hello this is a great question. Some peole have already answered it but the thread is getting a bit confused. Young climbers seem to be improvibng for a number of reasons, more surport from parents(very noticeable in USA),more surport from general community, comps are very respectable in many places and not ridiculed, training is much more understood, facilities are much more suited to modern hard bouldering(ultra steep reasonable holds), kids heal quicker and improve quicker, fantastic ability to learn and best natural testesterone. Creatine is helpining the elite and finally there is also abit of funny grading going on. Light body wieght due to bones not catching up yet and some preety interesting body shapes in general.Some of these things have been seen before but not altogether or so frequently. Look at the photo of Benidict Moon in the power of Climbing book and you will see a great climber light strong,exellent body tension result Hubble, how many routes have Font 8b on them today 17 years later? Second ascent of Hubble The great Malc, incredibly light, was he disimilar from todays boulderer? If you add only a few percent of performace and some dodgy grades to a few of the old lads you come to todays standard(maybe).Onda is a brilliant climber, nurtured by surportive parents, has his own little circuits and gets a great deal of other surport, I imagine he could do a one day ascent of Rapsody as could Paxi. If they turned there hand to other forms of climbing I am sure they would be brill, ice climbing is slightly diferent in that you need to be used to a new medium, ice is a bit like loose rock not every body has the mental skills to deel with it.Anyway as an aside dont believe every thing you hear. Onda is having trouble with Punt X a route of Alex Chabot,clearly much harder than Action D. Saw Monsieur Chabot climb the other, a rare combination of power and stamina.Great topic, am continually stoked to see youngsters sorting things. Yours Stevie Haston.
saw him last night finishing off 500+ routes in a day.
I don't think the power camps would have much call there, by his own admission not a strong boulderer yet. Shouldn't be long though, saw him last night finishing off 500+ routes in a day.
even the likes of al manson ran cross country for yorkshire
Quote from: webbo on July 24, 2008, 03:26:19 pmeven the likes of al manson ran cross country for yorkshire I personally had cross-country talent down as an archetypal "never got picked at football" trait. I'm pretty sure my ability at it was a result of an ardent desire to put distance between myself and the bigger, more popular, more psychopathic lads. And to this day, if you want to see the speed of light being broken, you just have to produce a rugby ball!
it used to be a cliche going on for a rule of thumb that people into climbing used to be the sort who said `ooh I was never any good at sport at school, I was always the last one to be picked to be on the football team'.
At climbing trees though, I was the best.
I think Cricket didn't suit my alpha male persona. Then again, it could have been that I was fucking shite at bowling, couldn't be arsed with fielding, and I would get struck out when batting far too easily.
