Climbing and the height of Olympic ambition

Aleksandra Miroslaw of Poland won the gold medal in the speed climbing event at the Olympic Games yesterday. She beat Deng Lijuan of China in the final.

So what? She scaled a 15-metre face, more than three double-decker buses high. Sub-elite climbers would find it challenging to climb it at all; she reached the top in 6.10 seconds.

It’s a head-to-head event: the two women climbed at high speed side by side looking like giant spiders. The event combines massive athleticism and micrometre accuracy. The athletes have minimal contact with the wall, jumping from hold to hold knowing that one slip ends it.

Another new-fangled sport? Well, climbing is as old as humanity, and our ancestors were doing it a long time before that. But sport climbing with artificial walls and plastic holds is a more recent development. It first made the Olympic Games last time round in Tokyo.

To note. The only ever-present sports since the modern Olympic Games began in 1896 are:

• athletics;
• swimming;
• cycling;
• fencing; and
• gymnastics.

So they’re always adding sports? They also keep dropping them. The Olympic schedule no longer includes:

• pelota;
• croquet;
• polo;
• tug of war; and
• power-boating.

Climbing is a non-controversial addition to the Olympics: elemental, cheap to take part in and cheap to stage, unlike rowing or equestrianism. What’s more it embodies with almost pedantic fidelity the Olympic motto of citius altius fortius. Few athletes have ever gone faster, higher and stronger than Miroslaw.

Are all new sports good? Golf was briefly an Olympic sport in 1904. It made a return in 2016. This followed a lengthy lobbying: American television had dreams of a primetime finish with Tiger Woods marching down the 18th fairway with gold in his eyes... shame about that subsequent disagreement with a fire hydrant.

Golf is a controversial addition to the Games because winning an Olympic gold medal is not the peak achievement of the sport: much higher peaks come four times every year in the major tournaments. Golf doesn’t need the Olympic Games: and vice versa.

Basically a switch-nollie position. That’s a fakie, as you probably knew already. Skateboarding also came into the Olympic Games in Tokyo. The women’s park event in Paris was won by Arisa Trew of Australia, who is 14 – best ask her the difference between an acid drop, an alley-oop and an anchor grind. The event was held in the Place de la Concorde: skateboarders have gone from civic nuisance to civic heroes, at least until next week.

Not settled. In four years the Games will be back in Los Angeles with the return of:

• baseball and softball, even though it won’t be baseball at the elite level; that happens in the major leagues of North America.
• Flag football: American or gridiron football with no tackling.
• Lacrosse.
• Squash.
• Cricket. For the first time since 1900, cricket will be back in the Games with men’s and women’s T20 tournaments.

Getting silly? We haven’t got to breaking yet, though best not say breakdancing, considered an offensive term in some quarters. It was brought into the Paris Games in yet another attempt to look cool. It starts tomorrow with the b-girls; b-boys on Saturday. Many people, including insiders, see breaking as an art and a culture more than a sport: judging is inevitably subjective.

Other Olympic sports with subjective judging include:

• gymnastics;
• dressage;
• diving;
• figure skating;
• surfing;
• ski-jumping; and
• boxing.

What’s more. We haven’t even mentioned synchronised swimming, or artistic swimming as it’s called these days. Perhaps we should all try the basic movements before we start scoffing. For the fact is: All sports are silly – or none is.