MARK ETHERIDGE: Climbing mountains while fighting high levels of poverty

When it comes to this year’s Paris Olympics SA’s  athletes have a mountain to climb, against the world’s best climbers, most of whom are already at the peak of their powers.

But in Mel Janse van Rensburg they have at least one climber who is striving to be up to the task.

Born to his French mom and South African dad in a small town near Paris, Mel moved to the mecca of SA climbing, the sleepy hamlet of Waterval Boven, Mpumalanga, when he was barely a month old.

Apart from the past few years when he’s been studying engineering at university in Lyon, in France, he’s lived in “Boven” all his life.

Sport climbing was showcased at the 2014 Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China, then included in the next Youth Olympics in Argentina and then included in the most recent Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.

SA had two competitors there, Chris Cosser and Erin Sterkenburg.

For Paris this year, Janse van Rensburg is one of four South Africans to have already qualified, the others being Lauren Mukheibir, Josh Bruyns and Aniya Holder.

George Stainton, vice-president of the SA National Climbing Federation and also the continental boss as International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) Africa president, says the sport is growing in leaps and bounds, and especially in the Mpumalanga area.

“We’ve formed a trust in the area that is very involved in community work, we’ve built two bakeries, two netball courts, two climbing walls and between the Waterval Boven and Mbombela areas must have about 1,000 kids now involved in various sports.

“The most recent IFSC Africa Paris Qualifier was held at Loftus Versfeld (December 7-10 2023) in conjunction with a Bulls versus Saracens rugby match where we built a temporary wall and that gave us huge exposure.

“Mel earned his golden ticket to Paris by winning the combined lead and boulder disciplines. The specially designed climbing wall was mainly sponsored by Sport Unplugged and designed and built outdoor by Form-Scaff and Waco Engineering, an 18m-high structure.

“Coming from ‘Boven’, Mel is an incredible example to so many youngsters of all races, now that SA has had Olympic climbers and with Mel having secured a slot for Paris, if we can change one person we can change a thousand.”

With his parents running an outdoor shop and guiding business in the village, one would have thought young Mel would have tackled the crags from an early stage but he only started climbing properly in his high school years at Pretoria Boys High but even then that was only for fun.

“After school I opted for a gap year which turned into two because of Covid, so I climbed mainly outdoor in France and Switzerland,” he says.

“At the end of 2021 as the winner of the African champs, I went with Team SA to the World Games in the US, doing the lead event which is my strongest discipline. I don’t do speed at all.

“For the Tokyo Olympics those two disciplines plus bouldering were all combined but in Paris, speed is on its own.”

While he was in Europe, Janse van Rensburg made history for SA. “I climbed a Grade 36 route in Switzerland, the first SA climber to complete such a high grade (the grades go up to 40) and this is a benchmark, my highest achievement so far.”

But that’s not all he’s achieved. Back home there was still work to do.

“My community is tiny and with a lot of poverty and unemployment. The local guys got a climbing club going to help give the youth access to all our amazing cliffs and Chris [Cosser], my main competitor locally, and I, decided to do a fundraising day for the local Emgwenya Climbing Club by trying to tackle Snapdragon as many times as possible in the space of 12 hours.”

Emgwenya is the local name for Waterval Boven.

Now Snapdragon is SA’s most famous climb, though not the hardest, being ranked as a 29 compared with the highest ranked in the country which comes in at 35.

“People from all over the world come and do Snapdragon, so its internationally known. We got people to sponsor us for every lap. Some pledged R1 per lap, others R200. Most people expected us to do five laps, some said eight, 10 or 15.

“We ended up doing a combined 57 laps in the 12 hours [Mel did 32, Chris 25] and raised about R180,000, way more than we expected and we got so much exposure through that.”

Looking to the Paris Olympics  the 22-year-old Janse van Rensburg is utterly realistic when it comes to expectations.

“It’s going to be a lot of pressure, representing a whole continent. We’re far behind the international standard, simply through not having enough experience or funds and the fact that competitive climbing has been around for so long overseas.”

Says the three-language speaking climber who plays the clarinet in his off-time: “We’re playing catch-up and my personal goal is to close that gap and show people that I deserve to be there.

“The best climbers of each continent will be in Paris, the top 15 will truly be the best in the world and there’ll be a few universality places but my goal is to prove that we are catching up and maybe in 10 years’ time we can make finals or even the podium but for now it’s about getting development going and inspiring people to climb.”

It’s an occupational hazard that Janse van Rensburg has had some hair-raising moments on the rock face but one stands out for him. “We had a gnarly experience on a climb called Blouberg in Limpopo.

“It’s about 300m and I was climbing with some friends. We spent the night on a ledge on the wall with all our food and stuff, and it was beautiful as night fell with the stars all around us.

“But then at midnight a storm came up and it was really scary — there was so much thunder and lightning (even below us!) and it bucketed down and we got soaked and cold but we survived.”

So the next step is an incredibly tough time of knuckling down for training for Janse van Rensburg before he returns to the city of his birth.

One more bizarre fact about the boy from Boven: “I actually don’t really like most of the French cheeses or wine, which would disgust my mom and she often jokes that she should take my passport away.”

As long as she lets him hang on to his passport until the Olympics have come and gone, Janse van Rensburg is set to leave his mark on the wall for SA climbing.