Coming to the Olympics: Pegboard climbing
In case you missed it, the 2020 summer Olympics will feature five new sports for Olympians from all over the world to qualify and compete in Tokyo, Japan next summer.
Most of the new sports you have probably heard of at some point. Most.
The new Olympic competitions include karate, softball/baseball, skateboarding, short board surfing and sport climbing.
Yes, sport climbing. Men and women climbing a pegboard wall.
That would be enough to make Ernest Hemingway roll over in his grave. It makes my left eye twitch like a turkey knowing he is going to feed a family of 12.
Hemingway was quoted once, saying, “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”
Considering that during his time period, those three activities routinely killed competitors, I can understand his viewpoint.
Times have changed, moved away from such dangerous competitions, and safety measures have greatly increased.
I have a broader definition of sport, but I’m not sure surfing and climbing would fall into that same category. Climbing? Really?
I mean why not just add sliding rocks across a sheet of ice for the winter Olympics. Oh, wait. They do that.
On a side note, I actually enjoy watching curling. I’m not saying I completely understand it, but as a former bowler, I always wanted to run down the lanes, encouraging and manipulating the bowling ball.
Sports climbing will be split into three disciplines of speed climbing, bouldering and lead climbing.
In speed climbing, two participants are roped up and race to the top of a 15-meter vertical wall. It seems to be six seconds is a very good time, but it does seem to take about 45 seconds to the competitors to descend back to the ground.
Bouldering, which Hemingway might’ve approved of, has individuals, without safety ropes or harnesses, ascending as many fixed routes on a 4-meter wall within four minutes. In lead climbing and with the use of safety harnesses and ropes, participants attempt to climb as high as they can up a 15-meter wall, with various angles and different hand and toe holds, within six minutes.
For the Olympics, qualifiers will compete in all three, and the standings for medals will figure with all three scores combined.
I get that there are always new ideas for competition, and some will last. Some will not.
I can’t figure out how a hobby, a great activity for staying in shape, but an activity kids do at carnivals and fairs, nonetheless, has found its way into the Olympics.
How about darts? Anyone? Darts at the sport climbers, while they climb. Now that’s an activity I can get behind.