In reply to UKC News:
For all those worrying that the crags will be over-run with beginners, I wouldn't worry too much. Canoeing, which is a fairly similar kind of sport, probably attracting similar folk, has only seen an increase of 10,500 from 2005 to 2015 [`1]. I suspect that many of those people will only go to indoor walls, so from that point of
When you get down to it for most people, climbing is seen as incredibly dangerous. We all know that it's not, but you can still seriously hurt yourself if you make a simple mistake. I know plenty of people who only climb indoors for that reason. When I've suggested that I take them climbing outdoors, I've never yet got anyone to come along with me.
As others have said, the format isn't great. Personally I don't find watching climbing comps at all fun. Speed climbing is the worst. Why it's not just bouldering and lead separately, I do not know.
The Olympics is great for large businesses who use it as a sponsorship opportunity. It's also good for athletes such as say Mo Farah or Chris Hoy, who've got a level of sponsorship which they otherwise not get. However if you're a bit lower down the pecking order don't expect much/anything from it. For the vast majority of Olympic athletes, they don't see the amount of money that the IOC officials do (or indeed really any money) but the IOC get loads.. Also as an athlete your sponsors can't can't mention that you're in the Olympics if they're not sponsors.
If the BMC (I'm not calling it C****b B***** ever) does end up focusing on the Olympics at the expense of the other good work that they do then that would be a big negative in my book. Lets hope that doesn't happen.
So all the 'positives', are probably not going to make that much of a difference. It's probably not going to do much for already sponsored climbers, we're probably not going to see lots more participation (outdoors). And it'll probably make walls a bit more crowded. Then there's the BMC rebrand as well, which isn't really a positive (probably not the end of the world tho).
Finally personally for me, climbing isn't a sport per se. Certainly not in the way of other sports like Athletics, Football, Rugby, Cricket, Squash and the like where there is a clear winner. It's about taking part, spending time with friends, being outdoors and overcoming a challenge. Further commercialising and popularising what isn't a sport in the traditional sense, just feels wrong to me. I'm all for more people climbing, but getting climbing into the Olympics isn't the way to go about that. It's probably not going to cause masses of damage, but it's probably not going to that positive either.
As for Skateboarding being an Olympic sport? I can hear the 16 year old me ranting already... It's totally the wrong sport for the Olympics. All about the money there and it stinks.
[1] -
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/jul/05/olympic-legacy-failur...