Three of Britain’s best competition climbers were at the Westway in London yesterday to introduce the sport to the wider media as the countdown towards the Olympic decision continues. Ed Douglas looks at the progress being made, and at the likelihood climbing will make it.
Getting sports editors interested in minority sports is notoriously difficult. It’s not their job to reflect the diversity of sport in Britain, just to get readers, and that means anything without mass appeal will struggle to get attention.
But the journalists who accepted the BMC’s invitation to learn a little more about competition climbing seemed genuinely impressed at the vitality and appeal of what they saw yesterday at the Westway. And in the women's events at least, we have immense potential should climbing make the Olympics.
World number three Shauna Coxsey, despite carrying a finger injury, gave a brilliant display of why bouldering is such an exciting addition to competition climbing. And one of Britain’s brightest young talents, Molly Thompson-Smith gave a demonstration of lead climbing, the discipline in line for inclusion in the Olympics.
At 15, Molly is a real contender for the Olympics in 2020. Already the current Junior British Bouldering Champion and the British Youth Open Lead Champion, she has won major titles every year since joining the youth categories and is already on the GB bouldering team.
As Molly powered her way up a 7c route, I caught sight of Ian Dunn, the junior team coach and a longstanding supporter and volunteer in the development of competition climbing in the UK. Ian has been right at the heart of the changes that have brought the prospect of climbing’s inclusion in the Olympics to fruition.
When Ian started climbing in the 1970s, the chances of someone like Molly experiencing climbing were slim. Now with climbing walls, coaches and competitions, the appeal of the sport is undoubtedly broader.
‘I’ve been involved right from the start, competing, building walls, coaching climbers. It’s been a real adventure, although maybe a different one from what some climbers might think of as adventure. There’s a really great sport here to watch, and being involved with young climbers is just amazing.’
Youth was a central theme in BMC CEO Dave Turnbull’s welcome to journalists: ‘Climbing has a fantastic appeal to young people, more so than many other sports. If you think of schools, the majority of them now have climbing walls. That isn’t just the case in Britain, it’s the case right across Europe.’
In fact, it goes a lot further than that. Scan through the list of world-ranked climbers, and you can see that climbing’s appeal stretches far beyond the traditional ‘Alpine’ countries that are the heartland of other mountain activities. Climbing, unlike skiing, is a sport that really does work in the city, opening the sport to a wide range of backgrounds. That’s why it has spread so quickly through Asian countries like Japan and China, and into urban centres in North America far from the mountains.
The question is, can climbing now get into the Olympics?
Not surprisingly, this is difficult to say. Attending the Westway event yesterday was journalist Tom Degun from specialist sports politics website Inside the Games. His take suggests that climbing is a strong contender but believes squash is the current front-runner.
In the UK at least, squash has been able to raise its media profile, having the resources to hire specialist campaigning PR agency Vero, although judging by this blog from a squash fan, they don’t feel their profile is nearly high enough. Even so, the BBC in particular has given lots of attention to squash's Olympic bid – unlike climbing’s.
Competition climbing in the UK has a long way to go to match the profile of even squash. It's still an unknown quantity among mainstream sports journalists. But watching world paraclimbing champion Fran Brown at the Westway leave her wheelchair on the ground and climb a demanding route persuaded those journalists who did come that there are all kinds of extraordinary stories to be told about the sport.
In the meantime, the BMC will continue to showcase competition climbing, and is already considering how it will adapt to manage the inevitable funding implications of Olympic status. Climbing's chances will become a little clearer in May when the IFSC presents climbing's case in St Petersburg to the IOC's executive board.
Twitter: when tweeting about climbing's Olympic bid please use hash tag #climbing2020
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