Hendrawati climbs her way to the top
Hendrawati climbs her way to the top
Chris Brummitt, Associated Press, Jakarta
Cultural conventions haven't been obstacles as Etti Hendrawati
has climbed the ranks of her chosen sport. She's also made light
work of the crags, choss, chimneys or corners that would daunt
non-climbers.
Clinging to an overhang by her fingertips, the Indonesian
champion prepares to pull out over a roof as a row of spectators
10 meters below crane their necks and collectively hold their
breath.
Working into a tiny handhold, or crimp, she composes herself,
then hooks her heel around for extra leverage and hauls herself
to the top of the climbing wall to claim the latest in a long
line of victories.
Hendrawati, 27, is Indonesia's best female competition
climber. Almost unbeatable at home, she has also won against the
world's best in competitions as far away as the United States,
Iran and China.
While she's working every muscle to its limits on ascent,
Hendrawati hardly shows it.
The tight fitting shorts and skimpy tops favored by most of
her female rivals are not in her wardrobe. As a practicing
Muslim, she wears an Islamic headscarf and modest clothes when on
the wall.
And she is keen to challenge perceptions that her faith and
her sport are somehow incompatible.
"I'm proud that by climbing I can show there are no obstacles
or prohibitions in Islam," she said before a recent national
competition in Jakarta.
"I can hopefully change the image that Islam prevents women
from doing what men do."
Indonesia has more Muslims than any other country in the
world. But its government is secular, and most people here balk
at radical Islam common in some parts of the Muslim world.
Hendrawati says she has yet to experience any resistance from
Muslim clerics or religious groups in her native town of
Yogyakarta, a tourist city on Indonesia's main island of Java.
"In fact the clerics say the opposite," she said. "They
encourage me to keep climbing."
Competition climbing, while most popular in Europe and the
United States, is rapidly becoming a favorite sport in Asia. Its
organizing body, the International Mountaineering and Climbing
Federation, is lobbying for Olympic status.
Competitors climb a wall on plastic foot and hand holds, all
the while clipping their rope into fixed anchors, which would
stop their fall in case of a slip. The climber who reaches the
highest point wins.
Speed climbing, where the fastest competitor up the wall wins,
is another branch of the sport, and is becoming the favored
discipline due to its attractiveness for television.
Indonesia has embraced the sport, with events held almost
every week in towns across the archipelago. Ranking events are
held every three months, and competition to join the national
team is intense.
Along with badminton, where Indonesia is a world leader,
climbing gives the nation rare international sporting success.
Hendrawati began climbing when she was 17 on the steep limestone
outcrops that line the beaches and stud the mountains of Java
island.
After a year of scaling some of the hardest routes in the
country, she realized she had to make the switch to competition
climbing to make money from her hobby.
She is now the reigning Asian speed champion, and a one-time
winner and regular competitor in the annual X-Games, a popular
adventure sport competition in the United States.
"She is small, but so strong and professional," said Paulus
Lodewijk, the head of the Indonesian Rock Climbing Federation's
competition section.
Hendrawati wants to keep climbing for as long as she can. She
is still eying a shot at climbing's World Championship, scheduled
for France later this year.
But with no state funding, scraping together the airfare for a
trip to Europe will be difficult, she says. In the meantime, she
plans to keep up her training schedule.
"God willing something will turn up," she says.