According to her 8a scorecard 11-year-old Brooke Raboutou has done her first 5.14b in Welcome To Tijuana at Rodellar, Spain. This makes her the likely youngest to ever achieve such a grade and no doubt the shortest as well. The 50-foot power endurance route Welcome to Tijuana is a popular first 5.14b as it was Brooke’s brother Shawn’s and Sasha DiGiulian’s first as well. It only took DiGiulian 14 months to make the jump from her first 5.
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14b to climbing 5.14d, I wonder how long it will take Brooke??
First 5.14b For 11-Year-Old Brooke Raboutou
Posted In: Asides, News, Sport Climbing
Climbers: Brooke Raboutou
Areas: Rodellar
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25 Responses to First 5.14b For 11-Year-Old Brooke Raboutou
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Interesting that a bunch of the young phenoms are women…or girls, rather. Brooke Raboutou, Ashima, Cicada Jenerick (didn’t she climb V10 at age 10 or something?). Makes me think of an Andrew Bisharat article where he argued that women should be climbing harder than men due to their lower average bodyweight.
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That’s incredible. I agree with Colin…seems to be that some attention has shifted from the strongest muscle climbers to a less widely heard of division of climbing…makes me happy to see more attention on the girls
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Amazing. Will be fascinating to see how she progresses as she gets older. Does anyone know how tall she is?
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the real question is, does anyone know how tiny her fingers/hands are?
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Yeah thats wild. The youngest and shortest to ever climb 5.14b and she is a girl. Height is also such an advantage in climbing that she managed to compensate for.
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is height such an advantage? Most top female climbers, from my experience, seem to be on a shorter side (probably couple inches shorter than the average height of a women)… Katie Brown, Emily Harrington, Lynn Hill, Sasha Digiulian, etc etc… all fairly short. As for men, most seem to be fairly average height (5’9″-6’0″) at the tallest, with perhaps a few exceptions that are taller (and definitely a few that are shorter so I suspect if you averaged them all out they would end up being average height).
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Interesting side note: Dai Koyomada is 5′ 4″. Watch his and Sharma’s sends of Dreamtime side by side for… an education in the relative advantages of tall and short.
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Just want to point of out the obvious exception to this rule of Adam Ondra who last time I checked was crushing rocks with his bare hands.
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Height is definitely an advantage but it’s not an excuse. My meaning is that as a short climber myself I see other tall guys that have not climbed as long as i have make some reachier moves easier than I can, that being said I have to train harder and stronger to reach those areas that takes a taller individual to reach easily, Alex Puccio is also pretty short but what she lacks in height she makes up in strength and technique.
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Height is an advantage, except for when it isn’t. A tall person is going to have trouble with high steps and scrunchy moves just like a shorter person may struggle with long reaches.
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Being tall is a net disadvantage in the majority of climbing situations, especially outdoors. Looking at the heights and weights of top climbers should be enough to tell you that short and small is where it’s at. Dave Macleod’s “9 out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes” does a great job of explaining why. There are also a few good articles on the interwebs.
Strength-weight ratio is king in climbing and, other things being equal, a taller climber can’t match a shorter climber in this category.
Being short or tall is not an excuse to not be a total badass, as there are both Klem Loskotts and Ramon Julians out there crushing, but you will find the majority of these badasses look much more like gymnasts (but less buff) than basketball players.
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Fair enough, it makes sense. I guess that is the beauty of climbing, it gives the opportunity for the individual to think and be creative. What works for one climber on a route may not work for another.
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While I appreciate the sentiment that we certainly haven’t seen the last or the best out of this young phenom – I’d be concerned if there was a genuine pressure from the media to see how fast she advances. We’ve all see what can happen to young athletes when they push too hard, too fast, joints get wrecked, psyche turns to burnout, unhealthy training regiments (poor diet, etc).
Just crush for yourself, and keep on.
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I thought about that when I wrote that last line, but I think with parents like Brooke has it’s hard to worry about such a thing with her
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Any thoughts on downgrading Welcome to Tijuana? It seems to be everyone’s first 14b. Are the grades in Rodellar just easier? It seems like a nice place to bump up your 8a card.
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Funny how this only comes up after a little girl has climbed the route.
When you’ve sent it, you’re welcome to offer your opinion on the grade.
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Maybe it’s just an epic classic. Aesthetic line, cool moves, easy approach, well protected.
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Jesse, why do you assume that Airs questioning of the 14b grade has anything to do with Brooke being a girl…the fact that an 11 year old sent it seems more impressive than the gender distinction…I mean, compare your average 11 year old girl next to your average 11 year old boy, and they are pretty much the same…unless you look at the fact that girls hit puberty before boys, therefore a 11 year old girl doing this route is less impressive than an 11 year old boy… Or whatever…
I don’t doubt the fact that welcome to Tijuana is a 14b, though I also see nothing wrong with us questioning the validity of the grade, specially in light of her setting a world record.. People question world record breaking performances regardless of sport, age, or gender…no need to get overly defensive n this case…it’s normal.
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“Little girl” covers the age, too.
And here’s why I think it’s important to call people out (or be “overly defensive,” in your words) when they make comments like Air7386’s:
Did anyone question the grade of Entlinge when Daniel Woods flashed it? That was also a “world record-breaking performance.” No, they didn’t. http://climbingnarc.com/videos/daniel-woods-flashing-entlinge-v14-v15-murgtal/#comments and http://climbingnarc.com/2011/11/fred-nicoles-entlinge-v1415-flashed-by-daniel-woods/#comments
How about Lucid Dreaming, after Paul Robinson got the FA? Here’s a line that eventually WAS downgraded–surely skeptics had voiced their opinion then. Nope–another standard-setting climb, and not a peep about downgrading. http://climbingnarc.com/2010/03/rastaman-vibration-sit-start-fa-by-paul-robinson/#comments
How about when Adam Ondra or Chris Sharma open new 5.15b FAs? Nope and nope. http://climbingnarc.com/2011/04/another-potential-5-15b-by-adam-ondra-in-spain/#comments and http://climbingnarc.com/2011/04/chris-sharma-does-first-ascent-of-first-round-first-minute-in-margalef-spain/#comments
How about when Alex “Socks” Johnson climbed Welcome To Tijuana for his first 5.14 EVER, skipping 5.15a entirely? Nope. http://climbingnarc.com/2011/08/first-5-14-for-the-other-alex-johnson/#comments
The point is this: as we’ve heard time and time again, grades are subjective and imprecise. We know this. And yet the time when this discussion becomes BY FAR most apparent is when a little girl has climbed something hard. For more, see the reaction to Ashima’s send of Crown of Aragorn http://climbingnarc.com/2012/03/10-year-old-ashima-shiraishi-repeats-crown-of-aragorn-v13-hueco-tanks/#comments
Where are all the grade-skeptics when Jon Glassberg (6’4″? With a +something ape index) and Daniel Woods (5’7″?) climb the same problem? Big morphological difference there, yet no one makes a peep about the grade. Where are the skeptics when all the top-tier (and sometimes second-tier) boulderers are running laps on Never Ending Story? There have been 20+ sends of that, and for many of the climbers, it’s their first V14.
Air7386’s comment is typical and symbolic of a disturbing trend in the climbing community when it comes to women and children (especially young women). Thankfully, we have moved past the days in which John Sherman felt comfortable automatically downgrading Better Eat Your Wheaties after Bobbi Bensman’s send. But we still need to be careful about the way in which we talk about and value the contributions and successes of female climbers. Constant vigilance!
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People definitely questioned the grade of Entlinge when Woods flashed it, including Daniel himself. It was v15 after two ascents. Daniel recommended v14 after the flash.
People definitely questioned Lucid Dreaming when Paul recommended v16. Paul questioned it himself at the time and eventually recommended v15, even though it was not repeated.
People question just about everything, but maybe not on climbingnarc. Go to 8a, UKC or B3 next time something big makes the news. You will usually see plenty of questioning and pointless speculation. It’s a lot of people’s favorite thing to do on the internet.
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Jesse,
All the points in your post are very valid. I was not trying to belittle Brooke’s ascent. She is an amazing climber and the ABC program that her parents put together is producing some crazy strong climbers. My post was strictly about this specific climb and how it seems to be a go-to for climbers trying to level up. You even referenced the fact that Alex David Johnson did this 14b before he had even climbed a 14a. As another poster said, maybe it is just a mega-classic and it is bolted well so people are more attracted to it than other climbs.
Well whether it is 13d, 14a, or 14b I’ll never know since I don’t climb that hard. So kudos to the people who can climb them.
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You made this plenty clear in your original post for anyone not looking for a fight. Some people just love internet drama and really can’t contain themselves when they can label their opponent anti-female.
http://www.8a.nu/forum/ViewForumThread.aspx?ObjectId=18811&ObjectClass=CLS_UserNewsComment&CountryCode=CAN
Rodellar has a reputation for being soft and it was a perfectly reasonable question. Not a debate I would want to start, or get involved in, but…
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So you take a known soft area, a small child with tiny little fingers who weighs almost nothing and has been climbing/training during their development/growth years under the tutelage of professional climber parents, and they get up a “hard” route…it just seems like a yawner, honestly.
The true test for these youth phenoms, in my eyes anyway, is what they are doing in another 10 years or so. How many burnout cases have we seen or kids who just stagnated when they grew into an adult sized body?
A small child getting two pad deep jugs up something an adult would get half pad crimpers on is obviously a different experience. Why people take offense to that being pointed out is a mystery, and they always come in the same form of arguments: “When you climb it / if you climb that hard then you can comment,” or the “woman hater/kid hater” argument.
Come on, it’s ridiculous. We often choose an “easy” at the grade climb for our first at that difficulty, whether you are aiming to be “the youngest to climb xxx” or just a regular Joe. But equally ridiculous is an argument that “Joe Schmo did a 5.xxB before he/she did 5.xxA, therefore the “b” route must be soft”. Maybe, maybe not, I think I’ve done a higher letter grade before the “next” one in my progression as often as not. Has to do more with what good routes are available at an area close enough to project them than anything to do with the actual grade.
The list of young guns who basically disappeared or stagnated is quite long. Katie Brown, David Hume, Eric Scully, Lindner, Jenerik…you’d think these folks would have been hiking 15b by now, given where they were as young kids. But they’re not. Burnout, adult bodies, etc.
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Love hearing that the girls are killing it!
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Both Brooke and Ashima Shiriashi are getting fairly close to leaving behind the innocence of childhood for adolesence. When they get to be 14-15, that is one milestone, then see what their interests are. My guess is with a little training and experience, they could do El Cap routes mostly free like the better male climbers. There is a sameness about the indoor contests, I would guess they will lose interest in them after a few years.
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