Sunday, 27 April 2014 23:29

MyOutdoors talks to Andy Turner as he heads to Sochi for the Olympic Ice Climbing demonstration

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With the sporting world's attention on Sochi for the Winter Olympics Britain's Andy Turner and Malcolm Kent have been invited to take part an ice climbing demonstration event which, while not qualifying for medals, will act as a showcase for the sport. Over the last few weeks Andy and Malcolm have competed as part of a rejuvinated GB Ice Climbing team in the UIAA World Cup, with venues spread around the world from Korea to Switzerland and with live streaming of most of the events have built up a strong following back home in the UK.

Andy Turner in action in the UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup

As Andy Turner headed to Russia, where he'll remain following the Olympics for the final World Cup round at Ufa, he kindly took a little time out to answer a few questions about the sport and its future in the UK.

Q.             Although called “Ice climbing” when it comes to competitions it appears that ice only covers a small proportion of some of the routes…….(do you call them routes?). Presumably this is for consistency and a guaranteed surface, but how does it compare to real ice?

R.   15 years ago the comps were run on pure ice, as techniques and peoples strengths have increased over the years this became too easy so resin and rock holds on ply boards were the next step. These now get steeper and steeper each year. The ice included on some routes now is more of a token gesture and is usually the only safe haven from techy holds as its normally drilled to get the consistency for everyone.

 

Q.             Who belays the climbers in competition?

R.    Generally people sorted by the local organisers. Can be anyone from local mountain guides to 8ft russian power lifters.

 

Q.             Watching some of the streaming from this year’s World Cup there’s some big differences in the time allowance for lead climbing at different venues, is the time calculated according to the difficulty or the height?

R.   The times for comps are roughly the same for each round, 6mins for qualification, 8-9mins semis and 12 mins for finals. I think these times are generally set by the route setters who have a constant battle trying to gauge the routes to make sure to many people don’t top out especially for the finals or getting the 2 qualifying routes roughly the same grade. But yes, it’s all dependent on the length of the route and how hard the route setters think they are.

 

Q.             The basics of scoring seem quite obvious with clipping a runner giving the competitor a point but how do the decimals between full points work?

R.   The routes are split into zones decided by the quickdraws. It’s generally good practice to try and clip draws as quick as you can so then at least if you come off you’ve got yourself in the next zone. The decimal points are the holds in between the quickdraws and are dictated by whether you manage to latch the hold and then make positive movement from it.

 

Andy Turner in action at Champagny in the World Cup

 

Q.             There’s been a big increase in British competitors this year, is there a reason why?

R.   The odd person from the UK has competed over the years but the reason for the big increase this year is mainly due to me getting the GB team recognised by the BMC as an official team. Also I’ve tried to push to get folk keen to compete by organising a few events to raise peoples awareness of the World cup events.

 

Q.             We’ve seen several British climbers reach the semi-finals of World Cup competitions this year, both in the men’s and women’s competitions, but how far behind reaching a final do you think we are and how will we bridge that gap?

R.   This year has been our first proper season of competing as a team and yes we have done amazing especially with Tim Miller and Emma Powell getting 4th and 3rd in there categories at the Youth World Championships. This is despite not having any proper training facilities. The Russians and Koreans are world leaders at these comps and thats because they have dedicated comp walls which enable them to climb on competition holds and be able to kick into plywood just like in the World Cup. It wouldn’t be hard for this to happen in the UK as we now have so many walls, it just needs us to raise the profile of the sport so that the wall owners see some commercial benefit to it.

 

Q.             It’s been great watching a new wave of British ice climbers competing this year, does it help having a few more friendly faces around on the tour?

R.   The World cup circuit is one big family that tours the world competing and having a laugh. Everyone is out to help each other out regardless of where you’re from. To now have a growing GB team to share these experiences with makes it all the more fun, especially bringing a strong line of young climbers  and giving them experiences to hopefully be future World Champions.

 

Q.             It will have come as a shock to many to hear that an ice climbing World Cup round in Italy has been cancelled due to snow – what’s all that about?

R.   Most of the World Cup rounds are run in beautiful mountain settings as opposed to indoor climbing walls that’s what makes them such amazing events to take part in. The down side of this is you can get too much snow or like in Romania this year it was too warm and the speed climbing comp got cancelled.  2 metres of snow that fell in Rabenstein over a couple of days. The wall sits in a steep sided valley which you access down a 1in 4 hill. It was very disappointing not to compete there as I was eventually starting to climb well but totally understandable, the UIAA have to think about the safety of the climbers and the organisers.

 

The ice tower at Olympic Park in Sochi (Photo: Lukasz Warzecha for UIAA)

Q.             Being invited to the Winter Olympics must be a great personal boost but can British ice climbing make the most of the opportunity to both increase the profile of the sport and bring some much needed finance into the GB Team for future years?

R.   Being invited to the Olympics is yes a great personal boost to me but I also a massive one for Ice Climbing around the world. It’s a huge stage on which to showcase the sport to the public. I think with most sports finance only comes with success unfortunately. British cycling for example was nowhere until Chris Boardman won Olympic Gold in Barcelona(?) in the early 80’s, we got the velodrome for the commonwealth games in Manchester in the late 90’s which then became the stomping ground for the likes of Wiggo Cavendish and all the other World and Olympic cycling champions we now have. Its up to us now to raise the profile to get youngsters climbing and hopefully produce future world champions and I believe its truly achievable we just need to put the right building blocks in place. And compared to the price of a velodrome a climbing wall is peanuts.

 

Q.             Next stop is Sochi for the Winter Olympics and something of a new experience even for regulars on the World Cup tour. What are you expecting from the games and will you get chance to mix with the other GB Winter Olympians?

R.   Im really excited about going to Sochi for loads of reasons. Nothing is bigger on the sporting calendar than the Olympics. We were told from an early stage that there was never going to be a competition there which to begin with was very disappointing but what it now gives us is a stage in which to get the general public participating in the sport to give them the true appreciation of balancing on there crampons and axes and feeling their forearms and calfs burn just like they do for us. We as GB Ice Climbing have been hitting the social media sites hard trying to keep everyone informed of whats going on but to also get the other GB athletes down to take part. I’m hoping the athletes from the new sports of slope style and boarder/skier cross come down as well as I’m sure they’ve all been in the same position as Ice climbing over the years trying to get coverage for their sports and it would be great having them showing support for our campaign.

 

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support over the last few weeks and months it’s been amazing and I absolutely wouldn’t be at the Olympics without the financial backing and support of a whole load of people and organisations. Pleas keep following Team GB Ice Climbing and helping us promote our sport.



Note: This article was restored from the archives. It's published creation date is inaccurate.