By Anie Weidal
– While it is not an official Catch sport, climbing has seen a rise of popularity during the last years. Catch is AUC’s sports committee, and Antoine Bourcieu, the event manager, is trying to organise climbing within the AUC community. While the facebook group is growing, there are still climbers who have not heard about it.
Bourcieu says that there are more and more AUC students who try out and like climbing.
He did not climb himself before coming to AUC, but once here it did not take long before he was hooked. In February 2018 he started a facebook group for all AUC climbers. “We have something for volleyball, football and hockey,” he says. “I wanted to do something for climbing.”
The facebook group is called AUC Climbing 2018-2019 and has 70 members. Its initial goal was to become big enough to rent a hall once a week and organize classes. However, Bourcieu soon realised that climbing would not be like other AUC sports. To organise courses at the Universum Sports Club (USC) he would need climbing certifications he does not have, and renting a hall would not make sense as AUC climbers often like to meet other people from Science Park as well. Now, the group functions as a meeting place for people who need a partner for rope climbing or just wants to go with a group to boulder. The USC climbing gym has facilities for both types of climbing: in rope climbing the climber is – you guessed it – secured by a rope, while in bouldering the routes are short and low enough for the climbers to climb above thick mattresses.
Tomas Ter Reehorst, second-year Social Science major, also started climbing when he came to AUC. He goes to Monk with a friend instead of USC with the climbing group. “I only found out about the group last month, but if I had known about them since the start of the year I think I would have joined them to USC,” he says. He says that having a group that goes regularly is a good idea, and that it would benefit his ability to climb as it is sometimes hard to find a routine with one friend.
Another AUC climber and second-year Social Science major, Benedict Hamlyn, says, “a friend showed me this group about two weeks ago, that was the first time I became aware of it.” Hamlyn says that he is not too interested in the group anyways. For him, climbing is all about getting out of the bubble.
While there are no officially organised classes Bourcieu says that he goes to USC every Sunday, and is always happy to bring new people and show them some basics. He hopes to recruit some first-years at the upcoming introweek. “It’s not going to be a course, but it is an accessible sport that a lot of people can do,” he says.
Bourcieu also posts climbing news, livestreams and update the group when new boulders are set at USC. “I’m hoping that when I graduate someone who is a climber or is interested in climbing will still update the facebook page,” he says.
Editor’s note: This news story is part of a collaboration between The Herring and AUC’s journalism course. The story was entirely reported, written, edited, and fact checked by members of the journalism course. Some material may have been altered by The Herring’s editors to fit its style guidelines.
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