Climbing Has Changed

Climbing is a sort of known sport these days. There are many different types of it. That includes bouldering, sport, and speed climbing. These disciplines are only for competitive climbing. There are a lot of other types of climbing outside of the competitive realm. There is free climbing, free soloing, trad (traditional) climbing, aid climbing, and of course, bouldering, sport, and speed. For the competitive disciplines, the observers are not allowed to tell the climber any beta or how to get up the wall.

Bouldering is many individual, short routes or “problems,” that are attempted without a climbing rope but with landing mats below for protection. In bouldering competitions, the competitions are scored by checkpoints. For all checkpoint holds, other than the finish hold, control shall be awarded where the competitor has made use of the handhold to achieve a stable or controlled position; or to control the momentum of a climbing movement; or while in a calm or controlled position and where the use is deemed helpful to advance in the problem. In bouldering, control of the finish hold shall be awarded where the competitor has made controlled contact with the hold with both hands while in a stable or controlled position. The checkpoints are labeled 5, 10, 15, 25 (25 is the top of the route). Four is the maximum amount of checkpoints, but there are routes with less than four. If the competitor falls off the route, s/he gets 0.1 points subtracted from their total score. Upon the completion of his/her attempts of a problem, the Judge shall inform the competitor as to which point, on the route, s/he was scored. Bouldering is fun for the untrained because they don't have to know how to tie any knots.

Sport climbing is when routes are climbed on lead or top-rope, with the competitor belayed with a climbing rope from below. These walls are tall; they have to be at least 25 feet high.

Climbing Rope

For lead, each quickdraw is clipped sequentially. Lead and top-rope are sub-disciplines to sport climbing. The type of sport climbing is not optional. The competitor has to be 13 and older to climb on lead. Otherwise, you have to climb on top-rope. Leading is when you take the rope with you and clip into quickdraws on your way up. Top-Rope is where the rope goes from the climbers harness up to the top of the wall and back down to the belay device. For lead competition routes, the route shall be considered 'successfully completed' if it has been climbed to the top and if the rope has been clipped from an appropriate position into the carabiner on the final quickdraw. Additionally, the competitor must demonstrate control of the finish hold. For top rope competition routes, the route shall be considered successfully completed if it has been climbed to the top and if the competitor has successfully demonstrated control of the finish hold. Competitors are not required to match hands on the finish hold for lead or top-rope.

For speed climbing, the routes are attempted on top-rope or with an auto-belay. They are timed for speed. The faster the competitor is, the better. There is a national set speed route for competitors 13 and older. For competitors younger than 13, they don't know what speed route they will be climbing. Other than that, speed climbing is rather self-explanatory. The climber climbs up a wall as fast as they can, nothing more.

Bouldering, Sport, and Speed are all very different. In the next Olympics, in 2000, climbing will be one of the new/accepted sports. The only unfortunate part about it is that one person from each country has to run/do all of the disciplines. This is very hard because Bouldering, Sport, and Speed are very different. Not just one person can do all three disciplines. The Olympics needs to have one person for each discipline. Luckily though, in the 2024 Olympics, there will be one person per discipline, it's great!

Coming from a climber, having climbing in the Olympics is an honor. Also, being able to teach younger children to climb and have fun on the wall is a great experience. The evolution of climbing has come so far from where it started. It started from the climber placing their bolts, outside (which is dangerous), to now, where we can climb indoors, even when it's snowy and rainy out.

This is a rack of cams going from small (left) to large (right)

Climbing started to be a thing around the 1880s. It was a sport for hippies and daredevils. To climb in the 1880s, climbers would climb up with a hammer, bolts, bolt hangers, and some clips. They would go to where they think would be an excellent place to hang their rope, and then they would hammer bolts into the wall. Then they would hang off of that bolt placement. Then around 1960-1980, people started to think about finding better and fresher ways to climb. This new way of climbing was called trad climbing. Trad climbing is where you climb up the wall, you have gear hanging to you, and you can put that gear into the small, medium, or big cracks. The older types of equipment were called hexes (hexcentrics) and later on the cam was invented. The hex is a camming device that uses pressure to hold you up, nothing more, and the cam is a spring-loaded camming device. Both the hex and the cam were removable, and they left no trace on the rock. The climbers made this new way of climbing because they were climbing in places with lots of cracks on the wall. This place was Yosemite. They also did this because the old way was putting holes into the wall. Putting in those holes would make the wall not last as long and start crumbling away a ton faster than it should have. Most climbers nowadays either stick with trad climbing or climbing with bolt hangers already set into the wall. There are some climbers though who do something called free soloing (Free Soloing is not advised). Free soloing is where you climb up thousands upon thousands of feet of wall with no rope in sight. Alex Honnold just did a big free solo. He climbed El Capitan and its 3,200 feet of sheer granite.

This is a rack of hexes (hexcentrics) going
from small (left) to large (right)

"People who know a little bit about climbing think, 'OhYa, he's totally safe,' and then people who really know exactly what he's doing, are freaked out," - Tommy Caldwell

That quote from Tommy shows that you can/will get more scared for Alex if you know what climbing is or what he is doing. Otherwise, you would have no idea what he is doing, so it wouldn't scare you. Also, the filmers of anything free solo related are also really scared. They would be having hard times trying not to imagine their friend falling through the frame to their death. That's the reality of free soloing.

Climbing has come a long way since it had started. Climbing went from being a sport for hippies and daredevils to a sport that is for the family and the adventurers.


Sources:
Rulebook - BOULDERING SPEED SPORT - readkong.com. https://www.readkong.com/page/rulebook-bouldering-speed-sport-4767851