Aniya Holder’s journey to the Paris Olympics reads like a fairy-tale, from suffering a career-threatening injury to winning a spot on Team South Africa inside of two years.
The Gqeberha-based climber dislocated her right elbow in a fall in early 2022, causing a relentless pain that ended her ability to compete in lead climbing and bouldering.
Holder switched to speed climbing, which puts less stress on her arm, and in her first competition in this format won the national championships in September last year, earning a ticket to the African Olympic trials in Pretoria in December.
There, in the second speed competition of her life, she emerged victorious again and booked her spot to the Games.
Today she jets overseas for the first time in her life. “I’ve never even left the country so I have no idea what to expect for an international flight, let alone competing overseas,” said Holder, who turns 23 two days before her competition in Paris.
What makes her performances even more impressive is that there isn’t even a speed wall in the Eastern Cape.
The climbing gym at which Holder trains and works is built primarily for bouldering, with the highest wall measuring 6m, well short of the 15m speed standard.
She’s been travelling to Joburg once a month, with the help of a sponsor, to train on a proper wall.
The Big Smoke has Holder feeling nervous compared to her Central hood. “It’s safer than Joburg,” she said. “All the stories, I get scared in Joburg.”
That’s despite having a close call in Gqeberha while cycling home from work one evening. “Three guys came at me,” she said. “I managed to cycle quickly past. It was scary, I pedalled as fast as I can.
“I don’t like to ride at night,” she added.
Holder, one of seven siblings, grew up in Grahamstown, raised by their late father Stephen, the director of music at Kingswood College, after her mother walked out when they were children.
She first dabbled in climbing at the age of 12, taking it up seriously at 16.
Like many other climbers, Holder was homeschooled and her skills got her the job at the climbing gym, where she began working after matriculating in the previous year.
She returned home for lockdown in March 2020, allowing her to be with her father who was dying of cancer.
“I got to go home and spend time with him. That was nice. Lockdown sucked for the world, but that tiny little blessing was nice, say goodbye at least. I’m glad I got to spend time with him.”
Circumstances meant Holder had to find a job straight after school.
In late 2021 she came to Johannesburg for a lead and bouldering competition and broke her left hand while performing a dyno, a jump to reach the next grip.
Her hand, instead of finding the intended hold, slammed into a volume, a large type of grip on the wall. “I broke my fingers and my knuckles,” she said. “I didn’t even know it was broken at first, I did three more climbs and I was like ‘this is actually too sore’. And then I only went to get X-rays two weeks later.”
She was put into a cast which came off in February 2022.
“Three days after [that] I was climbing and fell and I dislocated my right elbow. That was really bad and it broke a little bit and everything tore and that was supposedly the end of climbing for me.”
She had to wear a “weird robot-brace arm” and underwent rehabilitation for five months, but the pain prevented her from climbing like she used to.
“It’s just demotivating to see, like ‘OK, this is where I was — I was ranked fourth or fifth in the country — and now I suck, and the kids are better than me’.
“What’s the motivation to keep going when you know you probably will never get to that level again?”
In October 2022 her coach, Jay-D Muller, suggested she give speed-climbing a go. “We have a 6m wall which he had put speed grips on.
“The speed holds are bigger [than those used in lead and bouldering], you don’t have to stay on them for long ... it’s not much pulling, compression, so it’s less painful for my arm and my fingers.”
Holder has put her other passions — painting, drawing and playing drums for fun — on hold to train. “Everything’s down to the minute. If I wake up at 4am, I train and then shower, eat, go to work, train after work, shower, eat, go to bed to wake up early the next day.
“It takes me 20 minutes to eat breakfast ... My lunch break I put an alarm on for half an hour because I know that’s how long it takes me to eat. Then the other half-hour I’m on the assault bike.”
Holder will compete in two events in Europe to get a taste of international competition before the Olympics.
She’s realistic about her goals for Paris. “It would be nice to break the African record, which is 10.77sec.”
Times have to be achieved in competition and on certified walls, added Holder, who has a best of 9.58 that she’d also like to better.
“I don’t know much about speed or competition, so I’ve got everything to learn. I just want to go and see what they do for training, how can I improve, get some tips. I know nothing, so I just want to learn as much as I can [for Los Angeles 2028].”
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