To be good in the sport of climbing, you have to be good at solving problems.
At the Guelph Grotto Climbing Gym, if you’re real good at solving problems, you’ll likely end up on their youth competitive team.
There are 16 climbers on the gym’s competitive youth team this year and several of them will be competing in the eastern Canadian regional championships in Quebec City in January.
“This year is the first year we had actual team tryouts,” youth team head coach Mat Moreau said. “Before I made them write a report. Now they’re trying out and they’re a bit more committed to the competition series as it has gained traction in the climbing community and it’s growing rapidly.”
Competitive climbing has three disciplines – bouldering (climbing to 12 to 15 feet without ropes), roped (where competitors get a single attempt to complete the climb) and speed.
In bouldering, competitors will have five minutes to complete a climb, known as a problem, using the holds that have been placed in the wall. Each competitor will not see the problem until right before he or she is to compete.
“I give myself between 30 and 40 seconds on each problem to determine data which is a way to do things. It’ll usually take me less than that, but that’s the alotted time I get,” said Dawson Shepherd, the newly-crowned provincial champion in the youth A boys category.
“Usually you can tell right away because you’ve climbed a thousand or more problems in your own gym and something will relate to something you’ve done before.
“I usually give myself a minute because you only have five minutes to climb it so I take a minute to figure it out and brush the holds if they’re too chalky,” said Stephanie Svaikauskas. She was fourth in the junior girls’ class and she’s qualified to compete at the regional meet. “If you take too long, then you don’t have enough time to actually give yourself more than one attempt to climb it.”
There are four categories in competitive youth climbing and they’re all based on the age of the participant. C is for 12- and 13-year-olds, B for 14-and-15-year-olds, A for 16-and-17-year-olds and junior for 18- and 19-year-olds. Those older than the junior class compete in the open category, although that class will also take participants as young as 16.
While climbing does take physical strength, it’s also a sport that requires mental toughness. Competitors must be quick to decide how to conquer a problem and then there’s also the isolation room where the climbers are kept until it is their turn to compete.
“You could be sitting in isolation for up to five or six hours given the number of athletes there are,” Moreau said. “You have to manage yourself so bring lots of food. You can have no electronics or communication with the outside world when you’re in isolation. It’s kind of a unique space.”
“It was a challenge at first, but then I kind of grew to like it because you get into your own mindspace and you teach yourself to be positive about what’s about to happen,” Shepherd said. “I’ll sit there with a blanket over my shoulders and I’ll smile really big. That makes me feel really good before I climb.
“I’m not going to lie, I definitely think about what’s going on out there, but I’ve stopped caring about what other people are doing. I’m very much in my own headspace and I’m just trying to figure out ways for me to succeed.”
The isolation room might be a place where competitors can play mind games with one another, but Svaikauskas said that isn’t something that’s happened with her and she once had to wait in the isolation room for more than four hours before competing.
“The girls who are in my category, I don’t really think about them when I’m warming up or I’m in isolation especially since some of them are my really good friends,” she said. “It’s more like we’re encouraging each other to be better and we’re not necessarily competing against each other.”
Another climber who has had success in the sport is Julia Bunko. She qualified for the Youth Pan-American Games for the second time this year, but she won’t be going as it interferes with her studies at the University of Guelph. She had originally planned to compete, but civil unrest in Ecuador where the competition was to be held forced its portponment.
Bunko also serves as an assistant coach with the youth team and feels she can draw on her competitive experience to hep her in that position.
“I think it definitely helps to know what they’re going through,” she said. “A lot of the climbing can be emotional so knowing tips and tricks that helped me in competitions emotionally, I can pass that on to them which I think is really helpful.”
While the competitors weren’t originally looking for a relationship with the sport when they first took it up, all say they quickly fell in love with it.
“I kind of got hooked right from the beginning, even before I was succeeding,” Shepherd said. He originally started climbing when he was three, but migrated away from the sport for a couple of years before returning. “I kind of remembered how much I missed it. It’s a great sport.
“It used to be a workout, and then it became a way to get out stress and go have fun. I’m not thinking about anything else when I’m at the gym. I’m living in the moment and it’s good to just catch yourself up and just ground yourself.”
“I started climbing seven years ago. I just started climbing with my brother and then joined the competitive team more as a way to climb with some buddies than to actually compete. It’s evolved from there,” Bunko said.
She actually tagged along with her brother when he visited the gym after getting a free month’s pass at high school.
“He invited me to come along and I was hesitant to do at first, and I came in once and I was hooked,” Bunko said.
“I started climbing when I was around 9 and I started competing when I was 11 or 12,” Svaikauskas said. “I just came with my best friend and I fell in love with climbing.”
And all figure 2020 will be a big year for the sport of climbing as it’ll be a demonstration sport at the Olympics in Tokyo.
“It’s super exciting,” Svaikauskas said. “When I first started climbing I never thought it would be in the Olympics. It never crossed my mind, but it’s so exciting, especially for all the younger climbers who are joining climbing right now so they’ll get the opportunity in the future to do that. Hopefully it stays in the Olympics.”
“It’s definitely a goal,” Shepherd said. “It’s very exciting and it’s just another thing to work towards. I haven’t been thinking about it a whole lot. I’ve been thinking more about the youth world championships which I’m hoping to qualify for this year. It’s great to see and I’m glad to see the sport growing.”
Other Guelph Grotto climbers headed to the regionals in Quebec City include Dylan Saffery (open men’s provincial champion), Sage Rissling (youth B girls) and Emerson Harris (youth B boys).
Adrienne Fraser, overall youth A girls provincial combined discipline champion last year) will be heading to the provincial championships in her class next month.
Nathaniel Gray Lamont finished eighth in youth C boys’ category at the provincials. He’ll be the first reserve for the regional meet in Quebec City.
