UKC

The GB Climbing team management have announced the Climbing Teams in Junior Lead, Boulder and Senior Lead and Boulder that will represent Great Britain for 2016.

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In reply to UKC News:

So does this mean Molly Thompson-Smith, Jen Wood and Dave Barrans will be doing both lead and boulder events? Seems a very demanding undertaking that only the best climbers usually attempt like Ondra and McColl. Ondra even said he was out shape for the lead WCs after the boulder events which accounted for his slow start to the lead season.

In reply to UKC News:
Surprise surprise. No mention of the GB Ice team yet again !!

In reply to stp:

Those climbers who have been selected for multiple teams will decide which events to concentrate on and will work with the Team Managers to be able to compete at their best at their chosen events. No climber will be doing a full season of all events in all disciplines.

In reply to Ian Dunn:


Surely that's a huge disadvantage. If they skip comps they simply won't amass the points. Also seems like this would be the best way to gain experience, and get to know the foreign teams and learn from them?

In reply to stp:

so first you are saying they should only do half the events (lead or boulder) and then you are moaning that they won't be doing all of them... make your mind up =P

In reply to stp:

I'm pretty sure one of the reasons team members won't be attending all events is cost. By competing in both lead and boulder world cups they will have more access to "cheaper" events in Europe etc. Thus gaining more experience in top-level comps.

Of course if cost wasn't an issue I'm sure most people would like to compete in a full season in one discipline.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

Just saying given our consistently poor performance spread out over decades maybe we should be humble and learn from the countries that do well.

In reply to stp:

I think your perception is wrong, at least when it comes to boulder results. National Team Rankings are available back to 2005

2005 4th
2006 6th
2007 8th
2008 14th
2009 11th
2010 9th
2011 8th
2012 6th
2013 6th
2014 6th
2015 7th

In reply to Graeme Alderson:

Interesting and a better than what I would have expected though still not brilliant considering bouldering seems to be our strong point. Never made top 3 in a decade. Also we are a big, rich country with thousands of climbers, brilliant training facilities, we invented indoor climbing and were the the first with a modern wall.

Also worth balancing with the lead team results...

2015 - 21st
2014 - 22nd (tied with Hong Kong)
2013 - 25th (lowest country to actually score)
2012 - 24th (just beat Venezuala)
2011 - 34th (Scored 1 point compared to the winning country's 2623)
2010 - no UK entry
2009 - 24th (Joint last with zero points)
2008 - 28th (Joint last with zero points)
2007 - 31st (1 point ahead of Kazakhstan and Macedonia)
2006 - 28th (beating Chinese Taipei and India by one point)
2005 - no UK entry

In reply to UKC News:

So we had a World Champion in 1989 and it's been all downhill since then!

In reply to stp:


It's probably better to think of being named in the Team as having the opportunity to compete, rather than the right.

Quite a few GB Team members don't go on to compete internationally, due to injuries, form etc but they come under the guidance of the the national coaches, to give them a good chance to get good enough to compete.

So someone in both Teams gets twice the guidance and twice the opportunity but can choose where to specialise if that's what they want to do.

Team GB may well punch below it's weight, but turning up to watch Slovenia isn't really going to help much.

In reply to UKC News:
There are very few team members who climb full time. Everybody who is on the team including the management are volunteers and get no financial support. All costs for training, competing and coaching are self funded (including insurance and competition fees). It would be almost impossible to compete in all the competitions during the year but add in the expense and it becomes apparent how difficult it is-not only are they paying money out but they will be losing money from time off work or missing study time /classes etc. It's a very difficult balancing act and hats off to the guys who manage and compete for team GB.

In reply to stp:

I'm still not clear what you are getting at. Are our results good given the fewer comps we enter or poor for a country of our size and pedigree. It seems to me funding needs to improve before we can make any such judgements (I tnink the team do a great job for what they have). The UK has always had a bigger proportion of climbers with an anti-comp mindset.

I'd say the difference between disciplines is because bouldering is much more fashionable for the young climbers interested in comps, partly as there are more high quality local bouldering walls than lead walls.

In reply to winhill:


Maybe that's our problem. How can we possibly compete against the likes of Slovenians, Austrians the French etc. They're so damn good we may as well not waste money sending people out there. That seems to me to be a sub text of the teams approach towards competitions.

Maybe we should be thinking that instead of going out to merely to watch the Slovenians we should be going out to beat them. That might not be realistic in the short term but why is that such an unthinkable target? Unless someone can prove there is something deficient in British climbers genes there should be no reason why we can't compete with, and beat, the best in the world.

In reply to stp:



It's obviously realistic because Shauna Coxsey is already doing it.

In reply to Offwidth:


For me the latter definitely stands out. I'm shocked at the some of the countries that now seem to be our peers. Countries so small and/or poor I didn't even know they had climbers there let alone were able to produce teams that can rival ours.



Yeah, I think in part it stems from the fact we are an island and geographically cut off from the rest of Europe. A minority of climbers have travelled but most haven't and so remain somewhat ignorant of climbing elsewhere. So we're pretty insular, always looking inward. What surprises me though is these other places in the world that are equally cut off from mainstream climbing culture: Venezuala, Hong Kong, Chinese Tapei (never even heard of that till I saw it in the results page). Maybe its that our own culture is so long and rich that it acts like a lead weight and prevents us moving forward.

In reply to stp:
You've seen this already, but I posted this in response to your thread a while back and thought it could add to the discussion here! http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=620476 'Why is British Climbing so Behind?'

"Regarding the GB Lead team, we don't currently have the set-up required to have athletes making finals/podiums in senior international events. Without going into great detail, it's fairly clear why this is and has been explained to some degree in the comments above.

The cost of travelling to competitions is just one part of it - add in training costs, physio support and all the rest and it gets even more expensive. Time for training and travelling to events at senior level becomes more problematic than at junior level, with work and family commitments coming into play. The standard is higher and at the same time training becomes more tricky to fit in - thus the level of commitment needs to be pretty intense! On a cultural level, I think our 9-5 working lifestyle and tendency to rush into higher education is an additional hindrance, abroad the approach is different and this helps the fragile transition period between junior-senior level go a lot more smoothly. Add to this the fact that interest in competing is limited (due to the aforementioned issues) we often end up with motivated individuals having to train alone. On the continent, clusters of team members can train together on a regular basis or have funding to travel to national centres with groups of other athletes.

We have a very talented and hard-working junior team, but it is incredibly difficult to make the leap to senior level without the support that other countries receive. This doesn't mean no-one can do it without, but just that it'd be really bloody hard!

In the UK, the attitude is very much "climbing isn't a sport", "climbing isn't/shouldn't be competitive." There are many Brits who believe that trad is superior to other forms of climbing for various reasons. If you're getting into climbing and are exposed to a particular attitude or discipline, it's inevitably going to affect the direction and form which your climbing takes (unless you're a 'rebel' who is more reluctant to jump on the bandwagon.) This is especially true if you're an easily-influenced, easily-lead kid. I think as a nation we place bouldering before sport a lot of the time - a massive generalisation, but we do have a stronger history of performing well in bouldering (outdoors or in comps) on a global scale than we do in sport.

On a wider level, this attitude extends to the amount of funding a particular area of the sport/hobby receives from governing bodies and other potential sponsors. Greater interest and participation attracts more money, rightly or wrongly. Our indoor facilities are mostly built as commercial recreational centres, not as elite training facilities. Visit walls in countries where climbing is a national sport - Austria, France - and there is a big difference in the scale and difficulty of the walls and routesetting. We are, however, fortunate to have world-class bouldering facilities which is a massive boost for our bouldering teams.

Back to sport climbing, since the focus of the majority of climbers in the UK is on climbing traditional routes of a much lower difficulty than the sport routes climbed abroad, that affects our basic 'performance' standards overall. Mainland European countries have a stronger sport climbing scene, primarily due to their plentiful supply of bolted limestone cliffs. If we consider role models in our local area or even our climbing partners, there is a tendency to aspire to the level of those around us. Whilst in the UK the average grades (VERY roughly) according to these UKC graphs (http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/graphs.html#gradetype2) are 6a+ and HS, you can expect the sport grade to be significantly higher in France, Spain etc.

As a junior competitor, I was constantly asked why I didn't want to climb outdoors/trad climb and get into "real climbing." I think this speaks for itself really, and whilst I am beginning to enjoy trad now through my own choice, looking back I'm glad I was stubborn and independent enough to ignore other people's opinions on what "real climbing" should be for me! The beauty of climbing is in its wide range of disciplines, surely!? Each to their own and all that..."
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I'd add to this now that we also lack the facilities to train top lead climbers, and of course we don't have world class sport crags either. You can train on circuits and on the bouldering wall, but competition routes are very unique and you need to experience them regularly to improve - it's a lot of tactics and techniques that you won't get to try out on your commercial climbing wall. Once again it boils down to funding: of course we want more team members to get out there to experience these routes at international events or training sessions, but this costs (a lot of) money!

I'd say we have a fair few world class bouldering facilities in the UK, but on the lead wall front we fall short (with one or two exceptions) in terms of size and steepness of wall plus the difficulty and quality of setting.

In reply to stp: on a plus side. The GB ice team had a podium in their first year. Shame not many people know about it due to their lack of support though.

In reply to Natalie Berry - UKC: A great reply and spot on.


This seems to be absolutely true, especially among the large numbers of recreational climbers I see around SE walls. The number of 'good' boulders now vastly outweighs the number of 'good' sport/lead climbers that I see. At my local wall there seems to be no shortage of people around (young males generally) who are super psyched to boulder hard indoors and outdoors, but I only think of perhaps one or two other climbers I've meet there who are more into hard sport.

Just one recent example. On Saturday, the turnout for the Petzl Lead Comp at Reading was really poor compare to the sort of turnout bouldering comps now get (25-30 competitors compared to 100+). That was despite it being well advertised and there being really good route setting.

Given our (relative) lack of world class outdoor sport routes I suppose there is a strong argument for accepting that we will struggle with competition lead climbing and therefore focus the limited resources more on bouldering where there are better facilities and much a larger number of young and enthusiastic participants.

In reply to Natalie Berry - UKC:

Interesting post Natalie but I'm still a little suspect of some of this.

I pretty sure we have much better training facilities than many, if not most of the countries that compete. Certainly a few of the big European countries have advantages in this respect, along with some of the best sport crags in the world. But even in somewhere like France, if you live in the North like Paris you are many hundreds of miles from the sport climbing areas in the south. But do countries like Hong Kong, Ukraine, Azerbaijain, Israel, Russia, Czech Republic, Venezula or even Slovenia have better than us? From the videos I don't think Kranj wall looked as good as the better UK walls. And according to videos Ondra's training this year consisted mostly of circuits on a very rudimentary plywood wall.

On lead walls last year in Sheffield some routes were set specifically for training competition climbers, up to 8c. Alex Megos even paid a visit and did all but one of them. Can't comment on the quality but I think we have some very experienced route setters here. Steve Mac, Ian Vickers both have a lot of experience. Yann Genoux I believe sometimes sets international comps. Team member Dave Barrans also sets as does ex team member James Garden.

For funding I'm pretty sure if we had say Adam Ondra and Kim Jain on the team we'd soon find the money to send them to all the comps. So I'm suggesting its maybe more a case of the will to send people rather than the cash.

I have some doubts about the trad brigade. There's no doubt the 'climbing isn't a sport' type of message comes across most vociferously. But I remember reading a Steve Mac article some time ago where I think he was suggesting that more climbers here now are solely indoor climbers and those who climb outside are a minority. If that's right then I would think the UKC figures are poor representation of climbing trends overall. Just because it doesn't offer much for those type of climbers.

In reply to stp:

Most of the French lead team are based nearer to the French alps in Grenoble/Voiron or Aix-en-Provence where there is access to dedicated training facilities where the team can train together and of course indulge in some quality sport climbing. Unsurprisingly, there is a larger concentration of the bouldering team members centred around Paris and Fontainebleau.

I can't comment for most of those countries you list but climbing is a highly respected (I'd go as far as saying 'national' perhaps) sport which attracts more funding in Slovenia. Kranj sports centre isn't open to the public throughout the year but is used for competitions and the national team training events. It is fairly old school but is steep, long and will have world-cup standard routes on it year-round for the team to train on. Adam Ondra might train a lot on his circuit board but he also gets the chance to climb outdoors considerably more than most people in the UK, helped by the fact that he is a professional climber to start with.

Of course we do have some international-standard setters in the UK but they will most likely be pretty spread out around the country (just like our team lead team members) and the concentration of routes will therefore be fairly diluted around the UK. There are higher concentrations of these setters around Sheffield and London. We have more routesetters qualified for international boulder setting at senior level than lead though IIRC.

It's a full-time job trying to find funding for a national team, and a job which is currently unpaid in the UK. It's even harder to source money for a non-Olympic sport like climbing. Self-funding athletes will struggle to make international competitions and training once travel, accommodation and time off work are taken into account, so funding and sponsorship is often the only way to make it happen.

I agree with your last point - I think competition climbing is gaining ground and hopefully we will see some changes in the near future!

In reply to Ice Jedi:

The Ice team compete in a UIAA comp, rather than IFSC, and are not involved with the BMC comps section, through their own choice.

In reply to Ice Jedi:


Ice climbing comps in this country are a very niche part of niche aspect of a minority sport, where do you expect this funding to come from?

In reply to UKC News:

The Norwegians don't seem to perform remarkably well either, yet they are willing to pay a head coach on a part-time basis:

Head coach for Norwegian Youth Team
The Norwegian Federation is looking for a head coach for their Youth Team who will be responsible for some 6 - 8 guys, based on a 30 % position making some Euro 11 000 per year.

In reply to Tyler whoa back up there. Who said anything re funding. Support doesn't need to be financial. At least put them on the Bmc site with the other GB teams. They're doing the same thing.

In reply to Ice Jedi:
On a per person / per event basis they are funded more "generously" than the sport climbing teams are by the BMC.

In reply to Ian W: like I said before, it's not just regarding funding. I don't know about the funding part of things as I just know some guys who are/were in the team. it just seems a shame that there's no mention of them on the gb team page when the lead, bouldering etc are.