Paraclimber Aims High For Third World Championship Title

Published on: 23 Aug, 2021
Updated on: 23 Aug, 2021

Guildford paraclimber Matthew Phillips is training hard to defend his world championship title for the third time in Moscow next month.

He won the sport’s world championships in Innsbruck, Austria in 2018 and successfully retained his title in Briancon, France in 2019.

Paraclimbing is sport climbing for athletes with disabilities. Athletes are placed into categories based on their disability, to allow those with a disability of a similar nature to compete within the same category.

Going up: paraclimber Matthew Philips.

Matthew, who works at Surrey Summit at the Surrey Sports Park in Guildford, knows full well that training for many elite athletes has been much harder due to the pandemic, with gyms and climbing centres closed for long periods of time.

Matthew Phillips on the winners’ podium at the Paraclimbing World Championships at Innsbruck, Austria in 2018.

However, Matthew said: “I have been lucky. I have a home climbing wall in our conservatory, so I have been able to maintain my strength and keep my training up. But it’s great to be back training at climbing gyms once again.”

Paraclimbing is not yet a sport at the Paralympics, but there are hopes it will be at the games in 2028, following on from the successful introduction of climbing at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

It is also hoped the World Paraclimbing Championships will be live streamed from Moscow in September. Details when released will be found on the International Federation of Sport Climbing’s website. Click here for its section on paraclimbing.