to climb as well as I did in the finals and make a podium as well felt like the culmination
of almost a decade of really, really hard work.
Having an eating disorder felt mandatory in the sport.
In tears the whole time, went out to climb, didn't do well in the speed round, and ultimately
made the decision that I would
Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Coming podcast.
I'm your host Jinni and I'm excited to introduce my guest for today, Campbell Harrison.
Campbell represents Team Australia and is one of the Oceania region's top competitors
for moving on to the Olympics in the boulder and lead combined category.
He also recently got elected to the IFSC Athletes Commission, so in this episode we'll talk
about causes he'd like to champion through that, what it's like competing as an Australian,
and he also opens up about his past struggles with eating disorders as well as why he was
partially missing in Olympic qualifiers in 2020.
Hope you enjoy this episode with Campbell.
Yeah, you just came off of a really busy season, so how's it going?
Yeah, good.
It's still going.
At this point we've got the biggest event of the year coming up in three weeks or so,
the Continental Olympic Qualifier for the Oceania region.
Officially qualified for that event, I'm on the start list and now the final preparations
begin for what should be an interesting and exciting and terrifying experience.
Congrats, yeah.
Can you remind us of the dates again?
I think it is the 24th and 25th of November.
Yeah, we've got the finals are on the 25th on the Saturday, so that'll be when the Olympic
ticket gets crowned for the Australia, New Zealand region.
Looking forward to that.
How are you feeling for it?
Yeah, really good.
The selection events, we had two separate selection events, a lead one and a boulder
one, and I got first in the lead and second in the boulder.
So I'm going into the event as the first place seeded athlete.
And yeah, shape feels really good.
Feeling quite consistent, which is really nice.
And that's kind of all you can really hope for.
I think that's going to be the main game of this one is maintaining that consistency
across the two disciplines to hopefully, for me, I think it's going to be more a matter
of keeping up in bouldering and then hopefully I can score some extra points in lead that
will make the difference and fingers crossed, take the ticket.
Yeah.
Well, we're all rooting for you.
That'll be really exciting.
Yeah.
And I definitely want to get into that a little bit more in a bit.
But yeah, I think it'd be great if we just got to know you a little bit first in general.
Well, actually, so first of all, I think this is just like top of mind for me right now
because I just had my interview with Mac Room lately and people were also curious about
the commentary that you've done co-commentating.
Which World Cups did you co-commentate on?
This year, I just did Clionson for the finals.
But I've done lots and lots over the years actually, I think.
In 2017, I did a bunch.
2016, I think I did some as well.
So kind of like over the years, I've done lots of different events and it's always
been so much fun for me.
And I think it's something outside of climbing, sports broadcasting is really interesting
to me and I really enjoy getting behind the mic and experiencing it from that side of
things.
So it's something that you're maybe interested in pursuing in the future?
Oh yeah, for sure.
If I retired tomorrow and the IFSC livestream commentator gig was up for grabs, I would have
my name in the ring for sure.
I think it's so much fun and kind of a dream post-athletic career for me or one of us,
you.
But yeah, I really enjoy it every time I get the opportunity to do it.
What's your experience like in the commentary box as I guess an athlete?
Do you find it stressful or is it a smooth experience for you?
It's not super stressful for me.
I think especially when I'm not anchoring the cast, I've done a few for national competitions
where I'm in charge and that can be a little bit stressful sometimes.
I think by doing the commentary, I've definitely developed some empathy for commentators for
the details they miss and the mistakes they make.
You would never think it but you've just got so much going on in your head, you're always
thinking of what to say next.
It's so easy to forget that this isn't the hype way of the route, someone else actually
did an extra move or especially in bouldering when there's so much going on, you might have
a commentator say, oh, it's our first top of this boulder when someone else has already
topped it but that's because not only are they tracking between four to eight different
climbs at the same time but they've also got someone yabbering away in your ear telling
you when the ad breaks are going to be.
People have maybe one, two, even three different screens or sheets of paper with information
in front of you, just so much coming in all at once.
It is really easy to make mistakes but it also keeps it really exciting.
As a co-commentator for IFSC, you don't have to deal with any of the extra noise and voices
in your ears?
Not as much.
You still have some of the voices and the details and things but I think at the end
of the day, if you mess up, it's not really on you, I guess.
It's a little bit less stressful but you also have an opportunity to impart some new knowledge.
Even a commentator like Matt won't necessarily have that first-hand information of what it's
like to be behind the wall and what it's like to go through the process of a World Cup as
an athlete.
It's fun to share that side of it as well in a way that viewers at home don't always
get to experience it like that.
That's quite nice as well.
Did you find that you had any go-to phrases like Matt does when you're doing the full
commentary?
Oh gosh, I probably do.
I'm sure if I went back and listened, there's probably things that I would repeat.
Not that I can think of off the top of my head but I do remember from doing a Youth
Nationals event where I was commentating for three days in a row and you do just start
to feel like a bit of a robot just saying the same things again and again and again.
So I'm sure there's stuff in there that other people would pick up on that I'm not noticing
but in the moment, you're just trying to think of interesting things to say that you've already
said for the last however many hours.
Yeah, couldn't bear to watch it back.
Oh yeah.
No one likes to hear their voice on tape.
So yeah, I get that.
It's the worst.
So yeah, you were commentating already a bit in 2016, 2017.
So you've kind of been on the scene for quite a while.
How old were you when you first started climbing and first started competing?
Yeah, so I first started climbing, I think I was around eight years old and at that point
it was just for fun.
I think as a kid and even as an adult, I've been super into video games, especially as
a kid I was obsessed with the Tomb Raider series and I think in my mind I connected
Tomb Raider with rock climbing.
So I thought it would be a fun little sport for me to do because I was a pretty athletic
kid and that I could run and I was strong but didn't really connect with ball sports.
I wasn't super coordinated at them so I thought I'd get climbing a go for whatever reason
and just fell instantly in love with it and just over time started climbing more and more
and more.
I thought I was really good at it, started doing competitions, realized I was actually
not that good at it.
And that really lit a fire underneath me that I'd never really experienced before.
I think I started training really hard and saw the gains, saw the benefits, saw how fast
I was improving and just got totally addicted to that experience and then that developed
into a real ambition to pursue excellence within climbing I guess.
So I started doing my first international competitions in 2012 when I was like 14, 15.
Then progressed onto the senior circuit through 2015, 2016 and have competed on the World
Cup circuit pretty much every year since then.
I think the improvement I've made from coming at the very bottom of the pack at my
first World Cups to now being able to make semi-finals all the once in a season, I've
really enjoyed that experience.
And I think for me that's a huge draw card of climbing is just I really enjoy that competitive
side and I really enjoy just pushing my limits and always chasing the next thing.
Yeah.
So you went from youth to the adult circuit.
How do you determine when you're ready to go into the adult portion?
Yeah, that's a great question.
I don't even know if you could say that I was ready when I did.
I think especially when you're competing in somewhere like Australia, there kind of isn't,
if you want to compete internationally, you've got the one competition a year at World Youth
Championships and then there's not really anything else.
We don't have a youth series, like a continental youth series.
The competitions within the domestic calendar can be a little bit sporadic sometimes.
So if you want to keep pushing the limits, then the senior World Cup circuit is kind
of the thing that you've got, or at least it was when I was making that transition.
I think I just knew that competing on the World Cup circuit was my dream and my goal
within the sport.
So I just decided that that was what I was going to do, I guess.
I think initially it was super terrifying and super overwhelming.
I definitely wasn't competitive by any stretch, but if you want to accomplish something like
the first step to making that goal is trying.
You're never going to win a World Cup if you never enter a World Cup.
So I guess I just decided I had to take that leap and make it happen and see where it goes.
So was it as simple as just deciding that you're going to sign up for the other one?
No, I guess not.
There is a qualification process, of course.
You have to be able to be competitive nationally.
For instance, I think I won my first senior nationals in 2015.
So by being consistently competitive on the national circuit, I was qualified for the
international circuit.
So obviously you have to qualify, you have to have those results domestically.
You also have to save a lot of money.
All through high school I had a part-time job and I was just saving, saving, saving,
and not really spending any of it.
So there's also the financial side of things as well that's a big barrier.
Once you have accomplished those things, it's just a matter of putting in the work, being
brave and taking the leap, I guess.
So just for the travel costs and the fact that it goes all around the world, I guess?
Yeah, for sure.
My first big World Cup trip was over three months of being in Europe overseas with some
of my other teammates traveling all around.
So yeah, the cost adds up pretty quickly and I didn't have any kind of financial sponsorship
or support at that time as well.
The Australian team is totally self-funded.
So yeah, the financial side of things is definitely a big barrier that you have to be ready to
tackle and there are a lot of sacrifices I think that come into making that happen.
I talk about jumping onto this World Cup circuit like it's simple, but maybe that's just because
it's such a priority for me that it's like, in my mind I was like, well, that's the thing
I'm going to do so I'm going to do everything I can to make that happen.
But ultimately, yeah, it's quite a heavy involved decision just putting aside the resources
to even think about heading over there.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's like a huge sacrifice in terms of everything, like money, your time, what you dedicate your
energy towards.
It's a lot.
Yeah, for sure.
And I think that was something that maybe set me apart from some of my other competitors
when I was young was that I was very open and forward about climbing being my priority
even with school teachers and things that would be like, why haven't you finished your
homework?
And it's like, well, be honest with you, my priority wasn't finishing my homework, my
priority was finishing my training.
And that's maybe not everyone's way of looking at things, but it's definitely how I decided
to tackle it.
I think that's part of why I've been able to make climbing my job is that even before
it was actually a job, you have to treat it as such and take yourself and it very seriously.
Yeah, definitely.
And I guess from being on the youth circuit and the adult circuit, how do you feel like
you've grown throughout those years?
Oh God, so much, so much.
I'm definitely a completely different person to what I was when I was starting out.
Yeah, I think, I don't know, being on the World Cup circuit, especially heading over
there a lot of the time alone as the only Australian, I got these really unique opportunities
to mix with a whole bunch of climbers from a whole bunch of different countries and really
just like learn so much and it totally changed my work ethic as an athlete and my capacity
to be independent and not to mention my climbing itself, my climbing ability and my approach
to my training where I was able to grow a lot from those experiences, I think.
How did you feel emotionally going through those times?
Because it's really hard as a kid, I'm sure.
I have seen just youth competitions and you can feel the air there.
There's so much stress in the air and then afterwards everyone's crying and it's just
like, it doesn't really feel great being there.
Do you feel like there's a big emotional difference between how you perceived it as a youth versus
an adult?
Oh yeah.
You talk about crying at competitions and I, as a kid definitely did my, or as a teenager,
definitely did my fair share of crying at competitions.
I think when I was starting out, when I was younger, it had more of a feel and end all
feeling to it, competition climbing.
If one competition went bad, I remember this one competition, it was right before I headed
over to my first World Cup circuit and I came second in a senior comp.
I remember just standing in the shower sobbing, just sobbing.
I was like, oh my God, I'm not ready.
I look back and I'm like, you know.
I don't think, there were so many factors that played into me coming second in that
event but as a young person, I just wasn't really able to look at the whole picture like
that.
If you're not first, you're last, it's kind of a alias sort of mentality.
Yeah.
It definitely had its lows and its highs.
There were some times where doing it all and committing to it all has been really, really
hard and then there are other times where it pays off and it feels like it's, you kind
of trick yourself into feeling like it's been easy the whole time.
Sounds kind of dramatic with the shower.
Just standing in there crying, thinking that it's the end of the world.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, when you're in your teens, it can feel like that sometimes.
It can all feel like the, yeah, it can feel like the end of the world.
You get older and you grow up and you start to be able to conceptualize things a little
bit more.
I think you see all the competitions that you've done in the past and then all the competitions
you have yet to do in the future and it's a lot easier to look at it as just one piece
of a greater puzzle.
Whereas when it's your first just stepping onto the scene, it can feel like this is the
moment, this is the only moment, this is everything that your life has come to.
Then I'm 26 now, I'm not old by any means, but old enough to kind of realize, oh, I've
been competing for 11 years now and probably competing for a good few more years to go.
So it's kind of all just part of the journey.
Yeah, absolutely.
So previously you also mentioned that oftentimes you would be the only Australian at the World
Cups.
And so kind of just wanted to dive into climbing in Australia since it's still, I guess, sort
of a developing sport there.
Well I guess first of all, you just came off of the national bouldering or the bouldering
nationals.
And I saw you took a really big fall.
That shocked me.
That's like the biggest fall that I think I've seen in a competition recently.
I'll link it in the show notes for everyone to see.
But yeah, in general, how did it go?
Yeah.
I can mention that fall, that was definitely the biggest fall I've ever taken in climbing,
like comp or otherwise.
And it was pretty scary.
Coming into this competition, had some pretty big goals.
I think bouldering nationals had kind of always gone badly for me.
I feel like I've had really great performances on sort of all levels of the domestic circuit.
I'd like won team selection events and things like that.
But then when bouldering nationals came around, I'd never been able to even make finals.
I think my best result was like eighth.
So I definitely felt like a little bit of pressure going into this event that I was
putting on myself to be able to sort of break that curse, I guess.
But yeah, I think this event was like one of those bouldering events where I feel like
my kind of headspace was at its best.
My physical shape was probably the best it's been for bouldering and yeah, was just like
able to be really consistent throughout the rounds.
And so when I finished my semi-final and knew that I was progressing to the next round,
that was a really emotional experience.
And then yeah, to climb as well as I did in the finals and make a podium as well felt
like the culmination of almost a decade of really, really hard work on probably my less
proficient discipline of the two.
So yeah, it was a really emotional experience.
I think I surprised myself in a lot of ways regarding the massive fall I took on the second
finals boulder.
Like I was super rattled and super scared and then still managed to like pull back on
and top of the boulder and I was the only person in the round who managed to finish
that block.
And so yeah, it was a yeah, that comp was a big moment for me and like something I think
I'll be proud of for a really long time.
Yeah, is bouldering something that you actually enjoy competing in or are you kind of just
doing it because of the whole combined format?
Oh no, I really love bouldering and I really love competing in bouldering.
I think bouldering has definitely changed a lot in the time that I've been competing
and I think maybe sometimes it doesn't feel like quite like the sport that I initially
signed up for and I think that's why I gravitate towards, well part of why I gravitate towards
LEAD a little bit more, it's a little bit more classic in terms of the elements of climbing
that I really resonate with and that got me into the sport.
But no, I do really enjoy bouldering.
I just think on an international level I would like to be a little bit more competitive than
I am I think, whereas in LEAD I feel like I'm continually progressing.
So I totally err towards that discipline a little bit more than boulder per se.
But I think this event also showed me that that's changing, like I am becoming more
proficient in the modern style and the work is paying off.
So I don't know, in this past 12 months I think my attitude towards bouldering has changed
a little bit and I think there's more room to grow in that discipline than I maybe thought
there was.
I guess I'm kind of surprised that you think LEAD is still a little bit more old school
because they've definitely been setting some scary stuff for LEAD as well.
Like I've seen some sketchy starts where you just have to like start on a pretty big jump
or they've set some like lache moves in the middle that could be kind of stopper moves.
Do you feel like it's going towards this like new school style in LEAD as well or is it
just like it's alright?
Yeah, they're definitely implementing more sort of new school movements into LEAD.
But at the end of the day, like the fact that you only have one go in LEAD and you know
the split is as a result of you know exactly where you fall off on the route.
I think like these sorts of low percentage moves that take a little bit of time to learn
before you can do them just don't lend well to the scoring system within LEAD.
So I think there's only ever going to be like so much room for new school parkoury comp
style moves in LEAD and like yeah typically LEAD still comes down to like a matter of
who's the fittest and who's the strongest and who can kind of hold on for the longest.
And yeah that's like part of LEAD climbing that I really, really enjoy.
But you know it's nice to have a few little crazy comp moves in there as well.
But yeah I think we're also seeing a lot of like athletes who are previously boulder specialists,
especially like the more power centered boulder specialists starting to perform a lot more
consistently in LEAD than they perhaps were in in bouldering to begin with.
So oh then they are in bouldering now sorry.
Yeah so I think it sort of remains a little bit more old school out of the two.
Okay yeah.
So yeah now back to the Australia stuff.
How do you feel about it being a developing sport in Australia and also in general just
like Australia being kind of far from everything and like the long travel.
I feel like I've heard that's a pretty big issue.
How do you deal with those sorts of things?
Yeah as far as like the development of climbing within Australia I think you'd maybe be hard
pressed to find a country where climbing is growing faster than in Australia.
I think like the number of gyms that have appeared in just the last five years is mind
blowing and so it's growing really fast which presents its own set of problems in terms
of like the development of climbing as like a high performance sport if the certain aspects
of the sport are growing way faster than others.
So that's really complex in and of itself and we're not really seeing like the growth
of climbing flow into like support of high level athletes yet.
So that plays into the issue of Australia being just generally speaking really really
far away from the majority of the comp climbing circuit which yeah adds a lot of barriers
to people who are like to aspiring competition climbers you know.
I always feel quite jealous of like Europeans who for them going to a World Cup is like
a weekend away from home and then for us going to a World Cup is like okay well not going
to be able to save for a deposit on a house this year because you know I have to pay the
equivalent of a mortgage to like go and do this thing and it's my dream no one's making
me do it I'm choosing to do it you know.
Just wanting to like just silly things like oh I'd love to buy a new bike or I'd love
to buy a new laptop or you know I haven't replaced my phones in six years eight years
whatever like those are all things that just have to go on hold just as a result of climbing
being of Australia being so far away from the rest of the climbing scene.
So it can be tough sometimes but again like I said you know no one's making us do it so
sometimes you have to swallow that pill and just keep on keeping on.
Do you end up kind of like staying in Europe for a while I think you mentioned you stayed
for like three months before.
Yeah the way I've found works best for me is if I can pick a city usually in Innsbruck
in Austria and rent an apartment like or sublet an apartment from somebody rather than paying
like the extortionate Airbnb fees just paying like a standard monthly rent for a room and
keeping that room for like a whole three months and then you can just then you can treat yeah
World Cups as like a more of like a weekend or a couple weeks you go away you do the World
Cups you come back to the home base we've got you know all of your creature comforts
and your luggage and whatnot and yeah rather than rather than like moving around a lot
and paying a lot for really expensive accommodation or you know flying to Europe coming back flying
there again I like to keep that home base it's just like a little bit cheaper and a
little bit like logistically easier I think for me.
Do you ever like stay and train in Europe or is all your training done back in Australia?
No I usually I'll usually try and prepare for the World Cups in Europe at least that
last two to four weeks before I start my season I'll try to train in Europe but you know there's
a it's like it's a it's a very clever careful balancing act because you know you only have
a certain number of days that you can stay within the Schengen zone the like European
visa zone without without having an extended visa and so you know you've got to think like
okay if I'm going to do these events then I can train for three weeks before the World
Cup season starts in Europe but you know if I skip this event I can do a little bit of
extra training or if I skip the training I can do a little bit like a few more comps
so yeah it gets quite quite strategic in that sense.
Yeah there's a lot of planning that goes into it.
Yeah definitely.
And how's how's like your training in Australia like is it good for a lead or better for bouldering
or do you have like coaches?
I would say I'll stick with for the most part training in Melbourne because that's where
I live.
I would say for bouldering it's decent it's hard to find like a lots of hard blocks to
to train on but we have we have like quite a few nice gyms.
I think you have to get somewhat creative with your training it has to be quite structured
because you know you're not going to have like all of the resources that you could want
but you know if you've got like a decent spray wall and a fingerboard and you know a weights
gym and that sort of thing there's there's quite a lot you can do.
For lead it's gotten better in the last sort of year year and a half but still not still
not great.
I think unless a gym sets roots specifically for me it would I would be hard pressed to
find anything much harder than like 7c 7c plus in a gym which you know world cup roots
start at 8b 8b plus so you know most of my lead training will happen on a spray wall
when I'm in Melbourne whereas when I go overseas I like really take that opportunity to you
know you go somewhere like Innsbruck where maybe there's like 30 roots 8b and above and
you just try to get in as much as you can while you're there.
Yeah do you have any thoughts on how how to like grow the Australian team and how you
think it could be better funded?
I think I think first and foremost the Australian team needs more opportunities to train and
climb together I think in the since like since COVID blew up initially I think we've had
one training camp as a team which was announced a week before the camp started and I think
we had maybe five or six people turn out most of which lived in the city that it was being
held so yeah the Australian team is like very disjointed we don't get a lot of opportunities
to come together and climb together and climb on like high level roots with high level roots
setting coaching is quite limited so I think it would be yeah a lot of it's yeah it's really
tough and then the idea of like the funding stuff that I've honestly no idea like how
to how to grow the funding of Australian climbing I think I'm so focused on growing the funding
of Campbell's climbing you know but yeah I think if the if there was like maybe more
cohesion between like amongst the team and then maybe more like cooperation between the
team and the gyms we might be able to get a little bit more going but you know like
it is it is improving it is getting better in some ways and then it's very stagnant in
others well I guess like stagnant in what ways just like the setting we're growing in
terms of the calibre of our athletes but stagnant in terms of things like those those training
camps training events having consistent competition schedules as well like for this year we didn't
have a lead nationals and we ended up having to have a lead selection which was just like
a like a sort of tailored down version of a lead nationals with only a qualification
round you know it happened at from like 7am to 3pm on a Friday you know so yeah it's quite
interesting that there's so many more gyms and like so much money within the climbing
industry at a commercial level but then you know we can't get venues to host a lead nationals
for a couple of days or you know host a training camp for an afternoon that sort of thing so
yeah it's it's progressing in so many ways and then in other ways yeah not much change
is really happening if that makes sense yeah I mean I guess I'm actually not sure if it's
if there's a lot of money at the commercial level I've heard a lot of commercial gyms
actually struggle quite a bit just to like break even I've like because I wanted to like
own a gym at some point or that was like a goal and I looked into it a bit and it seemed
like you had to be pretty well off just to get it started yeah I think I think I just
look at like we've got some we've got some like big franchises of gyms within Australia
that like opening sort of venue after venue and I think also I do work part time at a
climbing gym so I get that little insight on the amount of people that are coming through
some of the facilities so I think yeah and I mean and also just you know like I said
this year number the increase in the number of climbing gyms that we have is kind of telling
that there's there's something here you know but yeah it hasn't it hasn't translated into
high performance just yet which makes sense and it'll it'll come along I just think we
haven't figured out exactly what the next step is and I'm not sure either what the next
step is yeah hopefully it'll come and that sort of reminds me of the athletes commission
I'm not sure if that has any bearing on how it can affect like climbing at like the Australian
national level but yeah I was wondering a bit about the athletes commission and what
I guess first of all what is it and why haven't we really heard about it because I feel like
this is the first year that we heard anything about it yeah this is it's interesting it's
one of those things that I think when you're an athlete in the circuit it's something that
you know about and you kind of just assume that other people do but I guess it's like
a very it's a very valid point that like up until now how would how would the general
public have known that there was an athletes commission that you know every world championship
we have a vote you know where there's like ballot papers and everything or this year
it was online but yeah basically the basically the IFSC athletes commission is a collection
of athletes that act as kind of like an advisory voice to the IFSC and our president and vice
president Sean O'Coxie and Sean McColl sit on the IFSC board so basically we have meetings
every month where we discuss a myriad of different issues that pertain to athlete rights whether
it be considering like certain rules or the setup of venues the way athletes are maybe
treated within those venues all sorts of things like here's a sometimes you talk about the
sustainability of events and whether or not we as athletes can support certain events
going ahead in the way that they are you know we cover a lot of too many different topics
probably for the amount of time we spend actually meeting together but yeah we advise Sean and
Shawna on how we feel about certain issues and then they present that feedback to the
IFSC board so yeah for me I thought I decided to go for it this year's world championship
because as far as I know we've never had an athlete from the Oceania region on the athletes
commission before and so I thought it was a really unique opportunity to give the perspective
not only of my region but just generally smaller climbing nations with less funding I think
we have like very different issues to some of the other nations and so I thought it was
really important that someone you know amongst that group of climbers was able to get in
there and I think I'm a relatively outspoken member of the climbing community and because
I've been solo for a lot of the world cups I'm quite well connected amongst the climbing
community so I thought I was in like a unique position to be able to hopefully you know
get that position which I end up doing and yeah being able to make a difference over
the course of my term and also just you know learn more about how the sport works in other
places so that then I can hopefully impart that knowledge upon my own region and maybe
you know answer some of these questions that we've been talking about so far that we don't
really quite have the answers to yet.
Yeah what kind of I guess causes are you hoping to champion as part of the Athletes Commission?
I think I would love to see the World Cup circuit be a bit more like geographically
inclusive you know being laid out in a way that it makes a little bit more sense for
athletes who don't live in Europe to you know be able to come to spaten events in succession.
I have like a notepad somewhere where I've written out a bunch of this stuff.
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I had like a little brainstorm that I did when I signed up for the Athletes Commission
and what I wanted to get out of being there.
I think yeah for me there were the sort of geographical inclusivity that we've been talking
about.
I think I'd like to see greater regulation of route setting practices within the sport
so kind of standardizing route setting a little bit.
I think at the moment route setters have a lot of freedom or the potential for a lot
of freedom to influence results.
Essentially what a competition looks like, what a round looks like is almost entirely
up to the head route setter as to what they see climbing being like.
I don't think any of our route setters are trying to influence the results of competitions
but nevertheless the potential for that to happen is there.
More regulation I guess into what climbing rounds should look like, what is the style
of climbing, what are these different disciplines trying to test.
I also would like to see more growth made in terms of athlete health, the BMI Red S
discussion as well.
And just improving the general treatment of athletes and the evaluation of athletes within
the sport.
At the end of the day there's so many different roles that make climbing competitions happen
but at the end of the day climbing comps don't happen unless you have athletes on the wall
putting on a show.
And sometimes it doesn't feel like that's really acknowledged when you look at the prize
pool that's put up for an IFSC event for instance or the fact that you know we, I guess, you
know finish, you'll have Yanya Gumbra finishing a world championship and then having to walk
out into a crowd of people swarming her and it's not really like safe or practical.
Yeah, the more that I think about it, the more I was like, not just in climbing but
all sports in general how athletes are kind of a product I guess that people kind of just
like view and watch for a bit and then if they like age out or they get injured it's
kind of just like you're discarded now, you're like an old product.
Does it kind of feel like that?
Yeah, product is a really good word for it because I think at the moment we're viewed
as products or sometimes I feel like we're even viewed as consumers.
We come to the event and the event is put on for us despite there being a, we're standing
in a stadium of thousands of people.
Sometimes it feels like the events are put on for us and we should be just like grateful
that this is happening so that we can do the thing we want to do which in some cases is
true.
But on the other hand, we're also almost like employees of climbing.
We're in some ways the performers that are putting on the show, these people, these thousands
of people are coming to these stadiums to watch us perform.
And so yeah, there's like a little bit of a disconnect there I guess but I think product
is a really good word for it, we're viewed as like the end product that's put out there
when really we're, it's on the basis of our labor that these events are able to draw in
the crowds that they do I guess.
Yeah, it's a little bit dark though but I guess these are all issues we should try to
solve.
You also mentioned about route setters and keeping everything more consistent.
I always wondered if it would ever happen where someone would like pay off a route setter
or like bribe them to set so that someone could specifically win.
Oh, look, there's one of those topics it's really hard to get into without putting your
foot in your mouth.
I think there are certainly events in the past where you can look back on and you see
some things happening that are just a little bit suspicious.
But I think also just yeah, just the idea that like a particular route setter who might
be head route setter could say internally, you know, oh, this athlete I really like or
this athlete I've potentially been paid off to set for is really good at this style.
There's nothing stopping me from setting this style on every single boulder if I as the
head route setter want that to be the vibe of the competition.
Just more regulations put in place that ensure a diversity of boulders across a round.
Yeah, interesting.
I kind of brought that up as just like a thought.
I didn't know it had actually happened.
I don't want to of course like name any names or point anything at this but yeah, the potential
to influence the results of climbing competitions through the route setting is very real.
And so I think that that's something we need to think about while the sport is a bit younger.
We have a good opportunity to like build a base, you know, upon which we have safe and
fair competitions rather than the sport getting bigger and bigger and bigger before we've
kind of put those foundations in place and it's maybe harder to implement them further
down the road.
Sort of related to that, do you feel like, so I guess that's sort of in reference to
maybe specific like competitions but in general with like the boulder and lead combined format,
do you feel like they've been doing a pretty good job of keeping that even?
I think so.
I've been pleasantly surprised with how much I've enjoyed watching the combined format
and how much I like look forward to competing in the combined format.
I think at first when I saw the like point system, I thought it seemed a little bit like
a game show or something.
It seemed a bit silly that like, oh, you get this many points for doing this and that many
points for that.
And I worried that, you know, it was favor one discipline over the other.
But like ultimately I think you really do have to be good at both because in any given
round the boulder round might be worth more, the lead round might be worth more.
So like you have to be prepared to perform in either of them.
And yeah, so far I think it's been like really interesting to see how different rounds maybe
sway a bit more towards one discipline or the other, but it seems to balance out in
a sense.
Like I haven't seen, you know, that like, yeah, you just, you have to be good at both
at the end of the day.
I think that's like really cool to watch that you've got to be able to, you've got to be
ready to take the opportunity in either round.
Yeah.
I mean, definitely cool to watch.
I don't know how it's like actually having to do that and experience it as an athlete.
But yeah, going back to athletes commission, do you feel like the IFSC listens to the athletes
either like within athletes commission or outside of athletes commission?
Um, I think being a part of the athletes commission is very new for me.
I think I'm really yet to see whether or not our voice is heard.
Just because, yeah, we haven't really, yeah, I just haven't really had any instances yet
where we've presented something like really big and really important to the IFSC.
And they've kind of had the opportunity to respond.
They could probably, the IFSC could probably seek out feedback a little bit more than they
already do from the athletes and from the athletes commission.
But at the same time, like I am seeing work happen to improve that, like to improve the
communication between the athletes and the IFSC.
So yeah, I think my perspective is kind of still pending on that question.
Well, you know, ask me in a year maybe and we'll see how I feel about it.
Okay, yeah, we'll follow up.
Yeah, another one of the things that you mentioned being on your list of things to talk about
in terms of athletes commission is the Red S issue.
And I mean, I know that's something everyone's talking about and hopefully they will be taking
some kind of action on it.
I guess that's still to be determined.
But you also mentioned that you've sort of had your own experience with it.
Is that something that you'd want to go into?
Yeah, yeah, like it's definitely something I'm happy to talk about because I think it's
really easy to look at the minority of athletes who lose a ton of weight and see huge increases
in their performance.
Whereas I think the experience of quite a lot of us is that we fell into really negative
habits around eating and trying desperately to lose weight and being as small as possible
and just kind of crashed and burned in a lot of senses.
I think for every athlete who loses 5, 10 kilos and becomes a Superstar World Cup winner,
it's probably 10, 20, 30 athletes who lost a bunch of weight and ended up in the hospital
or ended up quitting climbing and not competing or not reaching their goals and having a myriad
of mental and physical health problems.
And so I think that's kind of more my experience of, well, not so much my experience because
obviously I'm still climbing and I'm still climbing well.
But I think my experience of when I was suffering through my eating disorder was just having
so much trouble maintaining my mood, maintaining my training, maintaining my weight, all these
fluctuations and all these issues.
And I think it's quite damaging, I guess, to paint Red S in the light that it has been
painted in that it's like this shortcut to success.
Whereas I think in a lot of instances, it's quite the opposite.
It's quite destructive to people's climbing careers.
Well, I had no idea that it was so common.
When you were experiencing it, were you aware that you were doing it or was it just kind
of like the side effect of the sport and it just didn't even, I guess, register to you
that you were doing something harmful?
I think in a lot of ways, having an eating disorder felt mandatory in the sport.
And I know how horrible and dark that sounds, but it felt like if I was turning up to a
competition and I didn't look thin enough, then people would assume that I didn't care
enough or that I wasn't dedicated.
I think there was a lot of discussion and a lot of rhetoric around, well, this is how
little I eat leading up to a competition or, oh, I'm doing so well today, I haven't eaten
since blah, blah, blah.
And I think that's changing in a lot of ways now that we're actually having the discussion
and it's becoming more publicly known, these sort of darker aspects of the sport.
It felt like in the community that I grew up in, it kind of felt like it was something
that I had to be doing and that's sort of how I fell into it and yeah, really started
to struggle with it, I guess.
Oh, wow.
So it was like an actual discussion amongst athletes, like this is something that you
guys would talk about?
Yeah, I think so.
Not when, like for me, not when it started.
I think it was just, I felt like it was very much just this number on the scales that I
wanted to push down and felt very objective in that sense.
And then it kind of started to develop into more of like an emotional, an emotional waiting
on the number on the scale.
But yeah, I definitely know, I remember a lot of instances within the sport where people
would be having these discussions of like, I don't eat between this time and this time
or I only eat this many calories in a day or in the however long before the competition
I'm trying to lose this much.
And while these discussions are happening, what you're seeing, like what I'm seeing in
front of me is athletes getting worse and worse and worse at their climbing and having
these like massive detriments to their performance as they're like desperately chasing the lowest
number on the scale that they can.
And then what people are telling you is that eating disorders are terrible in climbing,
but they get you really good.
You're going to be really like, you know, it's really strong when I was as light as
possible, but you know, then it was really bad for me.
But then I think like, that's not actually really the case.
Like I think a lot of climbers who have tried to lose a lot of weight or have these struggles
with eating and with their body image and such like tend to see a lot more detriment
than benefit in actual fact, but that's not really like the narrative that we see around
it.
How did you sort of get out of that, the eating disorder for yourself?
Like I said, it started off as this like very objective goal to just like reduce the number
on the scale and then it started to turn like a little bit more emotional.
I had more of like an emotional connection to like whether I was perceiving myself as
light enough to be, you know, a self-respecting professional climber or whatever.
And then that for me turned into quite a serious like binge eating issue.
So binge eating, restricting, and that's sort of the pattern you see with a lot of
climbers is trying really hard to adhere to these like rules that these climbers are setting
of, you know, not eating this much or not eating, you know, these times, whatever it
might be.
And so you, yeah, you fall into these patterns of working really hard to try and be as thin
as possible.
Eventually you can't keep up with this image of perfection.
You set yourself and you slip up and you binge and then you think, oh, that was a horrible
mistake, I have to erase what I've done.
And so you restrict harder, which then means you binge harder because, you know, your body
just it doesn't let you start like in a lot of instances, it just won't let you start
yourself like that.
And so I think for me, I had to just like completely, I had to like completely break
the cycle and learn to like, if I had these like these binges, these slip ups, I had to
just learn to accept that they happened and that they didn't, like it wasn't a mistake
that needed to be rectified or fixed, that it was my body telling me that it was underfueled
and under-resourced and that I needed to, yeah, if I had like a slip up and I felt like
and I had a binge, it was because I wasn't treating my body with the respect it needed.
So rather than depriving it even more, what I needed to do was give it that respect and
then eventually over the course of years, managed to sort of, for the most part, heal
that relationship between, you know, my body and my mind and my perception of myself.
And I still have more difficult days, more difficult periods, but yeah, just learning
to see those signs and like act accordingly, I guess, if that makes sense.
It's a very personal journey.
So I think everyone goes through it differently.
But it's good to hear that you've mostly worked through it and hopefully it's not still going
on, especially with all the attention that's been brought to it.
I think people are just a lot more on alert in the public and hopefully among athletes
as well.
Yeah, it's a very complicated topic and it is very full on.
I've talked about it a lot on my social media, but I guess I learned to just incorporate
the joy of food just into my daily routines and learning that if I felt like I was falling
short of my goals within food, it was probably because my body was trying to tell me something
and learning to actually listen to my body and respect those messages that my body was
giving me rather than thinking my body was something that I had to fight against, that
feelings of hunger or feelings of being unsatiated was something that I had to battle against.
It's actually a body trying to tell you something and you can probably get a lot more out of
listening to those messages than fighting against them.
These days, do you still hear that kind of talk between athletes where it's about how
little you've ate or things like that?
Definitely not to the same.
No, I think the rhetoric has changed a lot, honestly.
Weight management and weight loss is a part of climbing at the end of the day.
I think it's silly to pretend that it's not and it's something that as an athlete, you
do have to be aware of, I guess.
But I think the discussions are becoming a lot healthier and I think the discussions
I've been having with athletes are a lot more about what I've been saying.
In the past, it might have been like, oh, when I am really hungry, I do this to make
myself not hungry anymore or when I feel like I've eaten too many calories, I'm going to
do this to get rid of those calories.
That kind of used to be the discussion and now the discussion is more about like, yeah,
when I'm feeling this way, I remember that this is my body trying to tell me something
and that I need to change what I'm doing or I'm going to start to fall down a slippery
slope.
So it's a lot healthier, the discussion around it, which is an important step.
But then at the same time, I think that doesn't mean that athletes aren't also suffering in
the background.
You can say one thing and then also be struggling.
Yeah.
Well, it's good to hear that it's improved a bit.
And also related to this, had a Discord question come through asking what dichotomies, if any,
are there in regards to the impact of Red-Ass between men and women competition climbers?
This is another really interesting aspect of it as well, because I think the pressures
to be small are similar across male and female athletes.
I think in the discussions around Red-Ass though, people tend to be more critical of
women, which I mean, lo and behold, that's kind of how our society is in general.
People are more critical of women.
But yeah, with regard to Red-Ass, there's a lot more discussion of how female athletes
look and whether they look too skinny.
They look like, oh, she has a problem, she's anorexic.
But then in actual fact, I think the problem is just as big, if not bigger, within the
men.
But because when we lose weight, we maintain our muscle mass a lot more easily.
So our general shape doesn't change.
We still have these big biceps and big shoulders.
And so people think that it's not as much of a problem within the men.
But from my experience, that's just not the case.
And I think we see a lot of men, if not more men, with dangerously low body fat levels
as opposed to the women who look thin but maybe aren't necessarily suffering those Red-Ass
symptoms.
And so I think that's why developing screening is really important because you can't just
tell if someone's sick by looking at them.
Yeah, I think that also brings up the important point that it's not great to discuss people's
bodies, whether or not you think that it's concerning because there might not be an issue.
Yeah, for sure.
I think it's really complicated to like, because if you're going to bring up the fact that
you think there is an issue with climbing athletes being underweight, that's inherently
bringing bodies into the conversation.
But yeah, I think it needs to be a little bit more nuanced than this person looks like
they're sick.
It needs to be a little bit more objective and scientific than that, I guess.
Yeah, and it's hard to do that just looking through a screen.
Yeah, 100%.
But yeah, was there anything else you wanted to touch on in terms of Red-Ass?
Because otherwise we're just going to totally shift gears to maybe something a little happier.
Yeah, I know, what a depressingly sad topic.
No, I mean, unless you have any more questions about it, I think it's a huge issue within
climbing that we need to get on top of.
And I think having, we talk about not judging people's bodies, but then at the same time,
a lot of these athletes are the role models of the sport.
And I think my inclinations as a young person towards trying to lose weight, a lot of them
came from looking at the athletes who were leading the way, at the tops of podiums and
things and seeing their body types and feeling like I needed to adhere to some kind of version
of that as well.
And so if we're allowing Red-Ass athletes who embody these sort of negative weight loss
principles to represent the sport, then the problem is just going to self-perpetuate.
So I think we've got to do something to change the perception that people have of climbing.
And it might involve restricting the participation of certain athletes who meet certain criteria
within the sport.
Yeah, well put.
And thanks for going into your own story.
I know that's not always easy to share and open up in that way.
So I appreciate that.
But yeah, let's switch gears into something that's hopefully a bit less sad.
Let's look forward to the Olympics that are coming up and the qualification process.
I guess first of all, you had also wanted to, I mean, you were competing at the time
when the 2021 Olympics were happening.
And I saw a podcast that you did a long time ago that was before the qualification process
for that.
I forget if it was before COVID or not, but I think, I mean, we all know that you did
not end up representing Australia for the 2021 Olympics.
So what happened in the qualifying process there?
It's funny, so this is also like a very sad, depressing topic.
I'm happy to get into it if you want to, but it's also like, yeah, it was a bad time.
Yeah, I mean, no, it's if you want to.
Oh yeah, I'm happy to discuss it.
Yeah, just if you wanted to get into something more fun, like it's not really that fun.
Okay, we'll do the fun part after.
So yeah, so basically going into the qualifications for the Tokyo Olympics, I was also the first
seated athlete.
So I was the highest ranked athlete going into those qualifications and then the pandemic
hit and the event got canceled slash postponed.
And so essentially the way the selection criteria worked was that if the event got canceled,
I was qualified for the Olympics.
If the event went ahead, then it was obviously going to be a competition and whoever won
the event was going to go to the Olympics.
But the problem there was that because within Australia and New Zealand, everything was
so tightly locked down and the borders were so tightly controlled that running an event
wouldn't necessarily mean that everybody would get to compete.
So it was quite like a difficult time with things going back and forth.
The event was happening, then it wasn't, then it was, then it wasn't.
And eventually we got to the point where the event was going ahead and we all got there.
The first day went kind of badly for me.
I think I false started in the speed, which meant that I had the worst ranking in the
brackets for the finals event.
And then we were sitting in my hotel room, I was sitting there in my hotel room with
my partner, watching the news before the finals started and they announced on the news that
the borders would be closing between all the states across Australia.
Meaning that basically you either had to like, because we were in Sydney and I live in Melbourne,
so we were going to have to leave Sydney to get back over the border in time or either
be stuck in Sydney or have to like go through a two week hotel quarantine scenario.
And my older sister at the time had just been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer.
And so my parents really wanted me home to spend Christmas with my family and with my
sister before she started chemotherapy, before she started her treatment.
And so I went to the competition, I went into finals for isolation and I had no idea what
to do.
And I was in tears the whole time, went out to climb, didn't do well in the speed round
and like ultimately made the decision that I would leave the event, go home to be with
my family because I wasn't sure if I would be able to qualify and I couldn't decide.
Yeah, it was just a horrible, tough decision.
So at the end I left the event.
And at the end of the event, I think out of the 20 athletes that were initially slated
to compete in the men's round, only seven men I think ended up finishing the competition
and maybe even less women.
Yeah, so that was like a really, really like tough call and something that I like grappled
with for a really, really long time afterwards.
And like I look back and I still don't even really know if I made the right decision on
whether or not I should have stayed and stuck it out and like dealt with those consequences
or gone home and been with my family.
But you know, I think now I look back at it at the end of the day, like it is what it
is, what happened happened.
Toma Halloran who did qualify for the spot was like super deserving as well, you know,
like whether or not I'd stayed, he was absolutely, you know, had exceptional chances to take
that spot like he did in the end.
But yeah, no, so that was like a super, super tough time.
The whole process going into it was really, really hard.
A lot of like back and forth and people saying things online and all sorts of stuff and it
was really, really tough.
But yeah, and then but then afterwards, you know, I once the process of trying to qualify
was over, I was able to like really grow from that and ended up having some like really,
really great World Cup season.
So, you know, there's positives to take from it, but it was like, yeah, it was a pretty
full on experience over the course of like a year or so, I think.
Geez, yeah.
Well, gosh, I'm sorry to hear that.
I hope she's doing better now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
She's doing she's doing she's still you know, the battle continues, but you know, she's
doing well.
Okay.
Well, that's good to hear at least.
We wish the best for her.
Yeah, like I said, you know, yeah, also a very kind of depressing topic for the podcast.
Yeah, we can we can move on to happier stuff as well if you want to.
Okay.
Well, thank you for sharing.
I think usually when people look back on these things, they're usually happy about making
the decision to like stick with family, especially in hard times.
And I mean, you have another chance now.
So yeah, yeah.
And so it was, you know, I think it was quite interesting coming into this Olympics because
there was all this Olympic selection process is there was like definitely a little bit
of trauma from the last time of that whole process happening.
But like, I was able to like recognize that, you know, this is something that I really
want.
And I was really excited about this process rather than last time where it was so full
of like dread and grief and indecision.
Like this time it's been fulfilled with like so much passion and ambition.
And I'm really excited about this opportunity.
And you know, if I don't qualify in November, then I'm also really excited about the opportunity
to get to do the Olympic qualifier series next year, hopefully.
And so it's just like as sad and depressing and whatever as that whole last experience
was, you know, and everything that I was going through at that time.
I'm like so much healthier and so much stronger and happier now that like, yeah, this this
process so far is has been really joyful, which is such a juxtaposition to the last
one.
So I'm like super grateful in that sense.
Yeah, that's really great to hear.
And how do you feel about competing this time without the speed discipline being added into
everything?
Oh, so good.
So good.
I think that was like also part of the last process was that I had a really hard time
making up my mind as to whether or not I actually wanted to do the combined format.
I just I really appreciate and respect speed climbing, but it's just not for me.
And so yeah, that was also something I was grappling with through that whole process
is like as hard as it was.
I wasn't my heart wasn't completely in it.
Whereas this time with the lead boulder combined, like that's the those are the disciplines
that I fell in love with.
And so, yeah, my heart really is in this one 100 percent.
And I'm able to like enjoy the process of it as a result, not just like, you know, not
just looking towards the outcome, but also enjoying the journey.
It's a little bit of a shame as a viewer, just because it was actually pretty fun watching
non speed climbers and seeing how well they could do on the speed route, since it's just
so much more, I guess, like consistent and you can just like interesting to see.
So but I understand, of course, like it's not people don't really want to do it if they're
not into it.
Yeah.
And I'm glad that the speed climbers get their own medal this time, because I think that
combined format like really shafted them.
Oh, yeah.
So yeah, it's really nice that they get to have their own set of medals this time.
And I think everyone's a little bit happier for it.
I think we'll be even happier when the three disciplines are split.
This combined format is fun.
I think it's really cool.
I think it's fun to watch and like I'm enjoying it so far.
Yeah.
Do you have hopes for it getting split in like LA games?
From what I understand, that's the plan is to get three medals for the LA games.
And that would be quite cool.
Like also, you know, having multiple opportunities to claim an Olympic spot as well, like you
claim a spot in Boulder or lead rather than just the one for both.
That's like quite cool as well, because it is a lot of pressure to, you know, just try
and perform really well across both disciplines and to take one spot.
Yeah.
Do you think if it is split in the future, you'll try for both?
Yeah, I think so.
I think that's my plan.
It's something I'll probably have to decide, you know, come the next selection cycle.
But I think I would like to try and qualify for both.
But at the end of the day, I'm much more of a lead specialist than a Boulder specialist.
And so if I feel like also doing bouldering is going to be detrimental to my chances in
lead, that might impact my decision.
I've always done both, so I would imagine that I would still try to do both.
Okay.
Yeah, I think it would be interesting to see how things change, because I would think a
lot more people will probably try to just focus on one.
And then it'll be interesting to see how that plays out, because I mean, a lot of people
are great at both right now.
And I wonder what it would look like if they just focused on one, all of their energy,
onto one.
If it'd be unstoppable.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, I'm also really curious to see what people do.
I think there are probably a few more, generally speaking, there are more like Boulder specialists
than there are lead specialists.
So I wonder if the participations across the disciplines will shift as well.
But yeah, I guess we'll see when it happens.
You got to think about some strategy going into that.
But I think that's quite in the future, another five years, so we have some time.
Thinking about the upcoming one, how do you think your training would change if you qualified
in the Oceania Championships versus if you had to wait again until OQS?
I think either way, I'll be taking a little break right after that comp, which will be
nice.
And then the season will start again, either way, the season will start up again quite
soon.
I think if I'm competing in the OQS, the training will kick off sooner because the first OQS
round is in April or May, I think.
But I mean, either way, my mindset at the moment is just to go in 110%.
I think my chances of qualifying in the Continental event are obviously exponentially higher than
they are in the OQS, for instance.
But the way I look at it now is just whatever happens, I'm going to be 110% committed to
either competing in the Olympic Games or grabbing a ticket at the OQS.
And I want to finish feeling like I didn't leave anything behind.
So I don't think there'll be too many changes to my approach in that respect.
While we're rooting for you.
Yeah, thank you.
What do you think, what's considered a break for you?
Because I feel like a break for proper athletes is very different from what I consider a break.
Well I have like a little trip to New Zealand planned where I think I will do little to
no climbing.
Usually a break will be like one to two weeks of no climbing at all.
And then maybe one to two weeks of climbing when I want to.
It's kind of what I do.
So I wouldn't say I'm taking a break, I just climb as much as I feel like climbing.
I think if I wasn't an athlete, I probably wouldn't climb quite as much as I do.
I wouldn't be doing double sessions, five days a week, blah, blah, blah.
I'd probably just be climbing three to four days a week for a couple of hours and trying
the boulders that I think are fun and that sort of thing.
So yeah, a break is just embracing that side of myself.
And sometimes I get to the end of a season, I have three days off and I'm like, no, I
want to go climbing.
And then I think last year I got to the end of my season and I took two weeks off with
no climbing and I had to like force myself to go back.
Okay, it's time to start training again.
So it depends.
But I just go with the flow and do what feels right.
Yeah that sounds reasonable.
Okay, well I'm excited to watch you climb.
Hopefully it'll be streamed and easy to watch.
Yeah, there should be a live stream on YouTube.
I think it'll be open access for everybody.
Awesome.
Okay, yeah, excited to watch.
And now going into the last section, a few discord questions.
I already went through a few while we were just talking, but we have I think three others
that either just like didn't really fit.
So the first one, this one I just I actually have no idea about.
It relates to climbing in Australia, I think outside as well.
I don't know how much outside climbing you do.
I don't tend to climb outside a lot these days.
When I was in my teens, I did a lot of rock climbing, but nowadays not so much.
Okay.
Well, you probably still have a bit of insight into it.
Do you feel like climbers are used as an easy target by state governments in regards to
Aboriginal heritage because there is societal outgroup and it deflects away from other more
severe sources of harm to Aboriginal communities such as the mining industry?
Oh, I'd say yes and no.
Yes and no.
I think, yeah, I think there are definitely people within certain organizations that do
use climbing as a scapegoat to either reduce access to certain areas.
But I think at the same time, climbing and climbers need to acknowledge the role that
we play in the protection of First Nations heritage within Australia and within other
countries as well.
And that is going to mean not climbing in certain areas.
I think anyone who's been to the Grampians, who's climbed in crags like kindergarten or
Muleine or the gallery, you look at these caves and it's impossible to think that over
the course of 90,000 years of history that people haven't lived and died in these caves
and that they aren't sacred spaces.
And I think to some degree, bolting them and covering them with chalk and doing whatever
we do is to some degree desecrating these places that were taken by First Nations people
through horrific genocides.
So yeah, I think it's important that as climbers we acknowledge the role we have to play and
sometimes it's going to mean not climbing in certain areas.
I think on the other hand though, there are instances where state bodies maybe could,
maybe we could be putting in a little bit more work to ensure that we are keeping climbers
out of the right areas and then still providing everybody access to areas that are safe for
us to recreate in without damaging cultural heritage, if that makes sense.
Yeah, and I guess for context, what are some of the restrictions that have been put in
place?
A lot of the Grampians has just become a subject to straight up no climbing bands or certain
areas you can only climb in if you have a guide with you.
I definitely wouldn't say I'm a foremost expert on this topic, but yeah, I think different
people within different organisations have varying ideas of what climbers should and
shouldn't have access to.
I think some of which is very, very valid.
Some of these climbing spaces are quite close to protective cave paintings and sacred sites.
And yet, like I said, it makes sense that we aren't able to climb in those spaces because
a white European settlement only came to Australia within the last two centuries.
So we have to be respectful of the land that we find ourselves upon.
But yeah, at the same time, I think there's also, yeah, there's room to make these assessments
of these places and ensure climbers that where it is safe for us to climb, that we will have
access to those spaces.
Okay, makes sense.
Yeah, next question.
What are your thoughts on U-Bank grading?
I think it's far easier to understand than most other grading systems.
And being open-ended is a bonus that avoids the muddled lower end of our UK trad grades.
So if you could also go into what the grading system is like, because I'm not very familiar
with that.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, you kind of hit the nail on the head a little bit in that the U-Bank grade
is just super easy.
It's just a number system.
So for instance, I think a 8A European sports grade is a 29 in Australia.
8A plus is 30, 8B is 31, so on and so forth, 32, 33, 34.
Although I feel like because I spend so much time climbing overseas, I tend to default
into the European grading anyway.
Yeah, I think, I mean, at the end of the day, grading is all subjective and it kind of ends
up equating more or less to the same thing anyway.
I think it is kind of nice that U-Bank doesn't have these cluster grades in the same way
that the United States have got 513, 514.
You have these brackets, the U-Bank system just kind of progresses point by point.
But grades are grades.
It's all much for muchness in the end.
Yeah.
Next question, something we actually didn't touch on too much, but this is your chance
to go into it if you want.
I'm interested in your views on pro climbing and queerness.
Is it an easy community to be openly LGBTQ plus in?
And how does it feel competing in countries where it's frowned upon or illegal?
I believe one of the OQS is in the Middle East, for example.
I think that for the most part, I found the climbing community quite accepting of me as
a queer person.
That's not to say that there isn't homophobia and discrimination within the community.
I think that's more accentuated at the international level because like you said, you have this
mixing part of all these different cultures.
Some people are going to feel less strongly about your human rights, love for you, love
for you, that sort of thing.
It can be quite scary.
I was competing in the world championships in Russia a few years back.
Yeah, it can be quite scary that I'm someone who paints my nails and maybe someone on the
street might see that as a sign that I'm a queer person and have an issue with it or
that people will see me and my partner at a competition and have an issue with that.
So there are definitely certain aspects to it that we as queer people have to take into
consideration a little more than others do.
But yeah, for the most part, I think my experiences as a queer climber have been quite positive.
I think most of the controversy comes when I try to discuss my queerness and my athleticism
or my climbing in the same vein.
I can sometimes get a lot of negative feedback and that people saying that being gay doesn't
have anything to do with climbing.
But at the end of the day, they're two important facets of who I am.
So they don't, none of it exists in a vacuum.
So yeah, it's an interesting interplay, I guess.
Has it ever affected you to the point where you have to sort of consider if a competition
is one that you would want to go to?
Yeah, I definitely had an internal battle, I guess, with regard to whether or not I would
go and compete in Russia.
I'm an ambassador for an organization in Australia called Proud to Play.
And one of the things that I have of theirs is I have this, it's just like a towel, like
every athlete comes out to a bouldering round almost with a towel, they can clean their
shoes and stuff.
My towel has a pride flag on it.
And there are some countries where I'm like, oh, I don't know if I should come out onto
the field wearing this pride flag.
But then at the same time, maybe it's even more important that I come out onto the field
wearing a pride flag in some of these countries.
So yeah, it's something that I have to think about.
And I think the OQS round in the Middle East got canceled in the end.
I think now it's just Shanghai and Budapest.
But yeah, it is something that I have to think about when it comes to making a decision about
which comps to attend to and which not.
And did they replace it with a different location or it's just gone?
Unfortunately, we're just going to have two rounds of the OQS now, which is good because
for a little while, I think the fear was that there was going to be one round.
Yeah.
So yeah, it should be, as far as the dates that have been confirmed at this stage, yeah,
it'll be the two rounds of the OQS.
So a little bit shorter than the planned three, but should still be good.
Okay.
All right.
I think that's all of the questions I had.
Is there anything else that you wanted to touch on?
Yeah, it's been fun.
Happy to be here.
Thanks for having me on board.
And I'm glad we managed to get together and have this chat.
And I'm looking forward to seeing the full piece.
Yeah, thank you for joining me.
Is there anything you want to like shout out or let people know where they can find you?
Yeah.
I mean, if anyone wants to follow me, you can find me on Instagram at Campbell underscore
Harrison five four seven.
That's probably the best way to keep track with keep up with what I'm doing.
Yeah.
Otherwise no, I think that's like, yeah, that's everything.
Unless you have any more questions, I'm happy with that.
Awesome.
Okay.
That was amazing to talk to you.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast.
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