UKC

Sport Climbing was one of eight sports that addressed Tokyo's 2020 Olympic Games Additional Events Program Panel in Tokyo on August 7th and 8th. The Sport Climbing Delegation was composed of 7 members from the JMA (Japanese Mountaineering Association) and the IFSC (International Federation of Sport Climbing).

Read more

In reply to UKC News:

Clearly they haven't been following the threads on UKC. If they had they'd know that climbing is not actually a sport.

Interesting that the number of climbers has gone up by almost 50% over the last two years. Hard to believe. I wonder which countries have seen the biggest growth.

I never understood all the effort and motivation to get climbing into the Olympics and make it more popular. The crags are already often overcrowded and more and more routes are becoming polished. Why does anyone want to make it even more popular?

In reply to UKC News:

it would have to be deep water solo routes dual ascender for me to enjoy. Ropework is dull to watch. I did quite like the crosscountry mountain biking last time around, not sure if course fishing should be included though....

In reply to stp:


When I have something good, I like to share.

In reply to stp:


Money.

In reply to stp:


Rock Climbing maybe feel more like a way of life. Indoor competitive sport climbing is a sport.


Good question. I guess we may find out in 2020


I think it's important to distinguish the difference between the outdoor cragging and indoor climbing wall scene. Many people now just use climbing walls as an alternative to the gym, and might never lay fingers to rock. Climbing walls are a great facility, there to be shared. Conservation of crags is also very important, but a seperate issue from the inclusion of indoor competition sport climbing.

In reply to stp:

I imagine the large increase in numbers climbing is mostly indoors. Last autumn the Quay in Exeter registered around 130 students in one evening. I've not seen a proportional increase in numbers climbing outdoors in the local area,

In reply to Mike Goldthorp:


In the 1980s, a good mate, the late Ian Vincent, went to Holland for a comp. Despite being good enough to get 5th place at a world championship, on this occasion, he had an off-day. So, with time on his hands, he had a wander around the local climbing walls. I think he found several that were very good indeed. I asked him what kind of people were going there. He reckoned the biggest grouping was teenage girls, out with their mates, just doing their own thing, seemingly no notion of climbing in any larger (e.g. outdoors) context - which is fine.



Agreed - but the problem is... climbing and money. In the early 90s, suits would creep round places like The Foundry, looking for the next quick buck. Luckily it didn't happen. Maybe they f*cked off elsewhere. Today, old mates run walls and do nicely out of it. Good on 'em. But what they don't want is...

...the crags to get a makeover. Here, on Portland, folk come straight from walls (in the US, it's 'climbing gyms' - uugh!) wanting the outdoors to be like the indoors err... outdoors. And that's kind of OK on Portland. But it's not OK in lots of other places. And I worry that, after the Dawn Wall (and a 50% increase in numbers?), the sons of those suits (still suits!) will return, wanting to sanitise climbing... 'cos, hey, that's where the big bucks are. Sanitisation rules (well it keeps your punters alive).

I hope I'm wrong. One good thing is - I usually am!

Mick

In reply to Mick Ward:


Well in Holland there isn't any outdoor climbing so I don't think that is unsurprising when climbing outdoors means going to another country. I think its amazing climbing walls and climbing ever got started in Holland in the first place. I imagine that might be an interesting story in itself. But I'm know that happens here quite a bit too and probably always has done to a certain extent.


I remember climbing at Portland last year. I was belaying my friend who is also a very experienced climber having climbed all over the world. He was about 15 feet up when suddenly he stood on something and a huge ledge of rock came off. I just managed to dive out the way in time. One second later and it would have been certain death. It definitely made me think that people coming directly from walls might have to learn a few things before being going outdoors. Even at Portland its definitely not the same.

I certainly take your point about sanitisation. I think some people want outdoor sport routes to be equipped with the bolts as close together as they are indoors and consider routes run out when a bolt is below their feet. I recently heard that someone climbing at Malham didn't like one of the runouts there and so just put an extra bolt in. Hopefully the route will be restored at some point if it hasn't been already.