Last February the sport of climbing got a step closer to being in the Olympics when its governing body, the International Federation of Sport Climbing, was recognized by the International Olympic Committee. The sport took another step this 4th of July when the IOC’s Executive Board met in South Africa and revealed that “sports climbing” had made the shortlist of new sports that could be added to the 2020 Games.
The quest to have climbing included in the Olympics is far from over as there is only one spot up for grabs and climbing is up against sports like baseball, karate, roller sports, softball, squash, wakeboarding and wushu. The decision on which sport will make the cut will not come until the IOC’s meeting in Buenos Aires in 2013.
Reactions to whether or not the push for climbing to be an Olympic sport is good for the sport were somewhat mixed last year, has anyone’s opinion changed since then?
Drawing a line between Indoor and Outdoor climbing will help this opportunity . Riding a bike for example: A beach cruiser is a bit more forgiving than down hill mountain biking. Indoor climbing safety is unparalleled to outdoor risks. Two different sports, Indoor climbing and Outdoor climbing.
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An obvious question seems to be: how can we make the marketing and televising of “sports climbing” interesting and exciting for audiences unfamiliar to the sport? Clearly the other sports in contention would be less exciting for us to watch, but I think we have to step back and ask ourselves what draws into sport in the first place. One, superstar athletes with some sort of competitive rivalry at the very top (perhaps Oddo vs. Ondra?) And possibly those with a lot of showmanship, like Usain Bolt. Two, it’s got to be a spectacle. Personally, I think as an outsider it would be really cool to watch deep-water soloing competitions/rounds with long routes (side-by-side) climbing and large falls into the water.
Anyways, hopefully this becomes a reality.
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Things are changing, 30,000 tuned in to watch the boulder WC Sheffield live online. But I wonder if we could utilize the format and scoring to make it a better spectator event?
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Watching people climbing plastic… not very exciting. But what do I know, watching guys drive in circles is boring too but America loves it.
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What does “sports climbing” mean? Are they considering “climbing sports” as in several different disciplines of climbing? Or is this a Jens style incorrect spelling of sport climbing?
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What does “sports climbing” mean? Are they considering “climbing sports” as in several different disciplines of climbing? Or is this a Jens style incorrect spelling of sport climbing?
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Whether it would be good or provide additional promotion of climbing is hard to say. Curling is an Olympic sport and I’m not certain that has given it any stature as a main stream sporting event. I certainly don’t see any negatives from it though. I mean whats the worst that could happen? They are likely to select whatever sport is evaluated to bring more viewership though. That said, climbing has a slim chance against baseball and karate. People love seeing someone get their ass kicked and I still don’t get baseball but people watch it anyways.
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If the goal is to make it as interesting to non-climbers as possible, it might be a cool idea to make it a water-soloing competition, such as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7qqPYoJs3M
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I still think that climbing in the Olympics is both premature and bad for the sport as a whole, but I think I covered enough of that last year.
Should it make it to the Olympics, the only format I could see truly working is the DWS competition from Spain, and possibly speed climbing. I don’t see it getting much airtime, however, until the finals.
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I think the Arco Duels would be the best of all worlds; exciting, big falls and fast for the lay-viewer and for all of us who climb, we can appreciate the difficulty for the competitors onsighting hard routes on lead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bfWM9FGGJU
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Climbing as a potential Olympic sport is quite a step somewhere…… Just not sure where…….From a climbers stand point I think it is probably a bad idea…….Our crags are busy enough as is…… However from a guiding stand point, this could be quite good for my business and the state of rock climbing guiding in the united states, a industry that is under valued and does not have the tradition that goes along with guiding in Europe.
Seth Zaharias
http://www.cliffhangerguides.com
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I think its a great idea. Way better choice then base ball, theres only a hand full of countries that play base ball. And the usa is probably going to smash it every time, but there areso many awesome climbers all over the planet. fair game!
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A little bit surprising for those of us who don’t follow baseball, but the US does not dominate international baseball in the same fashion as basketball . . . if they even do that well at all. I don’t know if it’s because of the way we put together teams or what, but a lot of countries you’d never think of own at baseball. (I think the world championship this year was in the Netherlands or something?)
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Climbing as Olympic event makes so much sense these days.
Some time ago, a number of us pushed sport climbing into the Olympics as a demonstration sport. At the time I was filming World Cup climbing competitions for Jeff Lowe. We had the media angle wired, and that mattered a great deal to event sponsors and for TV ratings.
OPTION I: (INDOOR SPORT CLIMBING)
I had five camera coverage of each super final sport climbing event. One camera to interview climbers briefly in ISO and then to follow them into the limelight in front of the wall. Another camera to capture audience reaction when climbers come out, next was an ascending camera that got close-ups, and progressively ascend for high angle shots of each climber moving up the wall, a medium side wall shot, and then a long shot of the whole field including both audience, wall, and climber. We had a director live switching hot shots (like football or soccer), and directing light exposure and acquisition between each camera, and we had a highly knowledgable announcer discussing the climb ie. Shelley Presson explaining moves, difficulty, position, and rules.
Jeff and I worked with course setters to place the ‘second’ crux high on the wall with a longer clip to the finish that allowed some big (but safe) air for failed finish attempts. There was plenty of room for belay to catch, and the final moves were all overhanging so safe. The audience went ballistic, competitors loved the rush, and when our two super finalists did make the final moves and finish, the place roared with applause.
OPTION II: (OUTDOOR SPORT CLIMBING)
Another opinion may be to take the venue out of the world of plastic, put the event on real beautiful rock with long realistic bolts (ie. Hold invitational prelims at spectacular Gorges du Verdon) maybe start with fly-by footage from a HD camera mounted drone cruising across the face of Verdon, and zooming-in on climbers way high on a climb as the camera rig flys-by, followed by high wall, on climb, interviews and prelims at Verdon, but mostly shoot awesome high angle and close up (air – miked) coverage of the real-time super finals at a nice outdoor venue like Sharma land of Catalonia, Spain. A super imposed CG route map could easily follow-up the climb with the climber, while a skilled announcer talks live about difficulty and movement.
Olympic venue viewer ratings during the super finals would likely sky rocket.
Just a few thoughts based on past experience in filming world cup climbing events.
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I agree that climbing should be an Olympic sport, as it is based on basic human movement, and deserves to be there especially if they are including spots such as badminton and table tennis…. But I was shocked to learn that the spot that climbing is trying to get into for 2020 was just opened up by the decision to drop wrestling as a core sport. Wrestling is as old as the Olympics and I think it would be bittersweet to see climbing get in now, I would rather have Wrestling get its spot back. Perhaps the politics of the IOC are ruining the Olympics and perhaps climbing is better off not being there…
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Is curling still considered an Olympic event? How the IOC makes any decision is beyond me. I would rather see climbing than curling. Just my opinion, I am glad climbing is added since climbing and mountaineering are part of world history and trans continental exploration. Climbers put up first ascents while most countries are at war.
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