Meet the Olympic Climbers You’ve Never Heard Of

This article was published in the summer edition of Gym Climber, available free at your local climbing gym.

Japan, France, Germany, Slovenia, the United States. Akiyo Noguchi, Janja Garnbret, Alex Megos,

Adam Ondra, Nathaniel Coleman. The Olympic roster is packed with recognizable countries and names.

The majority of climbing’s first 40 Olympians have competed at IFSC events for years, and come from nations with a long history of competitive climbing. Of the 19 countries represented, 17 are part of North America, Europe, and Asia. Those three continents have hosted almost every major international competitive climbing event in two decades. That said, two outliers are fielding Olympic climbing teams this summer ….

South Africa

The African nation qualified one female and one male climber, Erin Sterkenburg, age 18, and Christopher Cosser, 20. Each scored first place in the IFSC African Championships in Cape Town last December. South Africa is the single Olympic team representing the world’s second-largest and second-most populous continent.

While athletes from South Africa have been competing in away IFSC events since 2011, competitive climbing is relatively new on the African continent. The African Championships was the nation’s first live-broadcasted climbing competition, and besides South Africa, only Uganda sent competitors. Simon Ofoyuru and Credo Kasemiire of Uganda, attending their first competition, scored 14th and 8th in the men’s and women’s fields, respectively. Uganda’s first indoor rock gym was built in 2018.

Erin Sterkenburg

Sterkenburg dominated her bracket, winning the trifecta of Bouldering, Speed, and Lead with a perfect score. Now the Durban native will represent her country and the African continent at the Olympic Games, all in the midst of her final year of high school.

She was introduced to climbing only in 2017, after joining her high school’s climbing club during freshman year. The African Championships was just her third IFSC event, after Youth Worlds in Moscow and Arco in 2018 and 2019.

“It’s still a bit surreal that I’m going to the Olympics,” she says. “I’m so excited to compete, and a little nervous, but most of all I’m just so grateful to have the opportunity to go, and come back having learned so much and share that with the country.”

Sterkenburg travels to Johannesburg once a month to train Speed, since her gym in Durban has no Speed wall. “I’m most focused on Lead, and Bouldering is a close second. Speed is definitely not what I’m good at,” she adds, laughing. “But I’m working on it!” She hopes to study in America after graduating high school at the end of 2021. “I’m thinking about architecture or engineering, but I don’t know yet.”

Fresh on the scene compared to well-known females like Janja Garnbret and Akiyo Noguchi, Sterkenburg says, “That’s what’s craziest to me. Those people are my idols, and now I’m competing against them. I’ve been watching them in comps since I started climbing. I’m so excited to watch them climb in real life, and be able to talk to these climbers, who have achieved such crazy things. I’m also sure it’ll make me push myself even harder.

“I don’t have any expectations. I just want to climb my best,” she says. “On that day, I just want to feel like I climbed the best I could have.”

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