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Angela Eiter becomes the first woman to climb 9b (Read 29854 times)

Oldmanmatt

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Worse, perhaps, is that male athletes at that level, in similar sports, probably carry very similar body fat % to their female counterparts, we’re just overly conditioned to see female bodies as requiring a certain shape.

Without commenting on the rest, as you and Pete have made similar comments on this, this point overlooks the different essential fat percentage between males and females.

No, it doesn’t, because I wouldn’t expect her to remain in that condition beyond the “event”.
If she consistently sustained an unhealthy BF% then we’re talking about a concerning issue.
Shit, when I was prepping for Expeds (cold climate) I’d load on over a Stone before and lose that and more in a couple weeks. I was like a waif when they pulled us off South Georgia after 12 days and I’d been chomping in excess of 4000 kCal every day.
Is that healthy?
Not if you do it every week, but once a year?

teestub

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I was only talking about your point regarding comparing body fat %age between male and female which I think is inaccurate, not your wider point re: dropping ones weight for ‘the event’ which I generally agree with.

abarro81

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Pretty sure she looks like this a lot, not just when cutting for a proj. Saw her in FJ in Sept*, and she looked painfully thin

* From what I saw she wasn't in super-crusher form at that point

Doylo

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I was only talking about your point regarding comparing body fat %age between male and female which I think is inaccurate, not your wider point re: dropping ones weight for ‘the event’ which I generally agree with.

Come off it, according to Wikipedia shes around 46kg so we’ll take that as ballpark. No one who’s around that weight should need to ‘drop weight for the event’.  That’s fucked up.

tomtom

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OMM’s point is very good though - how often do you see people ‘calling out’ Mo F for being dangerously skinny etc.. etc..

Re Wetherspoons - It’s strange - when I was a yoof the old alkies in the boozers were always wizened and thin - now they seem pasty red cheeked and fat...

teestub

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Come off it, according to Wikipedia shes around 46kg so we’ll take that as ballpark. No one who’s around that weight should need to ‘drop weight for the event’.  That’s fucked up.

Sorry I meant in terms of a tactic in general, I'm not commenting on this particular case at all. I remember you proudly showing off your lack of podge after some intensive dieting!

OMM’s point is very good though - how often do you see people ‘calling out’ Mo F for being dangerously skinny etc.. etc..

This is my point Tom, and why a male to female comparison is inaccurate. Essential fat for males can be as low as 2% in males, so you could be Mo Farah skinny and be metabolically healthy, for females the quoted low number is 10%.

Doylo

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Come off it, according to Wikipedia shes around 46kg so we’ll take that as ballpark. No one who’s around that weight should need to ‘drop weight for the event’.  That’s fucked up.

Sorry I meant in terms of a tactic in general, I'm not commenting on this particular case at all. I remember you proudly showing off your lack of podge after some intensive dieting!



[/quote]

A bit of slimming is part of the game, always will be. I’m generally a fair bit lighter in summer. Not really through dieting, I just stop eating as much garbage when it finally stops raining and get out more .   
I don’t give too much thought to peoples weight in these vids but she just looks ridiculously thin. Only other example I can think of which I’ve thought that about is Katie Brown back in the day (who admits now she had an awful eating disorder).

petejh

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Re Wetherspoons - It’s strange - when I was a yoof the old alkies in the boozers were always wizened and thin - now they seem pasty red cheeked and fat...

It’s all those ‘substantial meals’.


Chris - according to reports and interviews, Katie Brown was experiencing emotional abuse from her family when she was winning climbing comps as a young teenager and struggling with ED. Classic age and circumstances for eating disorders (not that there’s an age limit).
Different context to a 35 year-old married adult. And she has guns bigger than yours! .. I can’t see how she’d keep musculature like that by chronic undernourishment.


We all know the difference in healthy fat % between men and women, thanks for the lesson.
Still bemused why this paternal instinct for waifs doesn’t rear its head to the same degree when Macleod and McClure appear looking like starving ghosts?

Apparently they have the good sense to look after themselves and know their bodies..

abarro81

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You just answered your own question.. it seems to be significantly easier for women to fuck themselves up than men by undereating. Also having seen Ste Mac and AE both in the flesh, there's only one that reminded me of a fragile looking 80year old but with skyhooks for fingers.

Good diet inspiration anyway ;)

Doylo

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MacLeod’s not at all comparable. I don’t see any how anyone could compare. Mcclure’s obvs tiny but I’ve never thought he looks ill or that a cold would probably finish him off. Plus he’s actually a sugar freak so I reckon that’s just his natural frame. To me this was way more visually apparent/shocking but maybe my eyes are skewed.

Plus this :
You just answered your own question.. it seems to be significantly easier for women to fuck themselves up than men by undereating.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2020, 06:31:33 am by Doylo »

Duncan campbell

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When I saw Angy Eiter at Oliana in Feb/March this year, I thought she looked unhealthy. Obviously very skinny but also would be very wrapped up in a massive downy, gloves etc despite it being pretty warm.

She also climbed with a very slow sort of weak style of that makes any sense. Ie that she looked like she lacked power. She would often just sort of whither off moves. which fits in some ways with Mina’s experience of being undernourished reducing your power.

Which leads nicely into my next point; would any of you have said Mina looked like she wasn’t eating her energy needs? She looked super healthy but at the end of the day wasn’t.

I agree with points about AE looking old for her age. Ehh I saw her at the beginning of the year I thought she was in her 40s/50s when i googled her to see how old she was I was surprised she was as young as she is.

I guess we don’t know for sure if AE is unhealthy and maybe if she has chosen this with all the information at her disposal then who are we to judge? I guess what Doyle is getting at re young female (and male?) climbers is where the issues arise.

Doylo

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Ye we’re speculating on her health - we don’t know. One things for sure though it’s not a good look; and if any influential young uns are thinking that’s what it takes to climb 9b it’s not good. Looks fuckin horrible to me, I’d rather watch some old Don Willans vids on YouTube. 

JohnM

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I can't see this thread ending well!  :worms:

Just watched her film. For what my views on female looks are worth (not much), I think she looks like many other women you might meet in alpine regions who are 'lifers' and have spent large portions of their lives up high. No idea of her background - if she'd spent her life in a low-lying area out of harsh sun and mostly going indoors then I'd probably think differently. The alpine sun is harsh on skin, if she's been going up in the mountains for 15-20 years then mid thirties is when it starts to show in some people. I'm assuming here she probably enjoys all aspects of being active in the high mountains - running, climbing, skiing, alpinism, hiking and she obviously enjoys taking this to the extremes of performance. She's obviously trimmed to the bone and muscular - you can't get muscles like that avoiding nutritious food - and in the shape of her life as a climber. Not sure I see that physique as 'unhealthy', just a result of her lifestyle and it probably fluctuates. It's undoubtedly a look that doesn't conform to the traditional norm of feminine beauty but I'm not convinced anything about it is any more or less 'unhealthy' than other elite athletes. Also have to remember she's a mid-thirties adult with adult agency not a teenager.

I think we could find the same lean haggard bodies and faces among many 'mountain lifer' guys all over the world and they'd be described as 'craggy' or 'weather-beaten' without concern for their health. It's certainly not a look you get from spending a life in Wetherspoons!

She'll probably be jogging up mountains in her 60s when average people are growing their bellies on the sofa.

Pete you have just made up a whole backstory to support your argument for her looking 'craggy'! As far as I am aware she doesn't do all the high mountain sports as you suggest and is an indoor competition climber turned rock climber who avoids the heat and sun like most people who try to climb hard! There are other climbers of a similar age who do more alpine stuff (e.g. Nina Caprez) and they don't look like that. Then again they haven't climbed 9b so maybe that is the physique that you need to reach that level. Matt has a good point about Olympic female marathon runners who would also fall into this category of being unhealthily underweight. Like I said, elite sporting performance doesn't necessarily equal healthy and outside of competitions you can't force people to be a healthy weight to perform at the top level of the sport. Looking at the 3 women who have climbed 9b at least 66.6% of them look unhealthily underweight. The sample size is obviously still too small to make any solid conclusions.   

Anyway, moving away from undereating etc 9b is a massive achievement and I think that would make it the first 9b in Austria and possibly the first 9b in any of the German speaking nations (please someone correct me if I am wrong). I didn't read anywhere though that she said it was 9b, just that it was her hardest first ascent. I think the media/over-caffeinated sugary drink company ran away with that and gave it 9b themselves. It will be interesting to see if it gets any attention from any of the other beasts living in the region. I know that at least one 9b aspirant round here bemoaned the fact that there wasn't a 9b close to home and one had to travel to Spain, but now there potentially is so it will be exciting to see if anyone gets involved. From what I have see AE has done at least 3 first ascents over the last year or so between 9a and 9b but as far as I know nobody has tried to repeat them yet so it would be cool if they go some attention as there is not shortage of people in the area with the capabilities! 

Anti

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This is an interesting discussion. Other than not fitting the box of what we think a woman should look like, what other metrics are we judging her health? She's clearly continuing to perform (second 9b now) without injury. She's hardly a punter (outperforming most men). In my limited experience of Mina's problems, she was getting injured, not performing as expected and to round it off wanted to start a family, so that was the ultimate wake up. Outside of our climbing bubble I'd wager even the larger guys in this forum probably look laughably thin to "normal" people. I know I get it all the time.

Elite athletes at their peak of performance always look crazy by standard metrics. If she was struggling to walk up to the crag or being carried away in a stretcher, but as previously indicated she's in a very select club of humans to have climbed the grade.

Duma

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She didn't offer a grade (fair enough when you're 5'1") but said it was as hard as Planta de Shiva for her which is where the 9b came from i think.
Between her and LR I know which I'd have more concerns about weight wise, but there was no comment when LR did the ali hulk thing.
Didn't Megos have to get carried back from the crag once or was that a joke? Think he had ebikes at ceuse for the walk in.

Fiend

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FWIW I highlighted Dmaccy looking like a ravening undead ghoul after his ascent of Practise Of The Wild or whatever Swiss "not as hard as Arisaig 8B" 8C he did. MoF looks like a complete freak too, but extreme running is just fucking weird anyway..

MischaHY

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I have to say I'm quite surprised by the lack of research being done considering all the conjecture here. Angy has been fairly open about having experienced eating disorders, specifically Anorexia Nervosa at a young age.

With this in mind it's worth considering that these disorders can permanently affect body composition and dietary function to a certain extent - an example would be a lady I know who no longer experiences hunger and simply eats at meal times or  when she starts to shake due to low blood sugar. Obviously it's inappropriate to assume anything about someone who you don't know and whose circumstances you don't understand - but I do think it's important to look at this in context.

My general opinion is that it's very hard to comment on whether some is properly fuelled simply based on body composition and that a real opinion can only be formed after viewing a food diary over several weeks and considering their activity level etc. Some people are simply just leaner.

I must confess I did feel uncomfortable watching the video. I also think it's also disingenious to suggest that 'she's got guns so it's fine' because a) the body will maintain muscle mass that is regularly loaded (maintaining movement over everything) and b) the leaner you are, the more visible your muscle structure is. She's also got a background of decades of elite sport, so it's unsurprising that the conditioning is visible. This isn't an indicator of health.

Many are comparing to the usual suspects i.e. Ste Mac but this is once again disingenious because men and women are not the same. If you compare to Shauna then the difference is striking.

I do however think it's good that these things are discussed rather than being simply accepted as 'the price of performance' or some similar nonsense.

Muenchener

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the first 9b in Austria and possibly the first 9b in any of the German speaking nations (please someone correct me if I am wrong).

One claimed by Pirmin Bertle in Switzerland but repeated & downgraded by Adam Ondra iirc

Will Hunt

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If you compare to Shauna then the difference is striking.

I don't disagree with what you're saying, Mischa, but comparing against Shauna isn't exactly like for like. Shauna is more a boulderer than an endurance athlete.

MischaHY

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If you compare to Shauna then the difference is striking.

I don't disagree with what you're saying, Mischa, but comparing against Shauna isn't exactly like for like. Shauna is more a boulderer than an endurance athlete.

That's a fair point - but then take Julia, Nina, Babsi. All (IIRC) 9th grade climbers and all far less lean. Nina and Babsi also closer in terms of age.

abarro81

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Matt has a good point about Olympic female marathon runners who would also fall into this category of being unhealthily underweight. Like I said, elite sporting performance doesn't necessarily equal healthy and outside of competitions you can't force people to be a healthy weight to perform at the top level of the sport.

Yeah, to clarify my posts I'm definitely not saying she "shouldn't" look like that, or that it's bad for her climbing, or that anyone other than her should make a choice about how she chooses to be. As others have said, adults can make their own decisions around these things, and none of us know her health (although as an aside, "society" does ban some things, e.g. PEDs, partly to protect high-performing athletes from themselves).

I mostly just wanted to point out that the "I bet she cycles in and out of super-thin mode" folks were almost certainly wrong. Also that - as teestub pointed out - the comparisons to men miss a key factor.

It's also entirely plausible that she looks unhealthily thin but that her body is unusually resilient to being light, and things like her hormonal system are actually totally fine at that weight. This could also be true for elites in other sports - e.g. the v thin marathon runners. Maybe the fine line between olympic gold and crashing out with REDs and multiple stress fractures in some of these sports is the genetic luck around what BF% things like your endocrine system can cope with before they shut down? But, as Doylo implied, if I had a daughter or were a coach to young athletes, there's no way I'd want to show them vids of her doing well. Her body might cope with that, but most peoples' won't, and that's not the easiest thing to articulate to impressionable youngsters

tomtom

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Great post Mischa.

I shared an office with a man with anorexia for a few months as a PhD student. He died from it shortly after. I can't really begin to understand what happens - other than its really is so much more than simply not eating.

Fultonius

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I think Alex' last statement nails it really.

I think it's a good development that we're starting to question the "do what it takes" mentality, especially for women. Top end female athletes, due to the power:weight ratio required in climbing are often going to be treading the thin line between light and unhealthy. We, as bystanders/onlookers can perhaps comment that someone looks like they are potentially on the unhealthy side, but short of being able to ask directly "how is your period" and getting bone density test done, we'll never know.

Edit: I know lots of folk on here know Mina well, so I'll tread carefully but I don't believe at any point during her worst time she ever looked particularly unhealthily thin? I guess my point is that the indicators of health are more complex and less outwardly obvious than just how ripped and veiny someone looks? I would agree with most (and my other half when she saw the video did too) that AE does look "unhealthy" and, Pete, given the number of "craggy high altitude super fit" types I used to mix with in Chamonix, I think that backstory doesn't even start to explain it. But the point is, if she "is" unhealthy someone should be looking out for her.

However, in our own circles we may know, especially younger, girls/women who are pushing in the sport and I think it's vital that we/they understand that serious damage can be done, and that maintaining hormonal health is vital. Coaches, fiends, partners. Too many old guys on this forum to fix these things though!!!

I guess there is an analogy to be made with modelling?  Some countries have banned excessively thin models being able to go on stage. Cannot imagine how that could be done in practice, but I guess a start would be the likes of over-caffeinated sugary drink company properly looking after their athletes...but then that would mean banning their own unhealthy sugary caffeine drink so that's not going to happen.....

Of course, men can also do damage to themselves, but it's much, much harder. (Or so current thinking says...)
« Last Edit: December 18, 2020, 10:39:32 am by Fultonius »

mrjonathanr

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Cognition is altered in very specific ways under 50% BW, but is seriously impacted before that too.

Aussiegav

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Cognition is altered in very specific ways under 50% BW, but is seriously impacted before that too.
Spot on!!

The physical ill health is a longer term product of mental ill health when talking about body dysmorphia & eating disorders.

 

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