Rising Sports Stars with Kelly Exelby of Eves Realty

Wiz Fineron won't be doing all the usual things teenagers do during the summer holidays at Mount Maunganui – he'll be too busy hanging around in southern Texas.

Wiz is fast making a name for himself internationally in the sport of climbing, rapidly ascending the heady heights towards stardom, and has only just returned from five weeks across the ditch where he became the youngest climber to complete the ascent of a tough and technically demanding climb in Victoria called `Punks in the Gym'.

Wiz hasn't let the chalk dust settle in his pouch, leaving this week for a Christmas break like no other, joining hordes of other outdoor climbing enthusiasts State-side for three months of high hanging hijinks at Hueco Tanks, an area of low granite mountains in El Paso county.

Still on a high after conquering ‘Punks in the Gym', Wiz, who has just finished Year 12 at Tauranga Boys' College, is buzzing about spending three months in some of the best climbing country in the US.

``It's pretty cool climbing from what I hear and I'm going with another friend from New Zealand so it's gonna be an awesome adventure. We'll climb mostly in Hueco and go out every day if we want to.''

Wiz, whose first name is Owain although he hasn't been called that since he learned to read and write a dozen years ago, emigrated with his dad Allen and brother Dez from Wales just over five years ago.

Moving to a city with a climbing facility already set up was crucial and the brothers sought out The Rock House at the Mount just days after they touched down.

Wiz has worn the silver fern at two junior world climbing championships already in Scotland and France, although it's the freedom of the outdoors and thrill of conquering new heights that excites him most about his high adrenalin sport.

Five weeks at Mount Arapalies in Victoria was a turning point for him as he became the youngest to conquer ‘Punks', which was, for many years, known as the hardest climb in Australia.

Climbs are graded up to 37 and ‘Punks in the Gym' was Wiz's pinnacle in the sport to date.

``Mount Arapalies is one of the best climbing spots in Australia, but the conditions were tough - mainly the heat. Sometimes it just got too hot during the day so we'd get up and climb early in the morning until the heat became unbearable, and then climb at night until dark.

``Most days we'd try and climb all day though, on and off, hiding out in the shade when the heat got too much.''

Some of the climbs are 200m high but the rock faces Wiz was confronting were shorter – hard, extremely technical and requiring huge concentration to go with the mental and physical agility.

Spills are common, although less so than when he started out, but safety is paramount and the aim is to take the extreme out of extreme sport as much as possible.

``You try not to think about accidents and, touch wood, there hasn't really been anything nasty. I've had a bunch of big falls but nothing you'd really deem dangerous. When you fall you fall to your next piece of gear so it's not like it's 100m or anything. I've take some good whacks but nothing major.''

While the average Kiwi would struggle to comprehend the thrill of hanging upside down 50m above terra firma with only a few fingers wedged in inch-wide cracks carved into the rock face, Wiz, who is sponsored by international gear/apparel suppliers Petzl, 5 10 and Motiv, says his rush was in setting a goal, training for it, then knocking it off.

``There's always new challenges, not necessarily in higher walls but in higher graded climbs. Now, having done 32 and 33, climbing a 35 is my immediate goal but kind of daunting as well. There's guys doing 37's but they're the legends of the sport.''