Climbing Escalade Canada (CEC) is thrilled to announce the Canadian athletes selected for this year’s IFSC World Championships (WCH). The 2021 WCH will take place in Moscow, Russia, from September 16-21.
The selection of Canadian athletes was conducted using the Continuous National Ranking (CNR) system. Invitations were sent to athletes in each discipline, based on their position on the CNR. It was then up to each athlete to accept or decline the invitation, given the existing level of risk associated with travelling to Russia in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are excited to announce the following athletes have accepted the invitation:
Guy McNamee – Lead and Boulder
Riley Galloway – Boulder
Zach Richardson – Boulder
Madison Fischer – Boulder
Ethan Pitcher – Speed
Kindar McNamee – Lead
These 5 athletes will be supported on site by CEC National Coach, Libor Hroza.
Along with this announcement, CEC wishes to address the current anti-doping sanctions in place against Russia by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). As part of the CAS Ruling, Russia is under a ban regarding hosting International Competitions.
Following a lengthy application process, the IFSC received an exemption from WADA to allow them to continue planning and hosting the 2021 WCH in Moscow. CEC supports the decision of WADA and we are comfortable attending this event in Russia.
However, our decision to send athletes to this event does in no way constitute an endorsement of the actions taken by the Russian government regarding doping and the falsification of documents. CEC promotes and advocates in favor of clean sport and transparency. Doping in sport is unacceptable, at any level of competition, under any circumstance.
For any comments or questions regarding this announcement, please contact Andrew Wilson, CEC High Performance Director, at hpd@climbingcanada.ca