Personal information | |
---|---|
Nationality | South African |
Born | [1] Grahamstown (now Makhanda), South Africa | 3 August 2001
Height | 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in) [2] |
Weight | 75 kg (165 lb) [2] |
Climbing career | |
Type of climber | Competition climbing, speed climbing |
World finals | IFSC African Continental Champion in 2023 (speed) [3] |
Aniya Holder (born 3 August 2001) [1] is a South African rock climber who specializes in competition climbing, particularly speed climbing. As of 2024, Holder is the reigning female African Continental Champion in women's speed climbing, and she is representing South Africa in that discipline at the 2024 Summer Olympics. [3]
Holder was born on 3 August 2001 [1] in Grahamstown (now Makhanda), South Africa. [2] She grew up in Makhanda as one of seven children, and her father was a director of music at Kingswood College. [2] Holder was homeschooled and tried both dancing and karate before picking up climbing at age 14. She began climbing at a small wall at Rhodes University and started joining the university's club on outdoor climbing trips at 16. [2]
Holder participated in her first competitive climbing event at 17 and originally kept to the boulder and lead categories. In 2021, however, she fractured her knuckles by punching a volume hold on the wall. Soon after partially healing from that injury, Holder dislocated her elbow while bouldering, which necessitated five months' rest to rehabilitate. [2] Her coach, Jay-D Muller, suggested that she try speed climbing as a less painful and less injury-prone alternative to boulder and lead. Holder has said that "[speed climbing] doesn’t have such hard, compressed moves – it’s more running up the wall." [4] She began speed climbing in October 2022 and took a liking to it, despite the poor facilities available to her — the international standard route is 15 meters, but the gym in Gqeberha only has a 6-meter wall, which must be changed every 1-3 months to resemble each third of the official route. [4] In late 2023, she entered her first-ever speed climbing competition and won. [3]
Holder won first-place in the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC)'s 2023 African Continental Championship, but initially began training for it without realizing the event was a qualifier for the 2024 Summer Olympics. [4] At the competition, held in Pretoria in December 2023, she qualified for the speed climbing event's final round with a time of 11.89 seconds, and won the final with a time of 11.33 seconds, over two seconds faster than second-place finisher Tegwen Oates. [5]
Holder is the only woman representing an African nation in the speed climbing event at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. She is joined on Team South Africa by fellow speed climber Joshua Bruyns as well as boulder-and-lead combined climbers Lauren Mukheibir and Mel Janse van Rensburg. [4] [6] In the qualification seeding rounds of the Paris Olympics, held in Le Bourget, Holder achieved a new personal best time of 9.12 seconds and received the 14th seed for the elimination rounds. [7] Holder exited the competition later that same day, posting a 9.36–second run in a round where she was eliminated by Aleksandra Mirosław, the event's current world record holder. [8]
As of 2024, Holder lives in Gqeberha and works full-time as a route-setter and coach at the local climbing gym. [4] She is also a visual artist. [3] Holder's father Stephen, a former director of music at Kingswood College, died in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown. Stephen never got to see Aniya compete or climb outdoors, so she painted a portrait of him on her chalk bag in remembrance. [2]
Competition climbing is a form of regulated rock climbing competition held indoors on purpose-built artificial climbing walls. The three competition climbing disciplines are lead climbing, bouldering, and speed climbing. The result of multiple disciplines can be used in a "combined" format to determine an all-round winner. Competition climbing is sometimes called "sport climbing", which is the name given to pre-bolted lead climbing.
Speed climbing is a climbing discipline in which speed is the ultimate goal. Speed climbing is done on rocks, walls and poles and is only recommended for highly skilled and experienced climbers.
Shauna Coxsey is an English former professional rock climber. She is the most successful competition climber in the UK, having won the IFSC Bouldering World Cup Season in both 2016 and 2017. She retired after competing in the 2020 Olympics.
Janja Garnbret is a Slovenian professional rock climber who specializes in sport climbing and competition climbing, and who has won multiple competition lead climbing and competition bouldering events. In 2021, she became the first-ever female Olympic gold medalist in climbing and is widely regarded as the greatest competition climber of all time. She is also the world's first-ever female climber to onsight an 8c (5.14b) graded sport climbing route.
Competition climbing made its Olympic debut at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Two events were held, one each for men and women. The format controversially consisted of one combined event with three disciplines: lead climbing, speed climbing and bouldering. The medals were determined based on best performance across all three disciplines. This format was previously tested at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics. The Olympic code for sports climbing is CLB.
Reza Alipour Shenazandifard is an Iranian competition speed climber from Qazvin. He is nicknamed the "Persian Cheetah".
Jessica Pilz is an Austrian professional rock climber who specializes in competition climbing. She won the 2018 IFSC Climbing World Championships for competition lead climbing.
Tomoa Narasaki is a Japanese professional rock climber who specializes in bouldering and competition bouldering.
Miho Nonaka is a Japanese competition climber who specializes in competition bouldering. She competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in Women's combined, winning a silver medal.
Iuliia Vladimirovna Kaplina is a Russian competition climber who has won multiple competition speed climbing events and set multiple world records. She was the world record holder in women's speed climbing until 6 August 2021, setting the record at the 2020 European Championships in Moscow (6.964).
Ludovico Fossali is an Italian competition speed climber. He competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in Men's combined climbing.
Aleksandra (Ola) Mirosław is a Polish competition speed climber and a two-time women's speed world champion as well as the current women's competition speed climbing world record holder. Mirosław won the gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in the speed climbing event, becoming the first ever Olympic champion in this event.
The men's combined event at the 2020 Summer Olympics was a climbing competition combining three disciplines. It was held from August 3 to August 5, 2021 at the Aomi Urban Sports Park in Tokyo. A total of 20 athletes from 15 nations competed. Sport climbing was one of four new sports added to the Olympic program for 2020.
The women's combined event at the 2020 Summer Olympics was a climbing competition combining three disciplines. It took place between 4 and 6 August 2021 at the Aomi Urban Sports Park in Tokyo. 20 athletes from 15 nations competed. Sport climbing was one of four new sports added to the Olympic program for 2020.
Oceania "Oceana" Mackenzie is an Australian rock climber and competition climber who specializes in competition bouldering. She competed in the 2020 Summer Olympics, coming 19th, and has qualified to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Christopher Cosser is a South African competition climber. He won the combined event at the 2020 African Climbing Championships. This qualified him for the combined event at the 2020 Summer Olympics, where he finished 16th out of 20 competitors. In December 2023, Cosser placed second in the 2023 African Continental Qualifier behind Mel Janse Van Rensburg and therefore failed to qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
The 2019 IFSC Combined Qualifier was an Olympic Qualifying Event. It was held from 28 November to 1 December 2019 in Toulouse, France. It was organized by the French Federation of Sport Climbing and Mountaineering or FFME. The athletes competed in combined format of three disciplines: speed, bouldering, and lead, simulating the 2020 Olympics format. Six athletes per gender would qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics through this event. The winner for men was Kokoro Fujii and for women was Futaba Ito.
Competition climbing at the 2024 Summer Olympics is scheduled to run from 5 to 10 August at Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue in Saint-Denis, returning to the program for the second time since the sport's official debut three years earlier in Tokyo 2020. The total number of medal events will double from two in the previous edition because the boulder-and-lead tandem has been separated from the speed format. Furthermore, the number of climbers will increase from 40 to 68.
In qualifying for the 2024 Summer Olympics, a total of 68 climbers, with an equal distribution between men and women, will compete across two separate competition climbing disciplines at these Games for the first time, namely: a unique competition bouldering-and-competition lead climbing combined event, and a separate competition speed climbing event.
Lauren Mukheibir is a South African rock climber who specializes in competition climbing. As of 2024, Mukheibir is the reigning female African Champion in the women's combined bouldering-and-lead category, and she will represent South Africa in that category at the 2024 Summer Olympics.