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23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Olympic Speed Climbing Champion Sam Watson to Visit Mumbai

Mumbai: When Sam Watson sprints up a 15-metre wall, the world seems to slow down. The 19-year-old American speed climber, an Olympic medallist from Paris 2024 and current world-record holder at 4.64 seconds, has become the face of one of the world’s fastest-growing sports. On November 2, he will trade competition arenas for Mumbai’s High Rock in Powai, offering a rare day of workshops and conversations with India’s burgeoning community of climbers. Speed climbing, once a fringe pursuit of...

Olympic Speed Climbing Champion Sam Watson to Visit Mumbai

Mumbai: When Sam Watson sprints up a 15-metre wall, the world seems to slow down. The 19-year-old American speed climber, an Olympic medallist from Paris 2024 and current world-record holder at 4.64 seconds, has become the face of one of the world’s fastest-growing sports. On November 2, he will trade competition arenas for Mumbai’s High Rock in Powai, offering a rare day of workshops and conversations with India’s burgeoning community of climbers. Speed climbing, once a fringe pursuit of mountaineers, now stands as one of the Olympics’ most electrifying disciplines. The sport demands not just power and agility but precision measured in hundredths of a second. Watson, often hailed as the greatest speed climber of all time, has repeatedly rewritten the record books. His visit marks a milestone for India’s fledgling climbing scene. High Rock, the city’s first commercial climbing facility, opened its walls in December 2024 and has since drawn more than 10,000 enthusiasts. It represents the country’s growing fascination with vertical sports and a reflection of a global shift toward adventure and athleticism fused with technology and training science. During his visit, Sam Watson will conduct Masterclasses for both Kids and Adults, offering a rare opportunity for amateur climbers to learn directly from a global champion and experience his unmatched energy and technique up close. Watson will be joined by Matt Groom, the Official Lead Commentator for the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC). Known as the voice of IFSC World Cups and World Championships, Groom will host a 30-minute talk at High Rock on ‘The Evolution of Climbing in Competitive Sport.’ His insights promise to provide a deep look into the transformation of climbing from niche adventure to Olympic spectacle. Event: Sam Watson, Olympic Medalist and current World Record holder at High Rock Date: November 2, 2025 Location: High Rock, Powai, Mumbai

Medal Muddle

In any half-decent country, Rahi Sarnobat would be hailed as a national treasure. But in India, she is treated like a supplicant. Sarnobat, the first Indian woman to win a World Cup gold in shooting and a decorated Asian Games champion, has not received a rupee in salary from the Maharashtra government in eight years. The reason is as absurd as it is outrageous: she has not completed a mandatory revenue-service training course for the post of Deputy Collector - a position she earned as a reward for her sporting achievements.

 

Sarnobat has spent the better part of her adult life hauling India’s flag to the top of international podiums. It is a travesty that she has been forced to choose between a rigid training schedule and the even more inflexible whims of government administrators. That this choice has cost Sarnobat her income and her dignity, is a national disgrace.

 

Maharashtra’s General Administration Department insists that until she completes her training, she cannot be paid. This, despite the fact that the government possesses the discretion to grant her an exemption. Former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, to his credit, had deferred Sarnobat’s training requirement until after the 2022 Olympics.

 

Yet, when the grace period expired, so too did the government’s compassion. Sarnobat’s sporting commitments left her unable to finish the course. When her family approached the revenue minister four years ago, they were met with perfunctory replies and procedural rigmarole. Requests to consider exemptions as given to elite athletes in Punjab and Haryana have been deflected with Kafkaesque absurdity.

 

Maharashtra’s officials demand ‘official orders’ from these states as precedent, as though it were Sarnobat’s job to run a comparative study in bureaucratic law. Without an income certificate, Sarnobat cannot even get a home loan. Her career is being stifled not by injury or competition, but by a cold-blooded clerical caste that would rather see medals gather dust than lift a finger to honour the promises they once made.

 

The episode reveals more than just one woman’s bureaucratic nightmare. It is emblematic of India’s toxic disregard for its athletes. While politicians fall over themselves to tweet congratulatory messages after every medal haul, they disappear just as quickly when asked to deliver something of actual value.

 

Maharashtra, and particularly Kolhapur, had once nurtured its sporting sons and daughters with pride. Rulers like Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj celebrated their wrestlers with royal processions and patronage. Today, the baton has passed not to visionaries but to venal paper-pushers whose only talent is finding new ways to stall.

 

Athletes do not ask for much. A decent job. A timely salary. In return, they give their bodies, years of their youth and the rarest form of patriotism: excellence under pressure on the world stage. Rahi Sarnobat has done all of this, and more. The least Maharashtra can do is pay her what she is owed and ensure that no athlete is ever punished again for serving the nation with distinction.

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