JAMMU: Five Sport Climbers of Mountaineering Association of J and K, including two girls, on Monday left for Delhi to undergo belayers’ course at Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF), New Delhi, the apex body for adventure course in the country.
The three-day course shall be conducted by the IMF from 25th to 27th May for limited participants from all the zones of the country. However, only those climbers who possess practical knowledge in Sport Climbing were eligible for the course. State climbers, taking part in the course, include Shashi Kant Sharma, the present trainer of the state sport climbing team; Ambreen Fatima, the best woman sport climber of J and K; Sakshi Magotra, a good climber and a provisional State level sport climbing judge, Manik Slathia, a trained mountaineer and a sport climber and Syed Abdul Mohsin, a state sport climber from Pulwama. Earlier, these climbers called on General Secretary of Mountaineering Association of J and K, Ram Khajuria, who is also Secretary, IMF, North Zone Committee, New Delhi. Khajuria promised them all possible support for the promotion of the game in J and K. Director of Sprawling Buds School, Chinore, Rahul Sharma was also present. Sprawling Buds is an institution where these climbers had been training for the last about one month. “Belayer is the person who handles the rope technically while the climber is climbing on the wall and is, therefore, responsible for the safety of a climber. However, in J and K there are no qualified belayers. So the association has been inviting professional belayers from Delhi and other states for conducting all the State Sport Climbing competitions,” informed General Secretary of the Association, Ram Khajuria.
The training of State climbers as qualified belayers would, of course, lessen association’s dependence on belayers from other states and also enable the association to organise competitions on its own, he added.