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RI sports climbers face steep PATH to qualify for Tokyo Olympics

Happy tears: Indonesian sports climbers Aries Susanti Rahayu (right) and Puji Lestari pose with their medals after winning the 2018 Asian Games women’s speed climbing category in Palembang, South Sumatra, on Aug

Ramadani Saputra (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, September 19, 2018

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RI sports climbers face steep PATH to qualify for Tokyo Olympics

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appy tears: Indonesian sports climbers Aries Susanti Rahayu (right) and Puji Lestari pose with their medals after winning the 2018 Asian Games women’s speed climbing category in Palembang, South Sumatra, on Aug. 23. (JP/Jerry Adiguna)

Winning big by bagging three gold medals in front of the home crowd at the recent 2018 Asian Games does not mean the work is over for Indonesia’s sports climbers.

Looking forward to competing in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, the squad went straight back to training in the lead up to qualify for the summer Games.

Asian Games gold medalist Aries Susanti Rahayu and her teammates are gearing up to join the historic moment as sports climbing will makes its debut in Tokyo.

However, the Tokyo Olympics will only contest men’s and women’s combined events. The combined event is a mix of speed, bouldering and lead disciplines.

Such arrangements are not beneficial for Indonesian climbers, who have mastered the speed category. During the Jakarta-Palembang Games, the host climbers missed out of the top six in the combined events’ leaderboards.

“We lack athletes who have mastered the combined event. For example, Aries, Aspar [Jaelolo] and Puji [Lestari] were way behind [their opponents] in the boulder discipline [during the 2018 Games],” Indonesian Sport Climbing Federation (FPTI) secretary-general Sapto Hardiono said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

In the 2018 Games, Aries won two golds respectively in the women’s speed and women’s speed relay, Puji nailed the gold in the women’s speed relay and a silver in the women’s speed, while Aspar collected a silver in the men’s speed relay and a bronze in the men’s speed.

To tackle the Tokyo challenge, the federation has told athletes to compete in various disciplines — other than just in the speed category — in international competitions.

Aries, Puji and Aspar will compete in the International Climbing Elite Tournament in Anshun, Guizhou province, China on Sept. 21 and 22.

The athletes were invited by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) to the Anshun event, in which they will also compete in the lead discipline for the first time, besides the usual speed category, for Tokyo.

Ahead of the Anshun event, the athletes began their training camp program on Sept. 6. The last time they attended the camp was on Aug. 30 for the 2018 Games.

“It wasn’t easy to start training again after taking a break for a week,” said Puji. “We had to start from basics. I’m telling you, we vomited on our first day at the camp because our bodies were readjusting.”

After the Anshun event, the Indonesian climbers will compete in the ISFC Climbing World Cup in Kranj, Slovenia, on Sept. 29 and 30, where the tournament will only contest the lead discipline.

To support the climbers, the FPTI along with other federations from several countries will lobby the Tokyo Games organizers to add more disciplines, including speed, in the 2020 edition. The final call on events contested in the Tokyo Games will be announced next year.

As of now, the Tokyo Games is providing 40 spots for the two events. Each participating country is allowed to send a maximum of two athletes to each event.

Initially, Japan insisted to contest the boulder category, the country’s specialty, in the Games. However, after taking suggestions from the IFSC, the organizers decided to feature the combined event discipline instead.

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