[Will Hunt]

Worlds greatest climber takes moral high ground by refusing to be filmed. Dedicated athlete gets out climbing every morning doing dead 'ard repeats and new routes

How early are we talking here? Did he bike to the crag? Was there a spaniel?

[Rocksteady]

Edit: Will your description of the differences in culture is most likely accurate. But you can't 'set yourself up to be a significant football player/athlete/boxer/astrophysicist', if you aren't actually one.

I'm not sure this is true as 'marketable' i.e. attractive or socialite or self-promoting sportspeople have always had more media attention and therefore have been able to command bigger purses, sponsorship etc. versus more talented but less marketable ones. Prince Naseem, Audley Harrison are good examples of boxers who generated hype and earned more money than their betters, at least for a while. The difference is now people can self-promote more effectively whereas they used to have to use agents and promoters. I'm sure footballers with better agents have done better than more talented footballers with worse agents. The machinery of fame is just more evident now. FFS, people are millionaires just by talking about their daily make-up routines, with zero talent except for publicising their inanity!

I don't think in any endeavour the world works or has ever worked as a meritocracy of talent. People who publicise and market themselves more effectively will always gain more recognition and money. Achievement in sport itself is not remunerative unless there is a prize purse. How is a prize purse generated? By sponsors who see some advantage for themselves in being associated with the publicity!

It's only time passing that puts relative achievements into perspective. How many artists, writers etc that we now revere died in poverty? I can think of a fair few.

Better for the Climbing Today thread sorry OT 

For me, anyone putting up new routes is deserving of massive respect as they are expending time, energy, effort and money creating something for others to enjoy, for free. 

[cowboyhat]

 Achievement in sport itself is not remunerative unless there is a prize purse. How is a prize purse generated? By sponsors who see some advantage for themselves in being associated with the publicity!

It's only time passing that puts relative achievements into perspective. How many artists, writers etc that we now revere died in poverty? I can think of a fair few.


For me, anyone putting up new routes is deserving of massive respect as they are expending time, energy, effort and money creating something for others to enjoy, for free. 

Good post.

Not sure Prince Naseem is a good example, he banged out loads of talent, I saw it. (Awful human being mind)


That is an invitation for some boxing pedant to come and here and tell me how wrong I am.

[galpinos]

I'm not sure this is true as 'marketable' i.e. attractive or socialite or self-promoting sportspeople have always had more media attention and therefore have been able to command bigger purses, sponsorship etc. versus more talented but less marketable ones. Prince Naseem, Audley Harrison are good examples of boxers who generated hype and earned more money than their betters, at least for a while.

Wrote a long reply to this but lost it. In essence, take tennis, the best aren't necessarily those who earn the most.

Anna Kournikova - Net worth in excess of $50 million, less career success than Tiger Tim
Maria Sharapova - Highest earning sportswomen in the world despite competing in the smae sport as the best female sportperson ever (debatable but you get my point). Takes a drugs ban to get knocked off top spot (but only to second)

[petejh]

To all who are comparing climbing with various sports/sportspeople - ask yourselves how it then works with the 'sportswriters/media/fanbase' - for want of a better word - in the respective sports that you've mentioned.

I.e.
Anna Kournikova: widely held view that she was a better model/advert and relatively shit at tennis, compared to the genuine talent of someone like Venus Williams.
Audley Harrison: ridiculed for being a dopey slow slugger TV 'personality', compared to the world-class talent of someone such as Wladimir Klitschko.
David Beckham: widely accepted that he was a decent player with a stratospheric level of self-promotion - and nobody except his wife would say he was a comparable talent to a truly great midfielder such as a Zineden Zidane, Lothur Mathias, Michele Platini or Cruyff.

You could go on with various names from various sports.


So what exactly are people saying? That when climbers self-promote nobody else - those in the peanut gallery - should point out the disparity between the hyperbole and actual achievement?  Where does that leave us? Why should climbing get a free pass?  

Hype is a theme in climbing just like it's a theme in the rest of life - I get that, I'm not blind.

But it's also a theme in the rest of life that when hype doesn't match achievement it's OK to discuss it. You could say it does and should come with the territory.

[lagerstarfish]

 Prince Naseem ...(Awful human being mind)


That is an invitation for some boxing pedant to come and here and tell me how wrong I am.

Prince Naseem is not an awful person. He simply has T.W.A.T Personality Disorder and therefore cannot help doing the things he does

[abarro81]

We're way off topic here, but I think Pete is right - the general public might not know who is/isn't backing up their profile with results in tennis or boxing, but you would expect people into those sports, and the media covering them, to know that. In climbing you do wonder whether most punters have a clue, in part due to the fact that websites like UKC do a very bad job with their reporting. I suspect a lot of this comes down to the ease of putting something up when supplied with a report and photos/videos by the climber, compared with the effort of hunting down comments/photos from more impressive feats by climbers less inclined to push themselves. This creates a slightly weird thing where, for example, it's news for someone to climb an 8B, but not news that a bunch of other people climbed the same 8B in the preceding few months.

[kelvin]

Hype is a theme in climbing just like it's a theme in the rest of life - I get that, I'm not blind.

Yeah it is but in my mind, it's easier to put it right in other sports due to regular competitions that the best take part in. "How many grand slams?" Serena Williams record speaks for itself. "How many gold medals?" Mo Farah can show you his. "World records?" etc etc etc but climbing has this vagueness around it due to the same grade not being equal at all. "9a?" Era Vella or Action Direct 

The 100m final of the Olympics is pretty definite (bar drugs testing) and the world record too. Climbers can't agree on grades, let alone what makes a someone a 8b climber - 2 tough ones or 10 soft ones? And in climbing, that's where people could play to their particular strengths and promote themselves.

This Joe fella, I'd not heard of him despite being on facebook and instagram. So he cocked up with the grade? He was probably always going to if he's not climbed an 8a route. When it comes down to it, he put up a new route in the Peak which is to be applauded and can anyone really hold him to account for the vagueness of our climbing grades?

[Rocksteady]

To all who are comparing climbing with various sports/sportspeople - ask yourselves how it then works with the 'sportswriters/media/fanbase' - for want of a better word - in the respective sports that you've mentioned.

Hype is a theme in climbing just like it's a theme in the rest of life - I get that, I'm not blind.

But it's also a theme in the rest of life that when hype doesn't match achievement it's OK to discuss it. You could say it does and should come with the territory.

OK I get what you're saying now Pete. Seemed before you were railing at the unfairness of a climbing world where hypers get more credit than genuine wads. But I 100% agree with this clarification. Extraordinary hype calls for extraordinary scrutiny. The climbing world/media has not worked out a good forum for doing this. Apart from UKB of course.

[Teaboy]

I'm assuming someone can point Joe towards this thread so he can add his two penneth?

Why? So he prostrate himself before us for the hideous crime of misgrading a climb and putting an video of climbing on the internet

[Teaboy]

Luke’s new route is brilliant. A genuine three star gem, rising traverse above a roof. Cool visual line, great rock, and brill technical moves make it a proper classic 7c in waiting. And it turns out he’s been a busy man developing routes all over this underdeveloped crag. A good tecky 7b (sandbagging sod!); a re-equipped 2-3 star 7a; another 7b+ in development and a 6b+ warm-up. All bolted by Luke (except the 7b+ by, ahem..). On a crag most sport-climbers would balk at even visiting lest developing.
So I’m stood there belaying and looking around, knowing how much effort Luke’s put in to develop new routes and re-equip teh old ones at this crag, and I’m thinking not for the first time that this right here is the lifeblood of climbing. This is what climbing exists on. Routes. New ones. Good ones. Poor ones. Bold ones and safe ones. And information - inspiring ..

I bow to no one in my admiration for the work you've do e for NW climbing, a genuinely selfless act but lets not pretend that the motives of new routers are just altruistic, just because they are not spraying on Facebook doesn't mean they aren't after their own bit of glory even if it is just the lower key but longer lasting thrill of see their name in a guide.

[Doylo]

It's TumblrTuesday if anyone would like to ask Sierra Blair Coyle a question on Instagram.

[moose]

Not sure Prince Naseem is a good example, he banged out loads of talent, I saw it. (Awful human being mind)
That is an invitation for some boxing pedant to come and here and tell me how wrong I am.

I agree.  Hamed is generally viewed more as a (slightly) wasted talent than an undeserved hype job.  He fought all the best, unified most of the belts, and was the lineal titlest - lots of defences against credible opposition.  Unfortunately he was a poor trainer (loved sparring but not the road work etc) and fell out with the Ingle gym (bizarre kidnap plot involving Jonny Nelson as I remember?!) who nutured him and kept him reasonably straight.  He ended up with Manny Steward, who whilst a great trainer for certain types (rangy, cautious heavyweights), was a poor fit for a brilliantly unorthodox talent. He had already lost his sparkle and enthusiam before he lost to Barrerra.  Still; he achieved a lot in a short space of time, just a shame it didn't last longer.  Probably a top 10 British fighter ever, and in the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota - which given how USA-centric that place is shows that he was rated outside these shores.  Ring Magazine rated him as one of the Top 50 hardest P4P punchers ever too.

Audley was just horrendously ill-suited to pro boxing.  But his Olympic gold, at a time when GB boxing had no funding and we hadn't had a boxing gold for around 30 years, means I have a soft spot for him. If he had stayed amateur he could have been a GB sporting legend rather than a joke.

Generally, boxing is savagely meritocratic.  Eventually hyped prospects have to step up, peope will only pay to see soft match-ups for so long before they want to see a meaningful fight.  And, if they are unworthy they are found out.  Witness last weekend - reality TV star / gilded amateur Anthony Ogogo was blown out by a journeyman.  Frankie Gavin, still GB's only ever World Amateur Champion gold medallist, payed for his indiscipline as a professional and was soundly beaten by the deeply limited Sam Eggington. 

The main example for me of a undeserved construct of social media is probably Anna Kournakova - never won a meaningful tournament but was the highest earner in the game due to her looks and consequent sponsorship.

[cowboyhat]

In climbing you do wonder whether most punters have a clue, in part due to the fact that websites like UKC do a very bad job with their reporting.

Everyone who goes in the Castle thinks that Neil Gresham is the best climber in Britain.