Four sport climbers of Mountaineering Association of J&K namely Shivani Charak, Ajay Deep Singh, Arun Deep Singh and Shilpa Charak will vie for honours in the Asian Youth Championship scheduled to be held at Bengaluru from December 12 to 15, 2019. They are among the 28 Indian climbers selected to participate in six categories for this continental competition. In fact, another climber of Union Territory of J&K Mrityunjay Sharma was also selected for this competition but he conveyed his inability to participate in this competition because of certain personal reasons. The selection for this prestigious continental competition was made by Indian Mountaineering Foundation, New Delhi, the apex body for mountaineering and sport climbing in the country, after rigorous training of climbers for almost two months at International standard climbing wall in Kalinga Stadium Bhuvneshwar and Bengaluru and also on the basis of latest national ranking of climbers. While Shivani Charak is-currently the top ranked sport climber of the country in the women category Shilpa is also among the top five climbers in her age group. Similarly, Ajay Deep Singh is ranked 2ndand Arun Deep is ranked 3rd in the country in the boys category. However, while Shivani will compete in all the three forms of climbing i.e Lead and Speed climbing and bouldering Shilpa will participate in only Lead Climbing. Ajay Deep Singh and Arun Deep Singh will also compete in only one competition of Speed Climbing and Bouldering respectively. It may be mentioned here that both Shivani and Shilpa Charak are international climbers. While Shivani had her training at Switzerland, Slovania and Italy she has already participated in a number of international competitions including World Cup in 2017, Asian Cup at Bangkok and Asian Youth Championship at Chonqing, China in 2018 and 3 international competitions in Indonesia and China in 2019. She has also been fully sponsored by the Government of China for five competitions in various cities of China during 2019. 19 years old Shilpa Charak is also an accomplished climber who represented the country in World Youth Championship at Arco, Italy, last month. However, for Ajay Deep Singh and Arun Deep it will be their maiden international competition. Meanwhile, Patrons of Tawi Trekkers J&K Ashwani Sharma, former MLA and Rahul Sharma, Chairman, Sprawling Buds ICSE School,Jammu, Zorawar Singh Jamwal, Secretary General Press Club, Jammu and Chairman, Team Jammu; Ram Khajuria and Shawetica Khajuria, General Secretary and Jt. Secretary of Mountaineering Association of J&K and Prof. Lalit Magotra, President Dogri Sanstha, Jammu, have conveyed best wishes to the climbers for good showing in this continental competition and to bring laurels to the Union Territory of J&K.
