Estepona’s Fair and Sports Park will have the largest outdoor climbing wall in Spain

The municipal facility, which will allow its use in the three modalities of speed, difficulty and block, is a 130-ton steel structure that will be able to host national and international competitions of elite athletes.

The objective is that both amateurs and professionals can practice this sport, which has been an Olympic sport since 2020.

Estepona will have the largest municipal outdoor climbing wall in Spain, which will be a national reference, both for its characteristics and its dimensions. The infrastructure, which is in the final phase of works, becomes a unique space for the practice of climbing ‘outdoor’, that is, outdoors, and dedicated exclusively to climbing, so it will not have to share space with other sports disciplines.

This new facility, which is being finalized by the City Council of Estepona in the Permanent Fair, Sports and Leisure Park, will have the measures and functionalities that will allow, in addition to the practice of amateur sports, the celebration of national and even international competitions of elite athletes. The construction is carried out in compliance with the regulatory standards that make this compatibility of uses possible.

Specifically, the wall-rocodrome is being built in accordance with the UNE EN 12572 standard and has been designed for the following practices: difficulty mode, speed mode and block mode. It will have a complete surface of 662 square meters, which will be divided for the practice of the different modalities foreseen in this discipline: speed area (115 square meters), difficulty area (363 square meters) and block area (184 square meters).

The structure has two elevations for the development of the sporting activity of different heights on which the loads defined by the specialists in the field have been foreseen, in compliance with the applicable and specific regulations for this sporting activity. For the climbing wall, a high-precision 3D modeling and a self-stable structure of 130 tons of steel with a luminous coating have been used. The space will have a covered area and can also be used at night, as it will be equipped with a lighting system.

This action represents an investment of 1,682,158.94 euros, financed by the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, financed by the European Union-Next Generation EU. The project is included in the framework of the extraordinary program of tourism sustainability in destinations 2021-2023 in its axis 4 of competitiveness of the Strategic Plan for Sustainable Tourism of Estepona 2022-2023.

Tourism Strategic Plan 2022-2024. The Andalusian company Sepisur XXI S.L. is the successful bidder in charge of executing the works, which are at an advanced stage of execution. For the sports equipment, the construction company has chosen the services of the multinational EP Climbing, a Spanish manufacturer with experience in the construction of climbing walls for the Olympic Games. The climbing wall model, similar to the one built by this firm for the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile and other events in Asia, stands out for its uniqueness and versatility, as it has a large fixed outer structure. For all these reasons, they point out that it is a unique piece of equipment at the national level.

Climbing is currently a booming sport that is perfectly regulated and allows competitions at all levels, in addition to being part of the international Olympic program since 2020. In this context, it is a priority municipal objective to continue complementing the existing sports equipment with the construction of this municipal climbing wall for federated sports practice of all disciplines, as well as championships. The aim is that both amateurs and elite athletes can practice this sport through municipal schools and clubs, or train and compete at any level.

Estepona has increased in the last 12 years the sports facilities with important facilities such as the Fair and Sports Park, where you can practice more than twenty disciplines for free throughout the year, the Athletics Stadium, which has become a benchmark in Andalusia, or the various tracks that have been created both in the neighborhoods and in residential areas of the suburbs.