By Louis Johnston

From scaling trees to dominating the rock climbing walls, Stig Zhou’s competitive edge is softened with his beaming smile.

His “blistering fast” speed of 3.9 seconds on the speedwall left code coordinator Adam Dyke gobsmacked.

“That kid has got a big future in climbing.”

Stig has cleaned up for his second Zespri AIMS Games in a row, winning all of the categories once again: rope, speed climbing and his personal favourite, bouldering.

The Northcross Intermediate student, 13, has been climbing most of his life, falling in love with the sport instantly after his first taste at a Chinese university gym.

“My mum told the coach I loved climbing trees and stuff, so the coach decided to let me try out rock climbing, and I just fell in love with it.”

Since then, Stig has competed at several national competitions, including internationally during a recent trip back to China. 

His expertise shone through in Wednesday's semi-finals at Tauranga's Rocktopia gym, cruising through each of the top rope sections in under a minute and setting the first sub-4-second time of the week on the speedwall.

Stig was cool, calm and collected, and accomplished everything with a beaming smile, which wasn't wiped off even after a narrow and unfortunate defeat to one of his bouldering challenges.

“I’m really just here to have fun,” Stig said.

“It’s cool meeting other people who are the same age as you that also have the same passion.”

His happy-go-lucky attitude doesn’t mean his success came easy, training five times a week, both on the climbing wall and in the gym.

He hoped his training would help him reach the world stage, like his role model, Japanese competitive climber Tomoa Narasaki.

Meanwhile, Auckland Normal Intermediate Year 7 student Yume Fookes also cleaned up in all three categories with a speed score of 4.8 seconds in the finals, and a personal best in the semifinals of 4.6 seconds.

Adam said the athletes were “world-class climbers”.

Article added: Friday 05 September 2025