First international UIAA Youth Ice Climbing World Championship begins in Saas Grund, Switzerland

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Young climbers from 10 climbing federations have gathered in Saas Grund, Switzerland this weekend for the inaugural Youth Ice Climbing World Championship organized by the UIAA Youth Commission.

The competition is being held the same weekend as the first stop of the 2013 UIAA Ice Climbing World Tour in Cheongsong, Korea. The Saas Grund event (12 - 13 January 2013) has a mandate to help promote the sport of ice climbing among young climbers especially girls.

“The UIAA is making an effort to promote ice-climbing as part of the the official program of Winter Olympic,” said Israfil Ashurly, president of the UIAA Youth Commission.” The Youth Ice Climbing World Championship is an important step in this direction.”

“Who knows, perhaps the young athletes who are going to take part in the competition today will be the strongest ice climbers fighting for Olympic gold tomorrow,” said Ashurly.

Ashurly said organizing such an event requires tremendous skill and professionalism and he was confident that the Swiss organizers of the event, who have a lot of experience, skill and strong ice climbing traditions, would successfully manage the competition.

Previous competitions during the past three years have been much smaller affairs with competitors mainly from Swtizerland and Russia.

Fourteen of the participants registered so far are girls. A full list of registered athletes can be found at www.theuiaa.org/ice_climbing_2013 under the tab for registered climbers.

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