Tata Steel inaugurated India’s first residential sport climbing academy, Tata Steel Adventure Foundation Sport Climbing Academy, on the occasion of Bharat Ratna JRD Tata`s 117th birth anniversary on Thursday.
The academy aims at helping athletes achieve their dreams, by providing them professional training and support and make the country proud by helping them reach the highest international milestone, the Olympic podium in sport climbing.
Chanakya Chaudhary, vice-president (Corporate Services), Tata Steel inaugurated the facility amidst select guests. The academy is housed inside JRD Tata Sports Complex.
Sport climbing is an extension of rock climbing and is a popular sport across all the continents of the world. It made its debut in the Tokyo 2021 Olympics for the first time. Although there are no Indian athletes in the ongoing games, TSAF hopes to have athletes from its academy in Olympics 2024/2028.
Athletes will get access to professional training support, accommodation, education, food, counselling, travel for international training, gear and infrastructure and everything else that is required for them to bring out their best performance and compete against the best in the world. The vision is to make it the best training facility and ecosystem in the world.
Tata Steel has already set up academies for football, archery and hockey in Jamshedpur.
Ten cadets (all from TSAF) have been inducted into the cradle as the first batch. They include Aman Verma, Anisha Verma, Talim Ansari, Suraj Singh Thakur, Jonga Purty, Sachin Saroj, Abhishek Rawat, Ronit Banra, Kiran Singh Thakur and Vridula Abhale. All are from Jamshedpur and surrounding areas.
All these 10 cadets are already honing their skills at a training centre run by the elite adventure outfit.
Tata Group has always been a pioneer when it comes to encouraging and promoting sports in India. The first climbing wall in India was established in New Delhi with the support of JRD Tata.
"Our focus would be on sub-junior and junior age groups. The induction would be done on the basis of sport climbers in nationals events. We'll also judge the potential by going to competitons for talent hunting," said Hemant Gupta, head of TSAF. He added the cadets would be given accommodation at thr sports hostel inside JRD Tata Sports omplex. The cadets would pass out every 3-4 years depending upon their performance.
According to him, they have spotted some talents during the national qualifying trials for selecting the national squad for the World Youth Championship scheduled in Voronezh, Russia next month. The trial concluded in Jamshedpur on Wednesday.
TSAF has installed 5 modular climbing walls at rural schools around Jamshedpur to increase the reach and awareness of the sport. TSAF started developing sport climbing in 2015.
The efforts resulted in East zone winning the national trophy in 2019. It was the first time in the history of 25 years where TSAF cadets scored 91% of the winning points. Cadets from TSAF training center are amongst the best performing athletes in India. Anisha Verma is the current national record holder in speed climbing in the female category. Her brother Aman Verma is the first climber from India to reach the semi-final stage at World Youth Championship, a couple of years back. TSAF cadets have won 20 medals at national level and more than 50 medals at zonal and state level.
Angling Club remembers JRD Tata
Jamshedpur Angling Club garlanded the picture of JRD Tata at a simple function near the Beldih Lake.
Cross country for special athletes
Special Olympics Jharkhand paid tribute to JRD Tata by hosting a cross country for intellectually impaired at JRD Tata Sports Complex. Around 40 special athletes participated in the event.
