Headed for the top: competitive climbing growing as a sport in Lethbridge and around the world

The team has several groups of kids ranging in age from about 9 or 10 years old up to around 17. This year the team has been training at both the University or Lethbridge facility and Coulee Climbing.

Team Coaches Tanner Bexson, and Brian Kim oversee the training and development of local athletes, and as coaches, the pair hasn’t been at it for long.

“I started coaching two and a half years ago, and first coached the pre-competitive team,” Bexson continued. “And this is my second full year with the competitive team.”

Kim thinks this is his fifth year or so and had a funnier start to his coaching career.

“My first year at the University I wanted to help out with the facility. I actually thought that this was a volunteer position for the first three months until someone asked if I had been getting paid.”

There are three disciplines in climbing: boulder, lead and speed.

The first season goes from about late September to late February, and that’s the boulder season.

Bouldering is very short routes – an athlete doesn’t climb much further than three or four metres off the ground, and it’s basically just pure strength.

“We qualified three kids this year for nationals, Lauren Kwan, Will Kwan and Kennedy Moland. We qualified two on the younger kid level, but they don’t have nationals for that level of athlete. It varies what it’s out of, but around here it’s provincially, and you need to be in the top eight to qualify for nationals,” Bexson explained.

Photo Credit: Peter Kwan

Lead and speed, which run in the same season, are a little different.

Lead is about endurance where a competitor climbs a wall like the one at the Ascent Club, which is about 15 metres high, and it’s just about how high they can get.

Speed is what you would expect – it’s about how fast an athlete can climb up the wall, but it’s a very specific route.

The provincial competition season has wrapped up, and many of the team’s athletes ranked in the top 10 provincially.

Additionally, three youth represented Alberta at Youth Bouldering Nationals in Montreal in February, and there will be a few who are invited to attend Difficulty and Speed Nationals in May.

“We’re heading to Montreal with Kennedy Moland on May long weekend because she was the only one that qualified for this season,” Bexson said.

Photo Credit: Mark Moland

Climbing provides athletes with the opportunity to develop physically and technically in all three disciplines, and perhaps more importantly for some parents, it’s provided them a chance to develop strong character and friendships with other great competitors from across Alberta.

The sport has also been growing at a steady rate even though it’s still very new.

“We haven’t really seen much competitive stuff in Alberta until this past decade, but it’s growing at a fast pace. Every year we’re seeing more and more competitors. Three years ago, it used to be pretty minimal, but as of this year we had 35 kids sign up for our tryouts, and we expect that number to double this year,” Bexson stated.

So, why the rise in popularity? There are a couple of reasons, according to Bexson and Kim.

“I think the new facility in town has opened people’s minds up to it a little bit, just the accessibility to it. It’s also been marketed better recently, as far as the spectation of it, World Cups are becoming more of a thing, and people are talking about it a lot more because competitions are becoming more prevalent, even locally. Not to mention the stuff that’s happening in Alberta, and obviously being in the Olympics will change things.”

Competitive climbing could be one of those sports that has a chance to break through in the coming years, and Bexson says they’re expecting their numbers to just about double every year now.

“We only expect those numbers to go up, even more, when the sport debuts in the Olympics,” Bexson added.

That’s going to mean moulding more and athletes, which Kim believes gives the coaches much more to think about.

“Right now, the Alberta Climbing Association that’s running the competitions for youth and adults are trying to unify the training together, they’re trying to move away from viewing it as ‘this gym has these kids, and this city has these kids.’ We’re trying to come out as ACA Alberta athletes when we go to national competitions now. Not only are we looking at Lethbridge, but just as a province right now I think we’re unifying in coaching and that’s how we’re trying to move forward.”

Even though they’re looking for more of a united front, the teams that get to represent the province still have to go through the usual channels.

“We run Lethbridge teams, we have four teams now, we had two teams last year, and we’re thinking about adding one or two more next year. Those teams will compete provincially against other gyms in Alberta, and if they qualify in the top eight in their category like I was mentioning before, now they become Team Alberta. Then they would go to Montreal, Victoria or even Calgary for nationals,” Bexson said, adding they would compete as Team Alberta instead of Team Ascent or Team Lethbridge.

The upcoming nationals as mentioned are being held in Montreal from May 18 to the 20, and the coaches are hoping for the best.

“This is probably the best year we’ve ever had with our athletes, and they’re looking very strong. That comes with a lot of things, support from the parents, support from the gyms in our city, and of course the motivation of our kids. I have very high hopes for Kennedy this year; she did super well especially compared to last year.

“She was first provincially in her youth category last year, but this year she was third overall in the province. She’s a youth competitor, but she’s competing against results and doing very well. We’re expecting this will be her best performance in climbing at this point in her career, what that means against other competitors in the country is hard to say, because the other climbers are strong competitors too.”

by Aaron Mahoney

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Headed for the top: competitive climbing growing as a sport in Lethbridge and around the world

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