Sport Climbing has become a new Olympic sport and Tauranga has claimed a big chunk of the New Zealand action, thanks to the University of Waikato Adams Centre for High Performance Sport.

Mt Maunganui has become Climbing New Zealand's high performance base with athletes training at both Rocktopia and the Adams Centre.

A selection of top NZ sport climbers started training at Mt Maunganui earlier this month, under the tutelage of Rocktopia co-owner Rob Moore, who is Climbing New Zealand's head coach.

The team of top climbers includes 17- year-old Sarah Tetzlaff, one of 20 females world-wide who has qualified to compete at the Youth Olympics in Argentina in October 2018.

Sarah, who has moved to the Bay of Plenty from Wellington, is the only female from New Zealand, Australia and New Caledonia to qualify.

Also in the high-performance team is Wellington's George Sanders who, at 20, is Sport Climbing's national and Oceania lead climbing champion.

Sport climbing is the competitive side of rock climbing and covers the three disciplines of speed climbing, lead climbing and bouldering.

Rob will be assisted in his coaching role by Adams Centre specialists - lead speed and agility coach Kerry Hill and lead strength and conditioning coach and biomechanics specialist Dr Travis McMaster.

George and Sarah with Climbing New Zealand head coach Rob Moore.

Speed, power and endurance are part of the sport's three disciplines and Rob says he, Kerry and Travis will be working together to structure a highly effective training programme.

Adams Centre manager Justine Brennan says working with specialised sports requiring different skills sets is the strength of the high-performance centre.

'Our speed, strength and conditioning coaches have the expertise to work with Rob and his squad to deliver exactly what they need in terms of performance improvements.

'While the Centre caters for a great diversity of sporting codes, having the Sport Climbing high performance team working at the centre aligns with our strategic direction to attract another national sporting organisation – in addition to NZ Rugby Sevens – to the centre.

'This is another milestone in the pathway to transform Tauranga into a centre of excellence for high performance sport,” she says.

Roctopia incorporates a specific training facility and Rob says that, coupled with all that the Adams Centre offers, enables Tauranga to be NZ ‘s high performance centre for this sport.

Sarah and George are joined on the Sport Climbing high performance team by Irralee Hair, from Mt Maunganui, plus Sam Munday, from Rotorua and Sophia Osipova, from Wellington. Like Sarah and George, the latter two have moved to the Bay especially.

Sarah qualified for the Youth Olympics after winning the Oceania Championships in New Caledonia last month.

The recent school leaver began rock climbing as a 12-year-old, because her brother did. She only started competing seriously last year.

'There is something really satisfying about pulling your body weight against gravity,” she says.

Sport Climbing will be introduced as an Olympic event at Tokyo in 2020. George is keen to see where a year of dedicated training as an elite athlete will lead him. Tokyo is in his sights.

A Sport Climbing training camp will be held at Mt Maunganui over summer and Rob's high-performance squad will benefit from that too. Top NZ sport climbing coaches and some of Rob's success stories will attend.

'Attracting top climbers to the Mount is our aim, and we've already started achieving that,” Rob says.

'I am keen to create opportunities for climbers to start excelling at world level rather than just ticking along. The climbing culture in NZ is a little like the surfing one – climbers are a bit laid back generally too. Part of the summer training programme is about changing training perceptions. It's about working on changing the perception to elite athletes rather than social climbers. I think we could then make big gains on a world stage,” Rob says.

The University of Waikato Adams Centre for High Performance Sport is proudly operated by Bay Venues Limited, a Tauranga City Council organisation.