New Zealand paraclimber Rachel Māia is chasing a place in sporting history. Paraclimbing makes its debut on the Paralympic programme at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, and the Auckland mother of three wants to be one of the athletes pulling on the holds when the discipline goes mainstream for the first time.
Getting there means a winter on the road. Māia has launched a Givealittle page to fund travel and coaching costs for two paraclimbing World Cup events in Japan and South Korea later this year, both of which feed into the qualifying ladder for LA. She told RNZ’s Nine to Noon that climbing in New Zealand has no parasport funding, which means every dollar comes from family, friends and the wider climbing community.
She estimates a bare-bones campaign would cost around $6,000, just enough to get her to the start lines in Asia. Adding a coach to the trip pushes the figure higher, because Climbing New Zealand does not have the capacity to employ one or to write a development plan for the para side of the sport.
“In order to have a coach there, I also need to raise funds for their costs because Climbing New Zealand don’t have capacity to employ a coach,” Māia told RNZ. “We also don’t have capacity to write a development plan for our sport. I am the only paraclimber in New Zealand competing in a World Cup level at this point. We have some people moving into that space as well. We’re really excited about that growth, but each of us are very much self-funded and self-driven.”
The path to LA started in pain. Māia injured her leg at 16 during a competition in Christchurch and spent the next 18 years cycling through surgeries. Eventually, on a trip to Austria, the call she had been turning over for years became clear. A friend who was already an amputee was helping her up a mountain, and she was leaning on him so heavily she realised she would gain more by losing the leg than by keeping it.
“It helped me sort of come to terms with this thought that perhaps by giving something up, I might gain a lot more,” she said. “And the main thing for me was I want time with my children where I’m active.”
Māia is a single mother of three. One of her children has a rare genetic condition and needs a full-time caregiver, so daily life at home was a relentless test for someone who could not stand for long without pain. She described crawling on her hands and knees to her daughter at night because the house was not wheelchair-friendly, and burning herself on the oven trying to put a meal on the table while balancing.
“It wasn’t a difficult decision,” she said of the amputation. “But I have ended up with some chronic pain from it, and it is now a very difficult life I will say.”
The phantom pain is constant. She has described the nerves in her severed leg as feeling like an electric fence, and she often has to shut down during the day to cope with it. Climbing is one of the few places the noise drops away.
“It becomes quieter,” she said. “And maybe that’s because I’m scared of heights and there’s adrenaline running through my body, but it’s just a way of existing with joy.”
That last phrase has stuck. Māia has used it in fundraising material and in interviews. For a single mum dealing with chronic pain, a complex family situation and a sport that demands huge upper-body strength on tiny holds metres above the ground, climbing has become the part of the day that is hers.
She has been competing internationally since 2017, mostly at her own expense. World Cup events are scored across a season, and athletes accumulate points across disciplines like lead climbing and speed climbing to qualify for the Paralympics. The 2028 Games in Los Angeles will be the first time paraclimbing has medals on offer at the Paralympics, after years of lobbying by the International Federation of Sport Climbing and athletes around the world.
For New Zealand, the timing is significant. Climbing has grown rapidly here over the past decade, with new bouldering and roped gyms opening in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. The able-bodied side of the sport made its Olympic debut in Tokyo in 2021 and was again on the programme at Paris 2024. The para version has lagged behind, partly because of the cost of running events with adaptive equipment and route setting.
Māia said she hoped her campaign would show what is possible if support builds around the small group of New Zealanders moving into paraclimbing. She is currently the only Kiwi competing at World Cup level, but said others are coming through.
“I hope to show people what we can do if we get up and do one more day, and then one more day, and then one more day,” she said. “No matter how much adversity or pain or mental health challenges we’re dealing with. Just doing it one day at a time.”
The next test comes in Japan and Korea later this year, assuming the money lands. Beyond that, it’s the longer climb toward Los Angeles, where for the first time a New Zealander could be in the field on the day paraclimbing finally takes its place on the Paralympic stage.
What do you think of New Zealand’s funding model for emerging Paralympic sports? Should Climbing New Zealand be doing more to back its para athletes ahead of LA 2028? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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