without enough rest, he can’t climb well, he says.
“Climbing has influenced everything... It’s the reason why I get up in the morning. I go to sleep thinking that okay, I need enough rest now, so I can climb again. I eat thinking that this food will help me recover from injury, this is going to help me improve muscles. All day I am thinking about how to climb better.”
Ever since scaling the wall at Kanteerava Stadium as a five-year-old, Bharath has clambered up indoor walls, boulders, rocky mountains, and, sometimes, his school’s compound wall.
“When we are playing a ball game and the ball goes out, all my friends, they’d stop what they are doing and stare at me. I’d be the one climbing up to fetch the ball.”
In a few days, Bharath, once again, will make a climb in Jakarta, to get something for himself and his country.