By: Elijah Winn | Editor
December 11, 2019
The 2020 summer Olympics are going to Tokyo as athletes compete for medals for their home countries. The 2020 games bring big changes to the Olympics with new sports being added to the games such as softball, surfing, skateboarding, karate, and climbing.
Climbing has three main disciplines that pit climbers against each other, testing their strength mentally and physically. The Olympic committee has combined these, normally separate events, into one giant event for climbers. Lead, bouldering, and speed climbing, each event requiring different skills and strengths to be successful. Lead climbing requires the use of a rope and is comparable to a distance running event. Throughout the climbing route on the lead wall, certain “checkpoints” reached will award the competitor a point. So, whoever gets the farthest wins. Bouldering is more comparable to a shorter distance event, as athletes are required to make bigger, harder moves as the routes are shorter compared to lead climbing. Competitors are given four minutes to reach the top of a route in a set of four routes. If a climber does not reach the top they can be awarded points for reaching a midway point. The amount of attempts it takes to complete each climb will also factor into the points awarded. Lastly, speed climbing is a wall with a route set that is designated specifically for speed climbing. So, all the speed climbing routes are the same. This discipline is split into different heats, tournament style, so competitors only have to beat their individual opponent in their heat to move on. The higher a climber places in the speed discipline, the more points they get. In the end, all these points are averaged to figure out a climbers placement in each event and then will be multiplied and averaged to determine the gold, silver, and bronze medalist. This is where the controversy arises.
San Clemente High School senior Ricky Bright said, “The mixture of all three disciplines is not smart. It’s like trying to make a sprinter compete in a marathon.” Senior Julian Olivares said,“It misrepresents the climbing community and is so disappointing to have climbing finally added to the Olympics, like this.” This has been the general reaction to speed, bouldering, and lead being combined into one event. The committee only allotted three medals for men and women each forcing the IFSC(International Federation of Sport Climbing) to have the events combined into a “triathlon” style event. This constricts athletes to train for events they don’t normally compete in and changes the competitive aspects of sport climbing for the worse. Some professional climbers have voiced their concerns, but most are complying as they are excited to be competing in the Olympics. But, the addition of climbing in the Olympics will hopefully introduce more people to the sport and inspire more people to start climbing. This surge of new climbers may push for the Olympic committee to allow more medals for climbers and separate the disciplines as they traditionally have been.
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