Sport Climbing venues also suffer during lockdown
Sport Climbing is one of the sports codes that has been in the dark over the past week about when exactly they can continue their activities, despite President Ramaphosa's positive statements last week.
Since the nationwide lockdown was declared on 21 March 2020, the country has seen many business struggles or – even worst – permanently had to close their doors.
Among these businesses, in particular, counted many sports-related venues and clubs. The climbing industry, which obviously depends on specialist sites or custom-made indoor facilities, is one of the victims of the regulations.
In terms of the regulations, sport was not listed as a separate sector, despite this being a critical and important industry for the South African economy. Due to various factors, especially related to people’s physical and mental health, as well as an element in social cohesion, it cannot be underestimated.
Indoor Climbing or Sport Climbing is both a recreational and competitive sport for people of all ages and genders.
Although Indoor Climbing is a new sport in South Africa, globally however, it is very popular and widely practiced. Climbing has become so popular that the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) declared Indoor Rock Climbing an official Olympic sport during 2019.
However, the effects of the lockdown on the training schedules of athletes, competitions and the business interests of climbing centres has been dire.
All Sport Climbing facilities have been closed, which has prevented all athletes from using them. Of course, this also means that the source of earning an income has been cut off for facility owners, as well as professional coaches.
Rock Valley Climbing in Centurion and several other similar venues nationwide partnered with the South African National Climbing Federation (SANCF) to make a thorough submission to the government. The proposal contains various re-opening protocols and hygiene measure that will be implemented by each climbing and training facility to ensure that athletes can start training immediately to be ready to represent South Africa well at the 2021 Olympics.
In this presentation they also explained the urgency and critical facts about employees and businessmen in the industry’s financial situation. Most indoor climbing facilities depend 100% on monthly memberships.
Initially, it looked like they were successful when the government announced some relaxation in regulations regarding lockdown level three last week.
However, although the president announced last week that certain non-contact sports will be allowed to continue under the relaxed lockdown level three regulations, early this week there was still confusion about exactly when athletes in most of these sports will be able to actively participate again.
There was even the possibility that SANCF will be forced to once again approach the court in collaboration with various other sports federations to clarify the government’s plans. To them the president’s speech and the paperwork of government officials did not appear to correlate with each other.
Tiaan Bouwer, owner and founder of Rock Valley Climbing in Centurion told Rekord that, although more than 90% of their income has fallen away, they are forever grateful for members of the climbing community who was and still is able to support them through this difficult time.
“We hope and believe that the protocols as listed in the proposal will fast-track the re-opening of our industry,” Bouwer commented.
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