Olympics scaling up climbing opportunities for young Parisians‌

The Paris 2024 organizers aim to make young people the prime beneficiaries of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

‌That's one of the key legacy aims, along with improving accessibility to open-water swimming in the River Seine, and turning the areas around Olympic venues into new neighborhoods.

‌The Climb-Up gym in southern Paris is the biggest indoor climbing center in France – but it's an outlier. ‌The capital region has a shortage of high-quality climbing facilities, according to the Games organizers.

‌However, one thing it does not lack is willing participants. ‌There are three million children under five in France, and staff at the climbing center say that is the perfect age to try out sport climbing.

‌"It's more practical to learn climbing when you are young, you are lighter, and more mobile," says Cathy Bremaud, the communications director at Climb-Up, who notes that children "are much more comfortable with heights than adults. They always find a solution, and to climb the wall, and get up high despite the fact that they are smaller than us and they could be more scared because they have seen fewer things in life."

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The sport of climbing is relatively new to the Olympics - debuting at Tokyo 2020. There, not to everyone's taste, a single event combined three disciplines: lead climbing, speed climbing and bouldering. 

This time, speed climbing has been made a separate event, in which competitors scramble side-by-side up a 15-meter wall. Lead climbing and bouldering are still combined, in an event based on point-scoring rather than speed. 

Bouldering takes place on walls no more than 4.5 meters high, without a rope. ‌The only special equipment you need is a pair of climbing shoes – and now that it's an Olympic sport, the climbing community has a defined route to success.

The staff at Climb-Up have witnessed a significant increase in the number of younger members since it opened in 2021.

‌"When you're very young, your first reflex is grabbing or grasping," says Simon Brusco, the climbing development manager at Climb-Up.

‌"Here that works well because people in Paris are always looking for something different, and so for the young ones a place like this works very well, and we put in place fun activities for them."

‌It's one of the charms of the Olympic Games that it puts lesser-known sports in the spotlight. Climbing is one of those, and the Games organizers – determined to unlock the youth potential for the future – are handing over the Olympic climbing center to the local area once the Games are over.

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