Delhi-based Kabir Gupta (16) is hell-bent on making it to the top in the ancient and recently resurrected sport of rock and wall climbing. Although recreational climbing can be traced back to the early 19th century, its golden era dawned in 1950-70 and its popularity soared in the new millennium with better gear, safety and media exposure. In 2020, climbing debuted as an Olympics sport.
In April, this promising climber won a silver medal in the Under-19 category of the Kolkata National Cup Lead. Earlier this year at the IMF National Championship staged in Bengaluru, he added a silver to his 16-strong medals tally.
The only child of entrepreneur Mamta Gupta, Kabir is currently a class XI student of Delhi’s American Embassy School. In 2018 when climbing was accepted as an Olympic sport, Kabir enrolled in Delhi’s Boulderbox Academy. There under the expert tutelage of Adarsh Singh, former national climbing champion, he has evolved into a competitive climber. He has also trained abroad at Kletterzentrum, Innsbruck (Austria), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Tokyo and Yamagata (Japan).
“Although I had the good fortune to avail world-class coaching, equipment, and travel opportunities, I witnessed how talented young athletes from underprivileged households don’t get the same support. This inequity prompted the establishment of Project Elevate in 2023 for them. I am deeply grateful to my mother and school management for encouraging me to specialize in this sport. I am also thankful for the opportunity to study at the school’s Institute of Design and Innovation, where entrepreneurial thinking is routinely incubated,” acknowledges Kabir.
A consistent high performer, Kabir has set his sights on a career in business economics. And even though the school-leaving exam of the International Baccalaureate (Geneva) board is looming, he is determined to prepare for all forthcoming climbing championships. “I am currently training for the trials of the World Youth Climbing Championship in Helsinki (Finland) at the end of the month. Later I intend to enrol in an American university to acquire a degree in sports management and business while training for the Los Angeles Olympics 2028. Meanwhile, an exciting project in collaboration with Indie Grip, a company founded by a climbers’ group, to build an unprecedented climbing wall in Amity University, has come up,” says this talented teen with a strong social conscience.