Chances are that you have a friend who is dying to take you rock climbing or bouldering. You might even be that friend. Either way, it is clear that rock climbing is the new ‘thing’ to do.
The sport is ascending to new heights, both professionally and recreationally. At the elite level, sport climbing will be included at the Olympics for the first time next year. For the everyday climber, according to Climbing Business Journal, the number of climbing gyms open in the US increased from 388 to 457 between 2015 and 2017. Closer to home, a new climbing gym opened in Koreatown on Bloor in 2015, and is often occupied by students.
Yet, this positive direction is hindered by the sport’s doping culture, which, as researchers have noted, may impact its optics on the international stage.
Dr. Yasser El-Sheikh, who lectures at U of T’s Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, has co-authored an article about the sport’s doping culture. El-Sheikh is also the medical officer for The Canadian Sport Climbing Team, the director of the Canadian Climbing Medicine Symposium, and the founder of Climbing Medicine Canada.
The article, titled “Doping in Sport Climbing: Status Quo in a New Olympic Discipline,” comments primarily on how the sport’s uptick in popularity and upcoming inauguration into the Olympics will present a challenge in the implementation of anti-doping policies.
It also outlines how the origins of the sport influenced its lax attitude toward performance-enhancing drugs, which, alongside its exponential growth in recent years, will make the communication of what substances are illegal more difficult.
The article explains that modern rock climbing loosely developed from alpine mountaineering, a sport in which athletes relied heavily on drugs that reduce the effects of altitude sickness and hypoxemia to allow climbers to reach astronomical heights. As such, doping in competitive climbing was more or less accepted until the overall culture of drugs in sports changed drastically in recent years. Climbers also benefit from being lighter, so there is a risk of use disorder of laxative and diuretic drugs in an effort to pull less weight up a wall.
Despite implemented regulations, records within the sport continue to be broken in a manner “unaffected by any antidoping control.” This lack of actual organized, observed competition in, particularly, outdoor forms of competitive climbing means that it is rare that any athlete will actually be tested for performance enhancers. Rather, we are forced to trust the ethics of the climber.
What’s more, because the sport is booming so drastically, the scientific and administrative sides of climbing are lagging. Until now there have been no published scientific studies on doping in sport climbing, and dissemination of updated doping rules becomes difficult when many countries are still developing national teams.
New or non-competing athletes, without the assistance from national federations that only the most elite climbers get, may not know the updated doping rules and regulations. As a result, athletes, trainers, and officials alike may not even know that a substance they are using is illegal, because their sport’s framework can’t keep up with its burgeoning growth.
And because of how new climbing is to the elite international scene, national anti-doping organizations are unfamiliar with its culture and circumstances, leading to what the authors call “widely underdeveloped sports medical supervision.”
The Olympics are right around the corner, and the sport is poised to gain more popularity. To change the doping culture in climbing, the authors recommend that education should be a high priority in the early years of climbing as an Olympic sport, as the world is watching and its reputation is on the line.
They also recommend more resources within climbing across the board so that the administrative side can keep up with the growth: for example, more sports medical supervision and more educational resources for recreational and elite athletes.
