i agreed trad had effected it in my second post.
Like a lot of people he got into bouldering during its boom in the late 90s put up some of our hardest boulder problems including a couple of traverses that were among the hardest bits of climbing in the world at the time and repeated what was at the time the hardest boulder problem in the world. So he did go on from Hubble
how this could put someone off sacrificing, time, money and effort into training in gym for 12/24/36 months to get to there peak level to do a properly hard route only for the media to report things much easier with the same level of excitement
(1) Do the cream of British climbing youth get into sport-climbing as opposed to other climbing disciplines? (2) Do the British underperform in sport climbing versus comparable nations in terms of population, funding, climbing participant population?
Not sure you're equivalence is too good since the current top sports routes are heavily dominated by only 2 climbers
There is more press given to trad climbing because there is more to celebrate
Unfortunately the topic has gone very much UKC re trad is better and more justified than sports climbing which is a shame.
Quote from: gme on October 07, 2014, 01:08:04 pmUnfortunately the topic has gone very much UKC re trad is better and more justified than sports climbing which is a shame. I somehow overlooked the bit where anybody said anything even faintly resembling that.It has been pointed out that many uk climbers choose to pursue other avenues than hard sport climbing, and in some cases are definitely world class at those other things. How is this denigrating sport climbing? Perhaps it reduces the potential pool of people who might otherwise have gone on to become top sport climbers, perhaps it doesn't, but either way I feel to see how it's automatically a bad thing. You seem to me to arguing/assuming the exact opposite: that sport climbing is better and more justified than other forms of climbing and somebody like Hazel F is wasting her talent / setting a bad example to the youth.
And the 80s scene was fuelled by the UK's high unemployment and so many young climbers choosing to sign on and just climb. Would that explain why standards were so high overall?
climbers and the media fail to perceive the difference between hard and really hard and therefore we have set the bar too low, and this level is not worth reporting when compared to world standards
have never once said sports climbing is better
Quote from: nai on October 07, 2014, 02:02:15 pmAnd the 80s scene was fuelled by the UK's high unemployment and so many young climbers choosing to sign on and just climb. Would that explain why standards were so high overall?It was more the "Enterprise Allowance" than the dole (or purely "signing on") that had such a positive effect on UK climbing in the late 80s. But yes.
Yes it was sign on every two weeks, giro arrived 2 days later so effectively 12 days in between. I think they asked if had you been looking for work and had you done any work paid or unpaid, a Yes and a No, sign your name and that's you til next time.
There's an interesting bit in (I think) Deep Play by Paul Pritchard, where he talks about the levels of unemployment and the morality of removing oneself from the competition for the few jobs available.
...So can anyone in the know try and compare just how world class we are at trad compared to sport? Are repeats of 20 odd year old trad routes any more impressive than repeats of 20 odd year old sport routes?
As an example, Caff repeated The Big Bang, 9a and has openly admitted that it took a lot of effort over a period of months. He then repeated Indian Face in an afternoon? Maybe two? I'm pretty sure that the latter was more celebrated despite this.
Quote from: bendavison on October 07, 2014, 03:38:22 pmAs an example, Caff repeated The Big Bang, 9a and has openly admitted that it took a lot of effort over a period of months. He then repeated Indian Face in an afternoon? Maybe two? I'm pretty sure that the latter was more celebrated despite this.Ben I guess this comes back to being able to tell stories as JB eluded to earlier; it makes for more of an article returning to a wall where you very nearly died a decade before to repeat one of the seminal trad routes of the UK. Compared to this going on a diet and doing a lot of deadhanging lacks a certain amount of interest for the masses!http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=63370http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=5736
I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to trad, so sorry if this is sounds either offensive or stupid, but I don't really know how UK trad compares to the stuff abroad