Mpumalanga sport climbers qualify for Olympic Games

Mpumalanga has two young male athletes who earned the coveted male “Golden Sport Climbing Tickets” to compete in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Mel Janse van Rensburg (22) qualified by taking gold in the combined lead and boulder disciplines, and Josh Bruyns (20), the South African and African speed record holder at 5.95 seconds on the 15m high wall, who won the speed gold at the recent 2023 IFSC Africa Paris Continental Qualifier event held in Pretoria in December.

Lauren Mukheibir (Gauteng) and Aniya Holder (Eastern Cape) won their female competitions to earn their right to compete in the combined and speed sport climbing disciplines, respectively.

Nikki Reinhardt, a Mpumalanga female athlete who made it into the finals and the 2018 SA National Championship said, “Coming from a province with few indoor sport climbing facilities, it is always a struggle to compete against those athletes who can train on world-class indoor climbing walls. Aniya faces the same situation in the Eastern Cape, so her achievement is amazing. In Mpumalanga, we have world-class outdoor climbing venues, notably Emgwenya (Waterval Boven), with its over a 1 000 bolted lead routes, Kaapsehoop with its incredible boulders, and our Crocodile Gorge with its lead walls in a beautiful setting, as well as the small cave in Mbombela Stadium where I mostly train indoors.”

George Stainton, the IFSC Africa Continental Sport Climbing president, confirmed that they were hoping to make a change to this situation by building competition-style walls in Mbombela and Emgwenya.

“We have a small boulder cave at Mbombela Stadium, and recently Church Unlimited recognised what benefits sport climbing offer to our youth, so they built a wall in their Mbombela church grounds where their young flock can climb in a safe and controlled environment under their Youth

Unlimited programme. In Emgwenya, we, the Mataffin Sports Trust together with various sporting codes and community leaders, have for the past year and a half engaged directly with the local municipality to develop a sports complex, to house netball, basketball, boxing, gymnastics, mountain biking and sport climbing. Unfortunately, despite a seemingly positive response, we are hitting a blank with them.

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“We believe that sporting activities are a right for all to participate in and critical for the health and development of our youth, so the trust, together with its sponsors and other role players, are making a difference in our local communities, with one project at a time.

“These projects included temporary competition climbing wall structures, building bakeries to empower our females to be independent, as well as developing and supporting other sporting codes with providing kits, funds to cover travelling and competition affiliation and entry costs, coaching fees and sourcing and maintaining mountain bikes (30) and building netball courts as a start.

“Together with the football and rugby teams, our aim is to provide them with opportunities to develop their talents, through a structured approach to achieve their goals and to compete at provincial, national and international levels.”

Tjitjila Zondo, Mataffin Sports Trust’s director, congratulated Janse van Rensburg and Bruyns for earning their right to compete at the highest international level and wished them well in Paris.

“I believe this will inspire our Mpumalanga youth to participate in sport and believe they too can achieve their goals. We want to be the ‘change agent’ in our community. Over the past week we showcased our Mataffin Isinkwa Sethemba Bakery to the ANC leadership, notably the honourable minister of social development, Lindiwe Zulu, who publicly commended us on our initiatives when they were on site visiting our bakery.

“The minister called for more support from the various government agencies,” she stated.

Reinhardt added, “We need both government and local businesses to continuously look to supporting these initiatives and hopefully help us to build international climbing walls for our Mataffin and Emgwenya Climbing Clubs and develop other sporting facilities.”

Morris Nkosi, the chairperson of Emgwenya Climbing Club, stated, “Congratulations to all four athletes and especially Mel, our home-grown Emgwenya Olympic climbing star, who with his international 36 graded outdoor climbing achievement, the ‘Speed Integrate’ famous route in Switzerland, is our top South African outdoor climber, and whom is an inspiration and hero in our township community.”

“Onwards and upwards for Mpumalanga climbing,” concluded Stainton.

• The Paris 2024 Olympic Games will be held from July 26 to August 11. Sport climbing will be hosted at the 6 000-capacity (3 000 seated; 3 000 standing) Le Bourget Climbing Centre in Paris.

Photos: Supplied/Surefoot_Photography