19: Eddie Fowke, Ex-IFSC Photographer

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going to get killed because someone doesn't want to lose face in this autocratic regime.

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Hey, can you take that down? I'm like, why? And it's like, it looks like they're doing the

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Hitler salute. Climbing has a poverty mentality. Everyone loves to tell you how bad they're doing.

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I think Olympics is one of the worst things that's ever happened to the sport.

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Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Climbing podcast. I'm your host,

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Jinni, and I'm excited to introduce my guest for today, Eddie Fowke. Eddie is an ex-IFSC

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photographer who worked with them from 2014 to 2020. In this episode, we'll get his thoughts on

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the ethics and purpose of photojournalism, hear about the chaos behind the scenes traveling around

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for World Cups, and discuss ideas on how to get athletes better paid. He's got a lot of crazy

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stories from his time working the World Cups, and he's got a lot of strong opinions about the IFSC

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and the Olympics. So, strap in for another long episode, and please make sure to thank him for

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all his time recording this with me. Hope you enjoy this episode with Eddie.

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We'll just start with a very simple question of how you're doing this morning.

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I'm doing very well. It's what I would consider an ungodly hour being 9 a.m., but then I'm just

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definitely not a morning person. Having worked climbing events for so long, I'm used to shooting

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into the evening and editing even later into the evening and getting up under duress when I have to.

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Even now, years after that, I do prefer a more relaxed start to the day and then a more solid

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finish to the day. I'm not one of these people that wakes up to watch the sun come over the

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mountain sort of thing. I'm quite happy that it's going to do its stuff without me, and I'd rather

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stay snuggled in bed, especially when it's cold. Yeah, that makes sense. I met a bunch of photographers

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in China and Salt Lake, and they were always scrambling right after the comp to get photos

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out as soon as possible. I think that was a similar experience for you. Yeah, I mean,

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that's the thing that people forget is that we take so many photos during an event, and then

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there's obviously going to be a lag while we're waiting for the photos to go onto our editing

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systems, and then we have to do a selection, and then we have to get the photos just polished.

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You know, normally we don't do much editing, or I don't, but just lightly polished, and then get

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them out to respective sponsors. If you've got a final that finishes at 10, you might finish all

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your editing of your fast edits for your clients by two or three. Oh, wow. Yeah. Normally, I'd do

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some at the venue and get them out by like 10, 30, 11, like just the absolute podium photos,

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one of each winner, and then go back to hotel or Airbnb wherever I'm staying,

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and punch a few others out. If it's the last day and there's an after party, normally I'll try and

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speed my process, so I could also go to the after party for a while and just unwind, but then after

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the after party, I'd still go back and do some editing. So yeah, normally photographers are a

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rough looking bunch the morning after a World Cup. Yeah, it seems like a stressful job. It's like

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really kind of a race to just get those out as soon as possible. Well, we're kind of like the

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polar opposite. We're the flip side of the route setters. The route setters have all the stress

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before the event. We have all this stress after, and people think, oh, it's as easy as just holding

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up a camera and click, click, click. And of course, it's not. Every photographer has their own style.

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They have their own things they're trying to capture. They have their own internal vision

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of how everything should look. And so you're working to achieve your goals to make sure you

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have photos of all the people you require for clients. And then you sort of rush into that

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after the round. And I've spoken before with podcasts and said, I'm normally there an hour

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before a round because I want to look at the routes. I'm probably the least capable climber

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that can read the hardest boulder problems because there's no way I can climb a World Cup boulder

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at this stage in my life. But I'd say seven to eight times out of 10, I can read the sequence

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because that's part of the job for knowing for positioning, for which way the climbers will be

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facing, for where they'll be jumping, how they'll be swinging and everything. Because you don't want

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to sort of stuff the first climber, especially in the final. You don't want the climber to start

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and you go, oh, I've just got their back. You want to be in the right position. So normally you go in

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before, catch a route setter if you can, but they're not always around at that time.

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And try and work out. It's a bit easier now, of course, when I started, I mean, qualifiers,

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there's a lot of people on the wall, semis, there's a lot of people on the wall. But when I started,

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you used to have male and woman finals at the same time. And if you had one facing one way and one

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facing the other, it was always a nightmare because you kind of had to accept that you're

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going to sacrifice good photos of one to get good photos of the other and hope that you're going to

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get something usable from the one that wasn't as good, but you never knew. And so it was,

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it's a lot easier now with one climber on the mat. So it just, it changes the dynamic a bit.

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But also there's the thing of you want the good angle, but one thing, so you were just at Salt

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Lake and you were in China and you were just seeing quite often, you get a clump of photographers.

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Yeah. And my goal was normally to be outside the clump because I wanted a point of difference.

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Right, exactly.

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Because if you have some of the big world cups, you'd have 25, 30 photographers, especially Munich

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back in the day, it used to be huge. And that all be in one place and you're like, okay, I know

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that's a good place, but what can I do which conveys the event, conveys the athlete, but in

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a different place. So you shuffle around and I don't know how long you've been following the

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sport, but of course there was a long time when I was the IFSC photographer and I had access to the

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mats that I'll be on the mats, I'll be in shooting quite hard angles because we were shooting

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quite hard angles because when you're on the mats, normally you can get close to the wall and

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shoot across the wall so that you get the climbers more into space rather than shooting in on the

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wall where they can be quite flat against the backdrop. It takes out sort of the three

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dimensionality of it a bit.

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Yeah, I mean, this is actually the first interview I've done since I went to any world

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cups in person. So now I have a little bit of a different perspective, which is interesting.

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I don't think I saw that many photographers at these events. I mean, a lot of videographers as

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well, but less than 10 for sure.

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Okay, that's interesting because back in the day, they were very limited on videographers

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because they had very strict media policies on anyone except the official video crew filming.

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So back in the day, it used to primarily be photographers, but of course, media was different

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than now so much as reels and this, that and the other. Back then, a lot more of it was literally

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just the stills. And of course, the stills are what's saleable for advertising or magazines or

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things like that. And yeah, I think certain events, like I know, for instance, back in the day,

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USA climbing used to limit the number of photographers that were there. Like shooting

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USA Nationals used to be one of trickier events to get accreditation for, even though I was

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well-known in the scene, purely because they didn't want anyone else effectively,

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commercially selling the photos. They just wanted to promote their own photographers, which,

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although I respect, it means that you only get one person's artistic vision of how the

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boulders should look or a couple, depending on how many photographers they have. And of course,

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China generally has less photographers in general. If you were to go to a World Cup in Japan,

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there's a sea of photographers and a lot of World Cups in Europe, there's a really strong core of

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photographers that are at just about every World Cup. So you have, you know, Bjorn and Sitsi and

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people like that who are always there and always around. And then, you know, Marco Kost and

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people like that, as well as the news outlets, the Getty photographers, the people like that.

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And so, you know, some of the old photos, especially of Munich, and I remember of the

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early days of Munich, there being, you know, in the early days of Munich, it was Marco,

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Marco Kost. And then it was sort of like Marco and myself. And then by like 2017, 18, there was

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50. It got to the stage where, you know, you used to say, oh, if you can't get a ticket to go to a

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World Cup, just apply for the media. Now, thankfully, they've cracked down on that. But it was

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almost obscene at one stage, like there was, you know, athletes, friends, just, and stuff who

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couldn't get tickets just applying. And you'd see them go, what are you doing here? Oh, media. And

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you're like, really? And have you ever held a camera? And they're like, no, okay. And you'd see

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people with like iPhones in the press pit. And you're like, what?

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Interesting. I mean, I guess that's kind of me because I'm not a photographer.

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So I kind of just stand there. Still trying to figure out what to do when I go. But

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it's tricky being a journalist. Like, you know, I'm very good friends with Natalie Berry from UK

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climbing. And she has the similar experience that when she's there, she almost feels superfluous.

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But she has to be there to, to take it all in. So she can write a firsthand account of the

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sensation, the feeling, the vibe of being there. Yeah, maybe I should talk to her about that.

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Yeah, should be a very good and you know, she's an incredibly accomplished journalist and

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has definitely, definitely forged a place for herself in the industry. And she's also

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one of a few that came from the competitive background. She was a World Cup lead climber

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herself back in the day and came up through juniors with Shona and people like that. And so,

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you know, but I did a lot of work with her pre last Olympics, just about athlete profiles and

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the sad and the other. Because, as everyone knew back in the day, I was very close with most of

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the athletes and therefore, when you're profiling an athlete, I can give quite salient points about

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them. And that's the thing that when you're a photographer, you're not going to be able to

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do that. When you're a photographer, there's sort of two schools of thought and sport photography,

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individual sport photography, let's say here, not team sport photography. Although it does apply to

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an extent to team sport photography. But the school of thought is that you are not seen,

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not heard, you are effectively part of the furniture. Or the other school of thought is that

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you are friends with the people and therefore they are comfortable with you in this space.

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And so I always subscribe to the second school because I think it's important that

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you're never a distraction. You're always just consistent, but that they're comfortable with you.

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You'll never, oh wait, there's someone in my space. You're always the comfortable, friendly,

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sort of the same as any other official. If they see a TD or a judge, generally speaking,

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they know who they are and they're like, oh, it's just Stanley or

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Hannes or someone like that. And I just, you know, and because we're, I wouldn't say smaller sport,

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but we're quite a tight knit sport, that was a good way to, a good way to exercise that.

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A good way to, good way to exist.

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Yeah, that makes sense. And going a little bit into your own background, you mentioned that Natalie

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was like one of the people who used to be in the comp scene personally as well, doing actual

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competing. I think you were also doing some like climbing competitions prior to photography, right?

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Yeah, absolutely. So the only difference was I was a generation or a couple of generations before,

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and I was nowhere near as good. So

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Well, you did say that you like qualified for some World Cups, right?

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Exactly. So I was a good domestic level competitor and back in New Zealand, they used to have a

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pretty stringent rule that you had to be top three ranked in the country to represent at World Cups.

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And so from sort of 99 till 2003, I was in position to go to the World Cups. But

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99, I didn't have enough money, 2000, I didn't, wasn't happy with my climbing, I felt like I needed

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more progression. 2001, I thought, okay, I'm on the cusp, I'm going to go to some World Cups next year.

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2002, I blew my knee up.

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And how did that happen? Was it through climbing?

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Stupid drop knee. So just looking at too many photos of Francois Le Grand and

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doing the big French drop knees that were all the rage back then. And I was training on a bouldering

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wall and twisted right into a move and had just all the weight driving down from my left knee and

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it just went, it was like everyone in the gym where I was heard it sounded like a gun going off and it

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was just my arm, posterior cruciate ligament exploded. And I sort of struggled on through 2003,

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but knew that I wasn't what I had been, I couldn't do a bunch of movements because of my knee.

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And at that stage, the surgeon said, only operate if it becomes unstable.

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So I didn't get it operated on because posterior cruciate ligament's a bit of a different injury

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to anterior cruciate ligament, of course. Anterior, you pretty much, you have to have the op, but

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posterior, they like not to operate if they can. And then, yeah, 2004, I dropped out of the sport

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because I couldn't climb as well as I used to. So I was pretty demoralized. So I actually moved to

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Australia for climbing beginning of 2004 and the first six months kind of went okay.

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But I was already on the decline and then I just hung my shoes up.

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And then I just hung my shoes up for about five years, got very heavily into photography in that

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time. Because amazing thing about being a climber is when you stop climbing, you get disposable income.

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I guess that's true. Because when you're a climber, you put all your money into the climbing.

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And so I got into photography, started doing a lot of motorsport photography.

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I wouldn't say traveled all over the world, but traveled up into Southeast Asia, went to the

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Singapore Grand Prix a couple of times, went to the Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang a couple of times.

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Loved doing that. But it was just a hobby at that stage of life. I had a corporate job. I was

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wearing a suit. I was another bland middle management person and another huge Fortune 500

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company just pretending that I was important and effectively doing nothing. When you look back at

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it, you're like, wow, there's not much to it. But then 2009, I still followed climbing, which was

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hard to do back in the day because there's very little content around, especially competitions.

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It was, you know, and I've always been an avid fan of competitions. But there was very little

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content around competitions in the general media, in the English speaking media, at least.

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Well, you kind of have to create it then.

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Well, that's almost what happened. And I started climbing again in 2009 because one day I looked

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in the mirror and just went, I don't want to be this person. I'm going to be middle aged and fat.

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It has been so I sort of sucked it up and went, I'll never climb

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as hard again, but I'll still get pleasure. And sort of became part of a Sydney scene in Australia,

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bouldering outside there a lot. And everyone's like, oh, you had a knee injury. Why did you boulder?

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Roots isn't roots, he's on the knee. The answer is if you're 70 feet up a root and you get to a

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move you can't do, there's a whole lot of kerfuffle stripping the root back down. If you're on a boulder

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problem, you get to a move and you can't do, you just jump off and go to the next boulder problem.

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But yeah, so I sort of got back into the scene there, started taking photos, was lucky enough

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to take a lot of photos with Naleh Hukajjaval and Dave Graham, Ian Dorey, Paul Robinson, Daniel Woods,

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people like that, Carla Traversi, because they were all going to the Grampians a lot at that

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age. And people were going, oh, you should sell your photos. And I'm like, there's no money in

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climbing photography. Why would I do that? But then Roc and I bought a bunch of my photos. So

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apparently there was some money. And then 2013, my friend James Casse said, I'm doing four World

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Cups in Europe at the start of the season. Did I want to join? And I've never been to Europe at

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that stage. So I said, yeah, you know what, I do want to join. And I took two months off work, and

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flew across to Europe on a wing and a prayer. Basically, one of the Australian magazines,

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very good Australian magazine called Vertical Life, got me to go as their photographer so that I

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could take photos of them of James. And so I got media accreditations. And I turned up and there's

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virtually no media anyway. I was like, oh wow, this is, you know, back then, Heiko Wilhelm,

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back then, Heiko Wilhelm was the official, official IFSC photographer, even though he was

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the Austrian coach, because there was just no real other photographer going to the events.

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Which was great if you're Austrian and not great if you're from,

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let's not even say, another top rate country, because he always made a lot of effort to get

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a lot of good photos. But if you were further down the start list, chances are he was back

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with his own athletes by then. And yeah, so that was a sort of baptism by fire. And I got there and

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I just loved it. And if I look back, you know, the first World Cup I ever went to was, you know,

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in France, which is down sort of in the south. And it was a Boulder World Cup. And I hadn't met any

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of these famous climbers. And James already knew a lot of them, because he'd been overseas before.

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And so I'm in a French shop buying a SIM card, so that I could have data. And Alex Puccio walks in

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goes, Oh, are you Eddie? And I'm like, yeah, like just going on my goodness, it's Alex Puccio.

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And she's like, Oh, just having lunch with James and I didn't want to eat all my pizza. So here's

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half my pizza. And I'm just like, okay, I've never even met this famous climber who I'm a huge fanboy

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of. And she's giving me half a pizza. And then pretty quickly got to meet a lot of the climbers.

00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:43,600
It was culture shock, because they look so much bigger on screen. Oh, yeah, I totally relate to

00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:48,400
that. When you first meet World Cup climbers, you're like, Oh, my goodness, this is like

00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:53,520
a climbing competition for little people. This is a different division. And you know, growing up in

00:21:53,520 --> 00:22:00,000
New Zealand, which is not a climbing hotspot very much on the side of the world, the number one

00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:06,000
excuse when people can't do stuff is I'm not tall enough. And suddenly you're there and everyone's

00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:12,320
like mini me's, you know, I could stand in a crowd at a climbing World Cup and always have an

00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:19,600
uninterrupted view because at just over six foot tall, there was only I think Jan Hoyer and

00:22:21,120 --> 00:22:26,640
Jorg Verhoeven were taller than me, everyone else was quite often considerably shorter.

00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:31,520
And they also look a little bit scrawnier than I was expecting to like I thought they would have

00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:38,480
huge like bulging muscles. But no, no, there's some that do like, you know, people like Chloe,

00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:43,920
or things like that yarn back in the day. But they are very lean, very, very lean.

00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:50,320
And that was interesting, because yeah, first World Cup, and I was like, where do we stand?

00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:55,440
They're like, stand where you want. And I'm like, what? And so back then, it was four free standing

00:22:55,440 --> 00:23:00,960
boulders that they climbed. And there was a curtain at the back of each boulder. And you

00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:05,200
could actually stand in the athlete staging area and shoot out the curtain on the angle.

00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:12,560
And I remember standing there shooting woman's qualification. And when you've not been to the

00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:15,920
World Cup, you can be a fan of a lot of these people, but you've never met them, of course.

00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:20,400
And I'm standing there taking photos, and I step back in and you're the worms getting ready like

00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:27,120
right next to me. And I'm just like, you know, am I in a space? I don't want to say anything,

00:23:27,120 --> 00:23:31,760
but this is where the photographers are supposed to stand. And so it was,

00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:40,400
and so it was, it was kind of crazy. And it was a very small, tight knit climbing family back then.

00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:52,720
And yeah, so I did four World Cups and it was Mio Kitzbuehl, Innsbruck,

00:23:52,720 --> 00:24:00,080
and I can't even remember what the other one was. But that was the first year. And at the,

00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:08,880
sort of halfway through then I went climbing needs or competition climbing needs something,

00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:12,000
because these people, as I got to know them, they had fascinating stories.

00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:19,760
You know, you had Mina Markovic doing psychology at university and being an incredibly considered

00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:26,400
and well thought through person. You had Yulia Worm was just starting mid school at that stage

00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:35,200
to be a doctor. And you had, then the sort of died in the wool comp climbers like Yenna Kruder,

00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:39,840
who were like, I'm not studying anything. I just want to be really good at comps. And they all had

00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:46,000
very different and unique personalities. So I was like, something needs to happen here. So I just

00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:51,360
sort of went, well, I'll do a magazine. And I started my own magazine, The Circuit, and

00:24:51,360 --> 00:24:59,760
people bought it. And then the next year I went back and my plan was to take a six month career

00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:05,600
break, which was something we had the option of free work. They just seconded someone into your

00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:14,160
position and you stepped out. So I bought all my FAs, got everything ready. And two weeks before

00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:18,720
it was time to go, work turned around and made a whole lot of people, sadly not myself redundant.

00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:22,720
And then said, Oh, you can't go because we've just made the other people in your department

00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:27,760
redundant. And it's not going to happen. I said, well, actually it is. I've already got the FAs.

00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:36,000
So I quit my job and just went. And at that stage, I had to make money. I had savings, but I had to,

00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:42,960
and I treated it like, you know, if you go to university, you spend three years or four years

00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:48,560
or five years studying and you're paying X amount each year with the goal that when you come out the

00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:54,880
other side, you're going to be earning money, but you're effectively gambling on yourself because

00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:58,560
you're putting money into your education that you have to pay back eventually.

00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:06,400
And the outcome is at the end of a career. And I said, well, I'm doing the university of competition

00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,360
climbing. That's an interesting way of putting it.

00:26:09,360 --> 00:26:14,000
Never thought of it like that. I put some of my own money against it to begin with

00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:20,960
and set myself a goal that I had to be making money within three years, like a living wage

00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:27,280
within three years, or I was going to call it and go do something else. And the first couple of years

00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:37,600
were at times brutal, but probably 18 months, I was making money. And then I went to college.

00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:43,120
And for 18 months, I was making money, you know, making a living money, not just making some money.

00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:53,600
So it worked out. And at the end of 2014, the IFSC came to me and said, look, you know, you're at all

00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:57,840
these comps. Do you want to be our official photographer? Because we actually don't want

00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:02,560
the official photographer to be team affiliated anymore because it does create a conflict of

00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:08,800
interest, obviously. And I said, well, you know, what's in it for me? And what's in it for me wasn't

00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:15,520
much. But it was improved access. And that was enough to go, well, okay, the improved access

00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:24,720
actually gives me an angle that the other guys don't have. So yeah, I went and I actually stopped

00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:29,360
doing the magazine because I was just too busy. So I only ever did two issues of that. And then

00:27:29,360 --> 00:27:38,480
I got too busy, got myself a bunch of clients and just, you know, as you can see by the wall

00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:44,800
behind me did quite a few World Cups. And that's not even all. Well, that's pretty much all of them.

00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:48,320
But of course, some of those are season passes. So some of those count for a whole year.

00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:58,000
But then there's also a studio block passes, quiff passes, other events,

00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:04,720
Deport a Solo events, all sorts of different, you know, I used to keep a spreadsheet of all the World

00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:09,840
Cups I've attended and all the events I've attended. And I think it's about 150 international events I

00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:20,480
shot. So it was, yeah, it was, you know, a great way to get perspective on a sport and a great way to

00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:26,560
to become part of a community and really do your own little bit to build it up. Because

00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:33,440
I think I was, I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I was kind of beloved by the athletes because

00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:35,920
if you were

00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:44,160
sort of amigasa, I was going to be taking photos of you. But if you were Katrin Van Selling down

00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:48,560
the other end of the field, I was going to be taking photos of her as well. So no matter where

00:28:48,560 --> 00:29:01,040
you were in the thing, I would put in the mahi and just do incredible hours to shoot all through the

00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:06,800
field. You know, I had disputes with the IFSC over that, because they wanted photos fast. And they're

00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:11,440
like, oh, we'll just do the top 20 in qualifying and then go and edit them. And I'm like, well,

00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:18,240
no, because the top 20, of course, are important. But if you're a climber from New Zealand or the

00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:24,960
US or wherever, and it's your first World Cup, and it might be your only World Cup, and afterwards,

00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:31,120
you go out and you won't get any photos and everyone's like, nah. Like, you know, it's easy

00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:39,760
for us when you live in rarefied air to think of, you know, it's only the top percent matter. But

00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:44,640
you've got to remember every single person at that World Cup is in the top percent of wherever they

00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:50,320
come from. You know, even if the Pakistani dude that's struggling to get up the speed wall,

00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:55,440
they've made it all the way from Pakistan to get up that speed wall. That's an achievement in the

00:29:55,440 --> 00:30:04,080
South and they deserve the recognition at some level. They deserve the same giving of time and

00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:14,640
treatment as, you know, a Yanya or a Tomoa. So I think that very quickly sort of got me on side of

00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:22,640
a lot of the climbers. And then I sort of became, because I'm a generation older than the climbers,

00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:36,640
I became sort of the unofficial driver-fixer-organiser for Team Other Guys. And that was a big part of it as well,

00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:44,640
because Team Other Guys was never a real team. Team Other Guys was the nickname we used to give

00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:49,520
to the people that were from federations that were too small to have a coordinated effort going to

00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:54,480
each World Cup. So it'd be the one or two climbers doing it on their own back from this country,

00:30:54,480 --> 00:31:01,680
that country. And, you know, for instance, it might be going to Miringen, I might have a car

00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:06,800
full of Swedes and Israelis and a couple of Australians or something. And I would have booked

00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:14,480
an Airbnb because it was easier to pool the resources. And a lot of the athletes are under 25.

00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:22,080
And so rental cars and accommodation and that can be more challenging.

00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:30,800
Yeah. And yeah, we'll get into those athletes' stories in a bit. But yeah, that was like quite a journey just for yourself.

00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:40,560
And so going back to just like when you signed on to IFSC, I didn't really realize this before,

00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:46,800
but a lot of people who do work for IFSC are just freelance and getting paid doing one-off gigs.

00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:51,680
Did you have like a regular contract with them or were you still like a freelance?

00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:57,280
So I was a contractor, but I was contract annually. So I was contracted to do all the World Cups for

00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:05,840
X amount of money. And it was a year to year rolling contract. But yeah, so the same as like

00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:13,680
Obsessed Media or people like that. So I was never part of the IFSC. I was always a contractor to the IFSC.

00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:24,320
And yeah, basically spent half of my life butting heads with them because although there's a lot of

00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:32,160
well-meaning people there, I think anytime you work with an organization, they can have a different

00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:36,480
perspective. And sometimes you need to actually sit there and have dialogue with them and go,

00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:44,160
well, you know, this is why this is important. This is why that's important. There was a number of

00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:49,680
comps that they wouldn't assign me to that I'd just show up to because for me, it felt important

00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:57,520
for the athletes to be there. And it was almost like an afterthought for the IFSC. And then they're

00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:02,320
like, oh, good, you're here. Well, can you take photos? It's like, well, that's what I'm here for.

00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:05,040
Well, like why weren't you contracted for those to begin with?

00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:10,640
They were just kind of oversights. Like, you know, when we had Youth Olympics in 2018,

00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:16,160
you'd think it would be a huge deal because it was our first Olympic appearance down in Buenos Aires.

00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:26,640
And they hired a videographer to do like a highlights video, but they didn't look at anyone

00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:36,080
doing photos. Same with World Games in 2017. And so for both of those, I got my own accreditation

00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:40,640
and then said, well, what are you doing about these comps? And they said, oh,

00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:45,360
we haven't thought of those. Can you come? And I'm like, yeah, I can come because I got my

00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:54,320
you know, I've already done all the legwork and got everything ready. And I'd just step in. And

00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:59,680
so in the end, they always used me, but I was doing those because I was contracted to do World

00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:04,560
Cups and World Champs and anything that wasn't a World Cup or World Champs, anything that was

00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:11,680
effectively run by a different body to the IFSC. For a long time, they sort of just assumed, well,

00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:17,840
I guess there'll be photographers there. And the problem with that is you might only have non

00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:22,560
climbing photographers and they might be good or they might be absolutely terrible. You don't know

00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:30,960
until you see it. And, you know, I've been lucky enough that most of those occasions

00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:35,920
worked with really good people like the other photographers on the ground.

00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:40,640
Because if you're a photographer, you tend to look at other people's work

00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:48,960
to go, OK, I'm going in to do this sport or whatever it is. Where do people normally stand?

00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:54,560
What's the net? You know, I wouldn't say we're copycats, but we take inspiration from each other

00:34:55,360 --> 00:35:00,320
because you don't want to go to a sport and learn the ropes and then look at your photos and go,

00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,560
oh, wow, they're all last shots. Yeah.

00:35:04,720 --> 00:35:09,200
And so I'd turn up at a lot of these events and a lot of the local photographers or the other

00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:12,800
sport photographers would be, oh, my goodness, you know, can you tell us what you know and how

00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:19,040
do we do these shots? Well, and stuff. And it's always very sharing and friendly in those

00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:25,200
environments because everyone wants a good end product. So being a photographer is incredibly

00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:33,120
competitive. It's like a sport in itself. But you all want each other to do OK. You want to be the

00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:40,320
best, but you want each other to do OK. And I'd had experience of that in motorsport and in

00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:45,280
athletics and things like that prior to climbing. So I was familiar with it, you know, back in the

00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:52,480
day shooting Speedway GP in Auckland, which is the motorbikes on dirt. And there was one photographer

00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:57,440
booth and all the accredited photographers were there. And I went and sat down, started chatting

00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:02,800
to them and I wasn't accredited. And then we're taking photos of the racers and about halfway

00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:08,320
through security turned up and said, oh, you don't have a vest on, you can't be here. And the other

00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:12,000
photographers all said, oh, no, he's one of us. He's just left his vest on the other side of the

00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:17,280
track. And next time, make sure you wear your vest. And so, you know, there was always a

00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:25,200
pretty friendly and dynamic around photographers. And same with things like Sydney Track,

00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:30,240
classic taking photos of athletics where you had people like a Safer pal and that running and,

00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:36,880
you know, people can, photographers can tell a hobbyist from a professional. And if you're a

00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:42,080
professional, they tend to help out even if you're a hobbyist, they'll help out, but they're probably

00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:48,880
a bit more limited in the time they'll give you. But it's, you know, it's a art in itself and a

00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:57,200
challenge in itself. And yeah, we had a lot of fun, I shouldn't use the real way because it's just me,

00:36:57,200 --> 00:37:04,320
but had a lot of fun, you know, learning the ropes and learning the dynamics and

00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:09,120
some places are territorial. That was always interesting. When I first went to World Cups,

00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:15,920
I almost got in a fight the first year I was in Slovenia, Log Dragon Mare, because the Slovenian

00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,760
security would only let local photographers into a good area, wouldn't let the foreign

00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:24,640
photographers into a good area. And I said, well, no, if I can go there, I can go there. And the guy

00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:29,040
said, well, no, you're not from Slovenia. And I said, I don't care where I'm from. This is for

00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:34,720
the international audience. And I went to go through and he blocked me and I didn't appreciate

00:37:34,720 --> 00:37:39,520
that and just went, you know, if you put your hand on me again, there's going to be issues. And the

00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:45,840
technical delegate at the time, legendary guy called Graham Alderson, he was just, if you ever

00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:51,440
want to interview anyone, Graham is the man. I mean, he was the judge at the first ever World Cup

00:37:51,440 --> 00:38:01,360
and was then technical delegate for years right up until the Olympics, basically. And has more

00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:07,120
experience as technical delegate than anyone. And he saw me squaring up this guy and ran over and

00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:10,080
was like, what are you doing? What are you doing? And I was like, he's not going to tell me that.

00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:13,200
And he's like, yeah, please don't start a fight. I'm like, okay.

00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:15,920
So did you manage to get in or?

00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:22,720
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had a quiet word to the security guy and said, you know, your job is to

00:38:22,720 --> 00:38:28,800
stop non-people getting in, non-official people getting in, not official people getting in. And

00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:36,960
don't look at the ethnicity, look at the badge. So there was always things like that. The first

00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:44,560
couple of years, it was a bit more cowboy-esque in the first couple of years. And I was like,

00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:50,240
cowboy-esque in the first couple of years. It was really, you know, some of those early World Cups.

00:38:50,240 --> 00:38:55,440
Azerbaijan, we just passed the 10 year anniversary of, and I don't know if you saw Udo Neumann was

00:38:55,440 --> 00:39:01,280
doing a bunch of stories about, as was I, the most bonkers World Cup of all time. I've never

00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:10,960
seen so much corruption. I've never seen just so much plain bonkersness. Because we all flew from

00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:16,800
the World Cup in China straight to Azerbaijan, because you ain't going to fly back to Europe.

00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:21,360
And so we got there on like the Tuesday and the World Cup was like, so they Sunday. And

00:39:23,200 --> 00:39:27,040
they've never been a World Cup in, or they'd been a Speed World Cup, but there'd never been a

00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:35,680
Boulder World Cup in Azerbaijan. And Azerbaijan, Baku is the capital and it means windy city. And

00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:43,280
the venue was out on this peninsula over the Caspian Sea and was super windy. And so they

00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:47,200
had a roof over the venue, but the roof was buckling from the wind. So they had to take the roof

00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:52,160
down. So then you had, again, it was four freestanding boulders, but they were exposed to the sun.

00:39:53,840 --> 00:40:04,640
So you're in a desert, incredibly windy, climbing boulders in the sun. And they had just bought the

00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:11,520
most expensive holds they could see online for the World Cup, because they had no idea what was what.

00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:15,920
So when Jackie got off and the setting crew all got out there and opened up all these boxes,

00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:24,480
it was like the entrepree kids alphabet set. Oh, really? Jungle gyms and stuff. So they were

00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:29,760
sending out a desperate message to all the climbers that hadn't got there yet to fill any

00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:34,720
spare space in their bags with holds from their gyms. And when they got to the World Cup, take them

00:40:34,720 --> 00:40:38,640
to the route setters so that the route setters could run in and change the climbs and put real

00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:44,400
holds on. So you had, you know, Killian Fishhuber flies over with half his luggage full of spare

00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:51,680
holds from the odd wall in Innsbruck. And then they said to Jackie, you know, okay, it's really

00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:57,440
important because we're in the wrecked sun. If you can sit the woman's boulders in the shade in the

00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:01,600
morning and the men's boulders in the shade in the afternoon. So Jackie does just that. And then

00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:06,880
they swap the order. So woman are in the sun in the afternoon and men are in the sun in the morning.

00:41:08,720 --> 00:41:16,720
And they had all the prize money, like $10,000 US dollars sitting in a case.

00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:18,400
Cash.

00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:23,120
Just cash. Except it did disappear and no one got paid.

00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:24,240
Seriously.

00:41:24,240 --> 00:41:29,920
So it took the IFSC literal years to reclaim the money from them because they effectively tried to

00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:35,280
do a run-over without paying anyone. And in the days leading up to the World Cup, all of us in

00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:40,240
the hotel, they come knocking on our door every morning and they'd take us and put us in these

00:41:40,240 --> 00:41:47,520
complimentary tour buses to do complimentary tours. And they were all logoed up buses. And you're in

00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:54,880
this bus going out to, we went out to see these petroglyphs about two hours out of Baku. And

00:41:56,320 --> 00:42:01,760
there's checkpoints on the road and you get to the checkpoint and you got minders and they call

00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:08,560
the minister of sport or whatever and pass the phone to the police guy and the thing. And

00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:12,800
minister of sports says, yes, he's allowed to go through and then pass the phone back and we can

00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:17,840
go through the next checkpoint. So it felt very sort of behind the iron curtain-esque.

00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:24,960
And we got out to these petroglyphs and it was beautiful. Looked like Waco tanks or

00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:31,760
Rocklands or something. You just wanted to go climbing there. But we went to that to climb

00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:36,160
there, of course, because it was petroglyphs. But what they didn't mention is that to make it

00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:39,680
easy for tourists that already picked up all the rocks of petroglyphs and put them together.

00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:47,040
And then coming back, we got back to the minibus. There's the driver, then myself, then Udo Neumann

00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:55,360
in the front and then all the athletes. So Alex Puccio, Jan Hoyer, basically half the world's top

00:42:55,360 --> 00:43:04,080
climbers in the back of this minibus. And the driver was stinking drunk and he was falling

00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:10,320
asleep at the wheel. And we'd be going along and I'd have to grab the wheel to keep us on the road

00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:14,800
because he'd start to veer off the road. And we were shouting at the minders, you know,

00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:19,120
I can drive, let me drive. And they're like, oh no, you can't drive because if you drive,

00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:24,400
he loses face and that's very bad for him. And so he stopped the bus and poured a bottle of water

00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:29,040
over his head to sober himself up and then just drove the rest of the way back in. And we're all

00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:36,400
like, we're all going to die. This is like most of the best climbers in the world and, you know,

00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:40,080
best competition climbers at that stage in the world. And we're all like, we're going to get

00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:46,000
killed because someone doesn't want to lose face in this autocratic regime. And so the whole thing

00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:57,600
was crazy. And at the end, we went down to pay and they wanted to pay us back. And we were like,

00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:06,960
they wanted 25 euros a day for the complimentary activities that they'd made us go on. And because

00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:17,760
most of the teams pay by team credit card, the credit card surcharge was 18%. And a lot of the

00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:21,040
teams said, well, we're not paying, that's a ripoff. And they said, well, we'll call the airport and

00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:30,080
you won't leave the country. So they basically rents on the climbers to. Yeah. So you guys just

00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:36,560
paid it? Yeah, of course. What can you do? But yeah, so that was sort of like the wild west days

00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:44,000
of earlier world cups. And it was very different to how polished they are now. So we never went back

00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:54,160
to Azerbaijan. Okay. That was a very, okay. So complete other story. So we're sitting on the

00:44:54,160 --> 00:45:00,800
plane to Azerbaijan. And if you've looked at my photos recently, you'll see a photo of James

00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:05,280
Cassay standing there in a red t-shirt and everyone else being in black business suits. They're always

00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:16,720
these hardened central Asian step businessmen coming out of China, back to Azerbaijan. And

00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:25,040
they don't see many blonde girls. So we were in quote unquote business class. We just got upgraded.

00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:32,640
It was Shauna, Mina Leslie, Wajastic and myself. And we're sat in this line of seats and these guys

00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:37,840
are coming up and they're just staring at the blonde girls, just like the on display in a zoo,

00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:42,560
just walking up, standing in the aisle, just no shame and just staring at them. And then one of

00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:47,440
the guys effectively tries to buy me. He says, you know, I'll give you X amount of money. Come

00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:56,080
live with me and be my wife. Oh, wow. That's so scary. So we were like, this is the most messed up

00:45:56,080 --> 00:46:06,000
crazy, like culture shock of all culture shocks. You know, totalitarian regime, policemen with a gun

00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:13,440
on every corner of every street. Yeah. And so that was sort of like World Cups back in the day. You

00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:19,600
had like Europe, which was like the center, which was really well organized and already really big

00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:29,920
and professional. And then you had Asia, which I'd say was close, but lagging behind. You had the US

00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:40,080
that was not even close, but felt that they were the best in the world. And then you had just these

00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:48,000
other randoms that were always like, what are we going to get now? So, and the US has come a

00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:52,880
hugely long way, but the thing with the US, so I don't mean to disrespect them as they wanted to

00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:58,720
do things their way, not the IFC way. So there was always sort of a clash of cultures when the World

00:46:58,720 --> 00:47:05,760
Cup got to US because like, well, no, this is how we do it. And it's like, sigh. Oh, what was the

00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:14,960
issue there? Just style, just everything. Just, it was just a cultural clash, the US had their way of

00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:20,880
doing comps and we had ours. I don't know if you're around back in the day when the US, they didn't

00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:28,000
have it at the World Cups, but they had their own scoring system that was really obscure and

00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:34,720
opaque and like no one could figure it out. And I don't know what that system is. What was it?

00:47:34,720 --> 00:47:41,920
Back in the early 40s, they had this thing where you got points per hold and then points for the

00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:47,200
top. But then if anyone else did the boulder problem, those points divided and it was, you

00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:53,040
needed a maths degree or a magician degree just to do the comps. And at one stage, because I was

00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:58,560
doing the magazine and the social media and I wrote an article basically criticising their system,

00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:05,840
saying, look, this is just, you know, to me, the simpler the system, the better, because you want,

00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:10,160
as a spectator, you don't want to have to be doing calculations on who won. You want to

00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:16,240
okay, you got three tops in the zone. Okay, Stas, you got three tops, but no zone. Okay, you won.

00:48:18,720 --> 00:48:25,760
But I wrote an article back in 2015, I guess it was, and I basically criticised the US scoring

00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:33,600
system and USA climbing banned me from taking photos of comps in the US until I had like a long

00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:37,760
meeting with women and had to apologise. And, you know, I didn't want to get banned. I was just

00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:43,280
saying I didn't agree with your system. And I have a lot of respect for what those guys did for the

00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:53,760
sport. But I do think they fixated on a system that wasn't, wasn't preparing their athletes for

00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:58,880
international competition. Because when you do a really crazy system, and you'd see it, then

00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:04,560
that turn up to World Cups, and they'll do badly because they weren't thinking, I just need to get

00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:09,360
the zone. Okay, I just need to get the top. Okay, you know, they, there's tactics that come into a

00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:15,760
World Cup. And those tactics were different under their system to. So when the World Cups came to

00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:20,880
the US, it would have to be the US system with like the no, no, when the World Cups came, they

00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:27,520
were always the World Cup system. Because, you know, none of us are good enough at math to do the

00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:38,160
American system. So it was always but um, it was always the, the IFSC system, which in itself has

00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:44,480
changed, obviously, massively over the last decade and a bit 15 years, whatever. You know, we used

00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:51,040
to have four plus, then we went to four flat, we used to have tops, meaning everything in zones,

00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:56,160
not and then zones got more important. You know, now they have the Olympic system, and then they

00:49:56,160 --> 00:50:04,880
have the Olympic system with numbers, there's all sorts of modifications to the scoring and to the

00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:09,920
the actual format that have happened over 15 years. And I don't agree with all of them,

00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:14,240
I agree with some of them. But you know, I see what they're trying to do to,

00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:18,160
to speed up the sport and make it more

00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:24,480
understandable to a casual viewer, which I think is important. But I think the flip side is you

00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:28,320
need to respect the intelligence of viewers and that if you explain something to them,

00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:29,440
they will figure it out.

00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:35,680
Do you think like the current system is pretty decent then in terms of understanding and simplicity?

00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:44,560
Yeah, for the most part, I have some issues around tops and zones. But that's not the

00:50:44,560 --> 00:50:49,440
problem. I have some issues around tops and zones. But that's just a personal thing.

00:50:51,360 --> 00:51:00,640
In that, so say you have a final, and two of the boulders are doable and two of the boulders

00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:08,720
are really crazy, not really doable. And so say you had someone comes out and flashes the

00:51:08,720 --> 00:51:15,360
two doable boulders, but then it's a desperate dino on the other two and they don't get zoned.

00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:20,480
And then you get someone that comes out and they take 10 attempts to get to the top on the other

00:51:20,480 --> 00:51:25,520
on the two boulders, but they're good at jumping. So they fluke his own on the other one. And

00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:37,600
suddenly they win because, but because of one move, you know, it's, I prefer that I preferred it when

00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:45,280
they went, they used to score number of tops attempt to top, then zones and attempts to zone

00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:51,760
as a tiebreaker, not number of tops and number of zones and attempts then. And for me, that was the

00:51:51,760 --> 00:51:58,640
system I preferred, but that's just me. I was also always have been always will be a huge advocate of

00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:09,360
four plus. I much prefer four plus to four minutes because I hate seeing athletes walk off the clock

00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:16,480
with time on the clock, walk off the mats with time on the clock. There used to be something about that

00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:25,040
a four plus round because four plus basically meant that you had four minutes to do the boulder,

00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:29,600
but if you were off the ground when your four minutes finished, your attempt only ended when

00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:36,240
you hit the ground. Yeah, I thought that was fun. It was fantastic because you had this tactic

00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:41,680
about running the clock down, trying to like save energy and jumping on with like 10 seconds to go.

00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:46,240
Yeah. And then like, you know, there was a couple of cases that were pretty funny, like

00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:52,480
Sekuru Hori and Grindelwald in 2014 being perched at the top of a boulder for about five minutes,

00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:58,080
just trying to get across and trying to get the match. But it was just pure drama because he was

00:52:58,080 --> 00:53:03,040
wedged in the corner and this finish was just out of reach for his height and he's trying to get the

00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:12,400
body position. You know, it wasn't boring. It was thrilling. And you had Melissa Laniv in the World

00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:18,880
Cup that was Petra's only World Cup win. And she got into this dihedral and was just camped there

00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:25,200
trying to get something back one move before the top and the crowd, you know, all three of us were

00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:32,880
going wild. And then she fell still going for the top. And so that was like amazing. You had,

00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:40,080
I've got this great photo of Margot Hayes at this comp in the US, the second hold on the comp was

00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:45,520
this huge volume and Margot jumped on and then just lay over the volume like a ragdoll and just

00:53:45,520 --> 00:53:50,160
lay right on her stomach and just lay there for about four minutes recovering. But it was just,

00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:58,880
it was theatre. It was so exciting to watch. And yeah, so I miss that format because there's,

00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:03,040
and I know now the flip side is you got buzzer beaters like, you know, Simon Lorenz a couple

00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:09,600
of years ago in Brixton or wherever it was just beating the buzzer. Lots of good buzzers. So there

00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:16,560
is a counter argument and I respect the counter argument, but for me, I preferred the four plus

00:54:16,560 --> 00:54:26,240
because it really gave it a sense of like drama and last attempt means all. And it was a lot of

00:54:26,240 --> 00:54:31,120
fun, but I, you know, I do understand why they moved it for, they didn't, you know, if you're

00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:37,840
going to be on Eurosport, you don't, you want roughly to be able to time your final. You don't

00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:42,880
want half the climbers spending eight minutes on a final problem because it's going to skew your

00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:47,360
whole scheduling. Of course the flip side is if you have a final like Salt Lake where everyone's

00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:51,520
flashing, then it skews the scheduling the other way because it gets too short. I guess that kind

00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:56,880
of reminds me of how people say that cricket is like a really long game. I've never watched it,

00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:02,560
but I just, I've heard people talk about how it can go on for days or something like that. Yeah.

00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:07,680
A test match is five days. Yes. Yeah. I don't really know how that works for broadcast TV,

00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:15,440
but alcohol. You, you sit there with a beer in your hand and you have it on in the background

00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:23,040
and it's not, you know, even odd equivolated to baseball in the U S like baseball is a very slow

00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:29,680
game to watch. Never watch it. So, yeah. So I mean, but some sports just aren't fast sports to watch.

00:55:30,720 --> 00:55:36,720
You know, I enjoy watching tour de France, you know, absolutely love watching tour de France,

00:55:36,720 --> 00:55:41,840
but guess what? Tour de France is slow to watch cause they're in the saddle six hours every day.

00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:46,400
But if you're watching with a good commentator, it's still fascinating cause you,

00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:53,920
and this is where commentary is king. Cause a good commentator can carry over the slow things.

00:55:56,560 --> 00:56:01,520
But yeah, I absolutely love some sports that are actually very slow to watch. You know,

00:56:01,520 --> 00:56:07,040
I'll sit down and watch a six hour motor race or a 24 hour motor race. Not the whole thing. I will

00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:10,640
go to sleep in the middle, but I'll have it on the background all day while I'm up doing something

00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:18,640
and just follow what happens. It's not every sport needs to be rushed. And I think the difference

00:56:18,640 --> 00:56:24,800
between four and four plus was so small that they could have quite comfortably done four plus,

00:56:25,440 --> 00:56:28,400
you know, a golf tournament. Well, how long is it golf tournament? Three days.

00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:34,240
You don't know cause you don't watch golf. Yeah, I don't watch it. You know, and the thing is,

00:56:34,240 --> 00:56:40,320
if you got good, how long is an American football game? Four hours and about two minutes of action.

00:56:41,520 --> 00:56:47,040
There's something about football that I do enjoy. I can't really describe why.

00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:52,720
I love watching football, but I love watching football because it's like,

00:56:52,720 --> 00:57:02,400
it's just the distilled essence of American sport. It's all bravado and heroism and tactics. And

00:57:04,320 --> 00:57:13,360
it's kind of, you get these huge behemoths who, whole existence is to run out in the field, crash

00:57:13,360 --> 00:57:18,320
into each other and then waddle off the field slightly slower and rest for 10 minutes. Like

00:57:18,320 --> 00:57:29,040
it's actually a bonkers sport. So it's like, you get, it's a ball sport where so many people's job

00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:35,360
is to never even touch the ball. You know, compare that to soccer or rugby or something like that.

00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:40,560
It'd be like having climbing where half the climbers never touched the climb.

00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:45,440
It doesn't make sense. It's like, you know, it's like, you know,

00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:53,360
it's like, you know, it's like, so, but there is a spectacle to it that makes it attractive

00:57:53,360 --> 00:57:57,040
and the commentary makes it attractive. You know, commentary, as I said, is King because,

00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:02,480
and this is where Charlie was brilliant because he was a student of commentary. He had his podcast

00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:10,240
where he would talk to other commentators and follow their, their advice and stuff. And you know,

00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:15,200
Matt is great at what he does, but he's never going to be the commentator for me

00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:19,280
because he's the commentator for the everyman and because of my experience in the sport,

00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:24,080
I'll never be the everyman. So I much prefer the color commentators because they tend to have the

00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:28,960
insight and that's what I'm after. I tend to find that people kind of just prefer the commentator

00:58:28,960 --> 00:58:36,160
that they started watching competitions in. So like people who started watching during Charlie's era

00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:40,400
prefer his commentary and then people who started watching during Matt's era prefer his commentary.

00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:47,200
So you can only say that about the last couple of commentators. Right, yeah. Some of the ones before

00:58:47,200 --> 00:58:53,280
that, lovely guys, but guys like Johnny Bryan who was basically a professional snooker commentator

00:58:55,680 --> 00:59:02,720
was a challenging listener. He had no real interest in climbing, never learned the terminology,

00:59:02,720 --> 00:59:12,960
never, you know, he could commentate anything as a professional commentator, but zero insight,

00:59:12,960 --> 00:59:23,440
zero perspective, zero sort of relaying the actual difficulty. Well, so I kind of got a bit of a taste

00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:34,080
of that because Matt had me co-commentate for women's semis in China and it didn't, it was,

00:59:34,080 --> 00:59:39,200
I mean, I never, my goal was never to do commentary. Like I always knew it would be really

00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:48,080
difficult, but I was like, I can't say no to an opportunity. I wouldn't say it went super well,

00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:52,480
but I got some nice messages from people who listened to the podcast, which was really nice.

00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:59,040
I enjoyed it. I thought it was good. It's, as I said, I tend to prefer the color commentators,

01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:08,080
which is nothing against Matt. Matt is holding it down for the casual listener. I, on the other hand,

01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:14,640
I'm much more interested for the other people. Yeah, I do agree that who you come in with and

01:00:14,640 --> 01:00:22,800
are familiar with as a commentator does make a big difference. For myself, I'm used to Matt as being

01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:32,320
the Epic TV guy. I always loved that. And I find he's a bit too cherry-chappy for me, but that's just,

01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:40,720
everyone has their own take. And I've done some commentary and commentary is hard. Sure is.

01:00:40,720 --> 01:00:47,280
Yes. I used to go to Doc Masters in the Netherlands, which is a fantastic comp.

01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:53,120
And they had me as their commentator. And it's funny because when they first contacted me, I

01:00:53,120 --> 01:00:56,720
thought, oh, you know, go take photos. Fine. They're like, no, we want you to commentate.

01:00:56,720 --> 01:01:04,320
Because I'd heard some unofficial commentary I'd done at an event another time. And they wanted me

01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:11,360
on. And it's funny because you get half of people love you, the other half hate you. And it's much

01:01:11,360 --> 01:01:20,960
more emotionally draining than being a photographer because the immediate feedback you get is pretty

01:01:21,680 --> 01:01:27,360
direct and sometimes brutal. And like my accent or people thought I was too chummy about the

01:01:27,360 --> 01:01:32,480
athletes or people thought I was too hard on other athletes because I give them a wind up. And

01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:37,760
you know, everyone's going to have their take. And in different cultures, commentary is different.

01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:48,480
So the commentary I give as a Kiwi is going to be probably less, I wouldn't say less respectful

01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:52,480
because you've got a massive amount of respect for them, but probably a little bit more honest

01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:58,080
and cutting than say an American commentator who is trying to paint everyone in a very positive light.

01:01:58,080 --> 01:02:03,360
You know, if I know someone's climbing behind their level or is stuffed because I can see that their

01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:07,200
shoulders are blowing and they're in trouble, I'm going to say, oh, I don't think they're going to

01:02:07,200 --> 01:02:10,960
get this problem because look at their shoulders, they're gone. You know, and people are like, oh,

01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:14,400
that's not a very nice thing to say. And it's like, well, that's just an observation as a

01:02:14,400 --> 01:02:24,640
commentator, you know. But that all came about from a very surreal experience. So years ago,

01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:30,800
Munich, definitely one of the biggest World Cups, I think the biggest World Cups ever were in Munich.

01:02:30,800 --> 01:02:43,280
And they used to at Boulder-Valton, Munich, they used to have a simulation semi a few days before.

01:02:43,280 --> 01:02:47,520
And so a lot of the World Cup climbers had turned up and it was like an unofficial World Cup almost.

01:02:47,520 --> 01:02:52,880
It was a lot of fun. And one year I was there, I didn't feel like climbing, but I was there.

01:02:52,880 --> 01:03:00,080
And one year I was there, I didn't feel like taking photos. So I got my phone out and started

01:03:00,080 --> 01:03:08,000
videoing and was just doing a one-man broadcast on Facebook Live and just talking shit and filming

01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:14,400
this thing. And this is back when Facebook was king of the platforms and they used to have

01:03:14,400 --> 01:03:19,120
Facebook recommended and everything. And I looked down, there's 150,000 people watching.

01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:27,680
Wow. Because it had gone on the Facebook recommended page and just people from all over who had no idea

01:03:27,680 --> 01:03:33,120
about climbing were clicking on and watching. And here's me just shit talking basically,

01:03:34,160 --> 01:03:40,000
just thinking there's 20 people watching and it was all mates. And then I looked at it's like 150,000.

01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:47,600
Did you say anything you shouldn't have said? Oh, many things. But it was all meant good

01:03:47,600 --> 01:03:53,920
naturedly. It was all in jest. It was a lighthearted event. But it was just funny that after that I got

01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:58,960
contacted by people that wanted me to commentate because I actually liked the style. And I was like,

01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:08,240
okay, I'll take that. And because I've been around a long time, I knew the athletes well,

01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:14,320
so I could sort of do the colour side as well because I knew what was going on. I don't know

01:04:14,320 --> 01:04:18,640
how long you've been watching, whether it was before your time or not. But Charlie used to

01:04:18,640 --> 01:04:27,440
get me to do the post-event interviews. So now they get the assistant, the colour commentator,

01:04:27,440 --> 01:04:32,800
to run down and do them. But back in the day, Charlie wasn't really able to leave for Booth.

01:04:33,680 --> 01:04:40,960
And he didn't want to leave the colour commentator in the Booth to talk on their own for five minutes

01:04:40,960 --> 01:04:45,680
where I went to wrangle the athletes. And I was always at the front because I'm taking photos,

01:04:45,680 --> 01:04:50,400
and then I'm standing around waiting for the podium. So the idea was, well, okay, pass me the

01:04:50,400 --> 01:04:56,080
mic and I'll do the questions. And even that, you do the questions and you think that came

01:04:56,080 --> 01:05:00,320
came off really well. And Charlie's like that came off really well. Then you read online. And so I was

01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:09,280
like, what was that guy asking? What an idiot. People are brutal. Yeah, yeah. People have zero

01:05:09,280 --> 01:05:17,760
empathy if they think that the person is not going to have any form of rejoinder. And sadly,

01:05:17,760 --> 01:05:22,160
I sometimes had a form of rejoinder because I'd definitely hit people up if I knew who they were

01:05:22,160 --> 01:05:31,520
and say, dude, what the hell? You try it. It's not that easy. Yeah. But it was, yeah, look,

01:05:32,320 --> 01:05:38,160
it was a blast. What can you say? The whole thing. I spent nearly a decade in the sport

01:05:38,160 --> 01:05:47,360
until COVID killed it. And it was a blast. Yeah. So going back to photography, since I still had a

01:05:47,360 --> 01:05:55,280
couple of questions about that. I think you had also mentioned that you think there are

01:05:55,280 --> 01:06:01,440
too many photographers nowadays at comps. How many do you think is too many? And like,

01:06:01,440 --> 01:06:07,680
what were some of the issues that come with that? Well, that's a tricky one to answer without

01:06:07,680 --> 01:06:14,640
offending people. But to be honest, I think if the answer is correct, that people shouldn't be

01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:23,440
offended. See, the challenge here is that I think photographers need to be able to earn a living

01:06:23,440 --> 01:06:29,840
taking photos. That's why you're a photographer. If you have too many people taking photos,

01:06:29,840 --> 01:06:37,680
you split the pie into too many pieces. And therefore, people can't actually survive doing

01:06:37,680 --> 01:06:42,400
it. So you end up crushing the full-time photographers and being left with a bunch of hobbyists.

01:06:44,560 --> 01:06:53,280
So I think that they have to limit it to the extent that the professionals can be professional.

01:06:53,280 --> 01:07:02,560
If they have, say at any given World Cup, say there's $20,000, 20,000 euros, whatever,

01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:10,240
and photographic sales to be made, and then they put 50 photographers in, then if they're all trying

01:07:10,240 --> 01:07:14,880
to sell their photos, that devalues all the photos, because any given photographer might be getting

01:07:14,880 --> 01:07:21,200
$500. But if you have half a dozen photographers, then that half a dozen photographers can make

01:07:21,200 --> 01:07:31,840
enough money that they can go to the next event and keep taking photos. For me, speaking outside

01:07:31,840 --> 01:07:38,960
of the box a bit here, but I'd almost like to see two photography areas, which I think would work

01:07:38,960 --> 01:07:44,720
really well, which would be for your pros and your hobbyists. And you could actually sell a hobbyist

01:07:44,720 --> 01:07:52,640
photographer ticket with the condition that none of their photos get used for commercial purposes.

01:07:53,200 --> 01:07:56,880
But if they're an enthusiastic photographer, because a lot of people love taking photos or climbing,

01:07:57,600 --> 01:08:01,920
it is a passion of theirs. And you say, well, look, you're welcome to, as long as you sign this

01:08:01,920 --> 01:08:06,480
saying that you're not going to sell your photos, you're welcome to. But if you're not going to sell

01:08:06,480 --> 01:08:11,840
as long as you sign this saying that you're not going to sell them, and you're going to have this

01:08:11,840 --> 01:08:16,160
area, which isn't quite as good as the main photographer's area, but you'll have, because

01:08:16,160 --> 01:08:21,440
as I said, for a while you had every Tom, Dick and Harry was using a press pass just to get into the

01:08:21,440 --> 01:08:33,040
cops. Yeah, that seems a bit extreme. And that was sort of like the overkill of it. Whereas some

01:08:33,040 --> 01:08:37,040
World Cups you go to, there's still very few photographers. So I don't think you want to

01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:44,880
overregulate and push out the photographers where you want them. So it's a case of balancing. And

01:08:44,880 --> 01:08:52,880
I would say, yeah, if you had at the bigger events like Innsbruck or

01:08:52,880 --> 01:09:01,280
Chamonix or wherever, if you had two photographer areas and you had your established pros,

01:09:02,800 --> 01:09:08,800
and then you had a hobbyist and those hobbyists might want to be pros, but so it gives them a

01:09:09,680 --> 01:09:15,840
way to learn the trade. Because you don't want to be elitist and just cut people off, but you want to

01:09:15,840 --> 01:09:23,840
you don't also want to screw your professionals. So it's

01:09:25,200 --> 01:09:30,080
one of those things, as I said, photography is competitive. We're all trying to get pieces of

01:09:30,080 --> 01:09:37,280
the same pie and the pie generally isn't that big. And if you get more people trying to get pieces of

01:09:37,280 --> 01:09:40,800
that pie, then the amount of pie goes down for everyone. Okay.

01:09:40,800 --> 01:09:47,760
Because there's always going to be that person or those people that undermine it because they're

01:09:48,960 --> 01:09:55,200
trying to get into the industry. So I think, well, if I lower my price or give away photos even

01:09:56,080 --> 01:10:04,160
just to get the prestige, then I'll get in. But they're actually damaging the sport because what

01:10:04,160 --> 01:10:08,160
they're doing is they're devaluing the people that set a value on their work.

01:10:08,720 --> 01:10:15,600
Yeah, that makes sense. And well, so you got like some special privileges as like the official IFC

01:10:15,600 --> 01:10:22,960
photographer, because, for example, like for lead, you get to shoot from other areas of the wall or

01:10:22,960 --> 01:10:27,600
like the top of the wall or something like that. Never really the top of the wall.

01:10:27,600 --> 01:10:34,400
Not since the old days in Brionson, that used to be wonderful. Now, Jan Vert uses a remote camera

01:10:34,400 --> 01:10:38,320
occasionally, which is good. I used to do that occasionally in speed, but that was the only time.

01:10:39,840 --> 01:10:44,240
Used to shoot speed occasionally from the top. The big advantage more than anything was in the

01:10:44,240 --> 01:10:52,480
bouldering. We used to have a rule that as long as I was two problems away from the wall, I would

01:10:52,480 --> 01:11:00,000
be on the mats. So normally I'd be, you'd have your videographer crew, your broadcast crew would be on

01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:04,720
the mats and I'd be next to them on one side of the other, moving back and forth with them,

01:11:04,720 --> 01:11:09,920
getting the angles because the videographer guys are normally getting similar angles to what I'm

01:11:09,920 --> 01:11:15,680
wanting to be shooting. Or if they saw me on the other side, they'd realize that I'm not shooting

01:11:15,680 --> 01:11:22,720
getting similar angles to what I'm wanting to be shooting. Or if they saw me on the other side,

01:11:22,720 --> 01:11:30,320
they'd realize I had a better angle and come and join me. So yeah, that was a thing where,

01:11:31,600 --> 01:11:38,080
yeah, it was basically mat access because for a lot of World Cups back in the early days,

01:11:38,080 --> 01:11:44,080
you couldn't shoot from beside the mats because the way a lot of the walls were constructed,

01:11:44,080 --> 01:11:49,920
they might have walls on either side of the wall. So automatically you're shooting in on the wall,

01:11:49,920 --> 01:11:55,440
which is flattening the climbers. And so the advantage of having that access, as I said,

01:11:55,440 --> 01:12:01,360
in the early days, you could shoot from anywhere and it was a free for all. But as it got more

01:12:01,360 --> 01:12:10,640
structured, then you'd get around on the mats. Because then you can see the degree of overhang,

01:12:10,640 --> 01:12:15,200
you can see how poor the slopers are and things like that. When you're shooting across the side

01:12:15,200 --> 01:12:18,240
or something, because you got a profile, you're like, wow, that slope is really bad. You're

01:12:18,240 --> 01:12:21,360
shooting it from the back and you see their hand just like that, you're like, well, that could be

01:12:21,360 --> 01:12:30,320
a jug for all I can see. So that was the big advantage there was just having that. And plus,

01:12:30,320 --> 01:12:36,480
I had to support my drinking game guys down in Texas. So shout out to them. There was a bunch of

01:12:36,480 --> 01:12:40,160
climbers that had a drinking game that whenever I appeared on the live stream, they had to have a

01:12:40,160 --> 01:12:45,680
shot. And once I found out that game was going, I tried to make sure I appeared in the edge of

01:12:45,680 --> 01:12:51,760
shot as often as possible. Oh my gosh. I feel like I would not want to appear on the live stream.

01:12:53,440 --> 01:12:59,600
It wasn't always flattering. I don't have the best physique. I'm not a young trim climber like a lot

01:12:59,600 --> 01:13:05,440
of these kids are. I'm a 50 year old man. So I was in my 40s then and I looked like a dude in my 40s.

01:13:05,440 --> 01:13:10,640
And that was, sometimes you'd see yourself walk past the back of shot. You'd be like, oh my goodness,

01:13:10,640 --> 01:13:22,720
I need to go to a gym. But I'm pretty comfortable being in front of a crowd because they're not

01:13:22,720 --> 01:13:28,480
looking at me. They're looking at the climber. So it used to sometimes be surreal when you're

01:13:28,480 --> 01:13:34,800
at a big event, a veil back in the day when you'd have several thousand people in the meadow watching

01:13:34,800 --> 01:13:39,200
the climbing and you're up front taking photos and you look sideways and you're like, wow,

01:13:39,200 --> 01:13:49,200
that's a whole lot of people. You know, 2019 veil, they wanted everyone to do this

01:13:52,720 --> 01:14:00,480
Eiffel Tower symbol for, we were trying to get in the Olympics for 2024. And their proposal was

01:14:00,480 --> 01:14:05,520
going before the IOC and the IFSC came up to me and said, can you get photos of people doing this

01:14:05,520 --> 01:14:11,360
to look like the Eiffel Tower? And I was like, wow, that sounds kind of lame and terrible. But,

01:14:12,560 --> 01:14:19,520
and I got photos of some of the athletes doing it. It just looked embarrassing and uncomfortable.

01:14:20,080 --> 01:14:23,600
And I went back to the IFSC and I said, look, I know there's a break in finals

01:14:24,800 --> 01:14:29,920
between the first two and the last two problems because there's always a break for adverts.

01:14:29,920 --> 01:14:34,720
I said, can I use that to get on stage and get the crowd to do the symbol and I'll get

01:14:35,920 --> 01:14:44,960
3000, 4000 people doing it, not just one or two awkward looking embarrassed climbers.

01:14:46,000 --> 01:14:50,560
And they were like, well, you can do it, but who's going to announce it? And I was like,

01:14:50,560 --> 01:14:53,040
well, I'll announce it. I'll get up and just tell them what I want to do. And they're like,

01:14:53,040 --> 01:14:56,880
you can't do that. I'm like, why not? I'm just picking up a mic and saying, do this.

01:14:56,880 --> 01:15:02,880
And if you watch back that footage of Vail 2019 in the men's final, I get up halfway through and

01:15:02,880 --> 01:15:08,160
take the mic off the EMC and say, okay, I want everyone to do this. And we ended up with probably

01:15:08,160 --> 01:15:12,880
close to 4000 people and it just looks like every single person's doing it. And they're just

01:15:12,880 --> 01:15:19,520
receding into the distance and they're all doing the, and that was a huge kick. You know, that was,

01:15:20,400 --> 01:15:25,520
yeah, I'll try to link that in the description so people can see. I feel like you're talking

01:15:25,520 --> 01:15:31,440
about the athletes looking awkward doing it kind of reminds me of, sometimes they try to get the

01:15:31,440 --> 01:15:36,480
athletes to do like short videos where they're doing like a pose or something. So demeaning.

01:15:36,960 --> 01:15:42,800
I mean, I think it's kind of fun. I want, I just wish they weren't as like embarrassed to do it

01:15:42,800 --> 01:15:47,520
because I feel like it could be good. I think the thing is when they've started doing it,

01:15:47,520 --> 01:15:52,640
the athletes didn't really know what they were going to be used for or done. And so you ended

01:15:52,640 --> 01:15:57,040
up with like a Kia with a banana on her head for a season or something. You know, you end up with

01:15:57,040 --> 01:16:00,960
some stupid ones in the early days because the athletes were just playing around. They had no

01:16:00,960 --> 01:16:05,680
concept of what they were being asked to do. They thought it was just like, now do something funny

01:16:05,680 --> 01:16:09,920
for us. And then they're like, oh my goodness, that's for the whole season. Now I think the

01:16:09,920 --> 01:16:17,600
athletes are more familiar with, but the whole walk out and go, and the camera is just kind of

01:16:17,600 --> 01:16:21,520
cheesy and a bit, I don't know, for me, it's like, I'd rather just a nice photo of them,

01:16:22,560 --> 01:16:28,640
like a clean portrait. They don't do that anymore. Do they? I just, it stood out to me when they did

01:16:28,640 --> 01:16:34,880
it for like burn world champs, they shot like a quick, I don't know, few second thing for each

01:16:34,880 --> 01:16:41,040
climber and it was, it was fun. Yeah. It's, I can't remember it being regular anymore. So maybe they

01:16:41,040 --> 01:16:47,520
have stopped it on the whole, but it used to be a, it was a little bit more like a, you know,

01:16:47,520 --> 01:16:51,920
pretty, it used to be this annoying thing because I'd do it at the first world cup of the year and

01:16:51,920 --> 01:16:56,160
I'd try and get like every athlete to do it. And I'd take a portrait of every athlete that was there

01:16:56,160 --> 01:17:00,000
as well. Then you turn up at the next world cup and then another part of the world, there's a whole

01:17:00,000 --> 01:17:04,720
different set of athletes. And you're like, all right, there's this whole thing again, you know,

01:17:04,720 --> 01:17:09,200
not the easiest process. And, you know, for me taking portraits of athletes used to be,

01:17:10,400 --> 01:17:14,640
because they used to say, take portraits of the athletes. I go, okay, but there's a lot of

01:17:14,640 --> 01:17:20,160
athletes. Oh, well, we only want portraits of the top 10. I'm like, okay, but what happens when

01:17:20,160 --> 01:17:24,960
someone who's not in the top 10 makes finals? Oh, well then you just get a portrait of them.

01:17:25,520 --> 01:17:28,800
But the thing is going into a season, you don't know who your top 10 is going to be because

01:17:29,760 --> 01:17:33,280
you haven't seen them climbing yet. You don't know who's where in their

01:17:33,920 --> 01:17:40,400
state of preparation and their state of play. And so yeah, I used to go in and say, okay,

01:17:40,400 --> 01:17:48,320
I'll get everyone and I'd do 120 portraits. And then, you know, or sometimes more might be 120

01:17:48,320 --> 01:17:55,840
guys and 120 girls. And then you're like, okay, that's my next couple of months done editing,

01:17:55,840 --> 01:18:01,760
because you had to cut the backgrounds out. And, you know, that was on top of your usual work. And

01:18:01,760 --> 01:18:06,640
then you look on the IFSC website and they got all the portraits up next to the wrong athlete. And

01:18:06,640 --> 01:18:16,480
it used to be an adventure and chaos. It was, yeah, you know, there's so many things that you take

01:18:16,480 --> 01:18:20,240
for granted as a spectator, but you don't think, well, people have to work really hard behind the

01:18:20,240 --> 01:18:23,120
scenes to make all these things happen. Right. Yeah. Simple as portraits. And it's funny because

01:18:23,120 --> 01:18:26,160
you read the critics and they're always like, why aren't they doing that? And it's like, well,

01:18:26,160 --> 01:18:31,520
they're not doing that because it really takes a lot of effort and time. And these people are

01:18:31,520 --> 01:18:36,800
trying to do everything. You know, the obsessed media guys, I don't know if they're still the

01:18:36,800 --> 01:18:42,640
official media crew, I assume they are, but they, you know, they have to do everything to do with

01:18:42,640 --> 01:18:46,800
live video. And then back in the day, when I was the only official photographer, I had to do

01:18:46,800 --> 01:18:56,000
everything to do a photography. And you had a bunch of different requests at every comp for,

01:18:56,000 --> 01:19:02,320
and as I said, the IFSC was never paying much. It was more of it. I was getting access and that

01:19:02,320 --> 01:19:13,280
allowed myself to then go to companies and say, can you, will you work with me? Because what I

01:19:13,280 --> 01:19:19,520
tend to do is I don't sell photos after events. I, at the beginning of a season, or anytime in a

01:19:19,520 --> 01:19:26,400
season, but normally at the beginning or before a season, I talk with all the companies and they

01:19:26,400 --> 01:19:32,480
agree to pay me X amount for the year. And then I provide them a folder of photos of their athletes

01:19:32,480 --> 01:19:36,320
from each event that they can then do whatever works. So they don't have to buy individual

01:19:36,320 --> 01:19:42,640
photos. They pay me X thousand euros a year. And then they always have, that's much easier than

01:19:42,640 --> 01:19:47,840
trying to sell individual photos. You try and sell individual photos and half your life is spent on

01:19:47,840 --> 01:19:52,560
heart. The other half of your life is spent chasing invoices that haven't been paid.

01:19:52,560 --> 01:19:58,560
There's a lot goes into it. There's a lot of, you know, having all your batteries charged,

01:19:58,560 --> 01:20:03,280
having all your SD cards empty, having enough, you know, over all those events,

01:20:05,360 --> 01:20:11,280
not including the photos I deleted because I deleted ones that weren't good.

01:20:11,280 --> 01:20:17,120
I ended up with more than 600,000 photos. So that's in my keeper pile,

01:20:17,120 --> 01:20:23,840
you know, more than half a million photos in my keeper pile. But the great thing about that is

01:20:23,840 --> 01:20:29,440
someone goes, Oh, I want a photo of Yanya from 2015. I'm like, here you go. I want a photo of

01:20:29,440 --> 01:20:34,880
Arianne from 2019. Here you go. You know, you've got the whole history of an athlete. So as they

01:20:34,880 --> 01:20:39,680
evolve and develop, you might want to do a historical piece on them. And you're like,

01:20:39,680 --> 01:20:45,360
well, yeah, okay, I've got that. You know, I used to be big on shooting youth worlds and youth comps

01:20:45,360 --> 01:20:49,200
where I could as well, because I'm like, well, that's the next generation of World Cup climbers

01:20:49,200 --> 01:20:55,280
and having that whole track. And it's funny when you work with youth, because you can,

01:20:57,440 --> 01:21:05,280
you can tell your enormous natural talents. But you can also tell your absolutely hungry

01:21:05,280 --> 01:21:10,480
athletes that may not be as naturally talented, but will succeed because they're just bloody

01:21:10,480 --> 01:21:16,560
minded and want nothing more than to be the best. And you can tell you're, well, they're really

01:21:16,560 --> 01:21:23,440
talented, but they're not going to last because, yikes, you know, they, they're distracted by shiny

01:21:23,440 --> 01:21:28,160
things, athletes as well. You know, and that's always a real shame. And you want to sit down with

01:21:28,160 --> 01:21:32,080
some of them and have a talk and say, you're enormously talented. I know that the opposite

01:21:32,080 --> 01:21:36,240
gender or the same gender, whatever it may be, are attractive, but you can date on the side.

01:21:36,240 --> 01:21:39,680
You don't have to quit comp climbing just to... Oh, that's what you're talking about?

01:21:39,680 --> 01:21:46,000
Oh yeah. Well, because these guys, these are teenagers. And to be a professional athlete,

01:21:46,000 --> 01:21:51,680
you sacrifice being a teenager, you sacrifice being a normal developing person because,

01:21:51,680 --> 01:21:55,360
oh, we're going to a party tonight. Well, I can't, because I've got training tomorrow morning,

01:21:55,360 --> 01:22:00,560
or I can't because I've got training this afternoon. And I'm not going to be able to

01:22:00,560 --> 01:22:06,720
do that. And you've got to make life choices that aren't the same as any other teenager.

01:22:07,520 --> 01:22:13,280
And, you know, I've coached as well for a long time and I've lost kids that I coached to being

01:22:13,280 --> 01:22:18,800
teenagers. And you can't say, well, that's not right because some people just want to life.

01:22:19,600 --> 01:22:23,600
Some people... Sure. Yeah. I mean, that's understandable and normal.

01:22:24,480 --> 01:22:29,840
So, you know, I had a phenomenal athlete when I was coaching back at the turn of a century,

01:22:29,840 --> 01:22:36,080
a very good young climber. And she was probably the best climber at that time New Zealand had

01:22:36,080 --> 01:22:46,320
ever had as a potential. And when she hit 16 and her body made all the, I've just hit 16 changes,

01:22:46,960 --> 01:22:52,960
and boys started to notice her and other things got more interesting. And that was it. She was

01:22:52,960 --> 01:23:00,320
gone. And it was like, you know, what a loss, but she had a great life. She's a wonderful person.

01:23:00,880 --> 01:23:08,480
You know, we're still friends today, but her path changed. Climbing wasn't the priority that those

01:23:08,480 --> 01:23:16,400
of us that are lifers really wanted it to be. Interesting. I never thought about dating within

01:23:16,400 --> 01:23:20,880
the climbing community, I guess, and how that affects people's entire trajectories.

01:23:20,880 --> 01:23:24,640
Well, yeah, or dating outside of the climbing community more to the point, because if you're

01:23:24,640 --> 01:23:28,720
dating a non-climber and they're like, oh, we just want to go to that party. Oh, well, I'm training

01:23:28,720 --> 01:23:32,720
you. And, oh, we'll just come to that, you know, and it's just those little voices in the air. But

01:23:34,800 --> 01:23:42,240
the influence on climbers, you can't say enough about how much pressure and how many influences

01:23:42,240 --> 01:23:49,040
climbers are under. You know, obviously there's been this big thing about Red S lately.

01:23:49,040 --> 01:23:53,360
It's been a long standing issue in the sport. We've been aware of it for a very long time, but

01:23:55,360 --> 01:24:01,360
I would say it's been more problematic in the last half decade than it maybe was beforehand.

01:24:02,320 --> 01:24:03,600
Oh really? Why's that?

01:24:05,600 --> 01:24:10,720
Just, it just seems to be a bit more prevalent because I think the style has changed and

01:24:10,720 --> 01:24:15,920
if you're a little power limpet that weighs nothing, you can hold on forever and hold anything.

01:24:17,520 --> 01:24:23,040
Well, I guess I thought it would actually be the other way around. Since now it's so much more like

01:24:23,840 --> 01:24:25,840
power and just like.

01:24:25,840 --> 01:24:31,360
Yeah, it's tricky. And I may be speaking out of turn and I could well be wrong because when I look

01:24:31,360 --> 01:24:38,960
back, you know, there were always stories of, you know, people who were like, oh, I'm going to be

01:24:38,960 --> 01:24:46,480
a climber. And I think there were stories when we were growing up in the scene, you know, in the

01:24:46,480 --> 01:24:55,520
early days of climbers that were dressed, you know, one of the guys would campus until he fainted

01:24:56,240 --> 01:25:00,240
and he had fainted from low blood sugar. And then when he, when he came back around,

01:25:00,240 --> 01:25:01,680
he'd start campusing again.

01:25:02,800 --> 01:25:03,280
Okay.

01:25:03,280 --> 01:25:05,280
You know, that's got to be bad for you.

01:25:05,280 --> 01:25:05,840
Yeah.

01:25:05,840 --> 01:25:13,680
I remember sitting in a hostel with Russian athletes back in 2013 and they were having,

01:25:14,320 --> 01:25:23,520
like they were cut a piece of hard boiled egg, like, you know, the width of two 50 cent pieces,

01:25:23,520 --> 01:25:27,360
put it between two rice wafers and that was their breakfast.

01:25:27,360 --> 01:25:34,560
And you're like, that's not, and there were a lot of very unhealthy practices. I remember

01:25:36,480 --> 01:25:40,640
being contacted by one really upset climber because they were on a youth training camp

01:25:41,360 --> 01:25:46,320
and they were being made to weigh in in front of everyone every morning after breakfast,

01:25:47,520 --> 01:25:53,360
which is kind of like the old gymnastics philosophy that, you know, you want people

01:25:53,360 --> 01:25:57,280
to be light. So you make them do a public weigh in so that they're shamed by their peers.

01:25:58,160 --> 01:26:03,280
Or another athlete I knew, she contacted me and she was very upset and she's a World Cup medalist

01:26:04,240 --> 01:26:11,600
and very good athlete. And her coaches said, you need to get under 50 kilos.

01:26:12,240 --> 01:26:17,360
And she said, well, at the size I am 50 kilos, you know, I'm 52 kilos. I'm already as light as

01:26:17,360 --> 01:26:22,080
I'm comfortable being. And they said, no, you have to be under 50 kilos. And she said, well,

01:26:22,080 --> 01:26:26,000
I can't get under 50 kilos. And they said, well, if you can't, there's lots of other girls that can.

01:26:27,920 --> 01:26:33,120
And then they went to her parents and said to her parents, she's not putting in the effort.

01:26:33,680 --> 01:26:38,640
She's not willing to make the sacrifices needed to be a top climber. And so her parents basically

01:26:38,640 --> 01:26:45,120
turned against her and went, we've spent all this time and money helping you be a really good climber.

01:26:45,120 --> 01:26:49,200
Why are you slacking off now? And she wasn't slacking off. She was just trying to be healthy.

01:26:49,200 --> 01:26:54,320
And it was the Federation coaches that were pushing that. And I raised that back in the day

01:26:54,320 --> 01:27:01,440
with the IFSC and goodness knows of much came of it. But, you know, she's still climbing and competing

01:27:01,440 --> 01:27:08,560
now. So I like to think that she's doing all right. But it's like, a lot of them had contact me when

01:27:08,560 --> 01:27:17,520
they had issues because I was close to the athletes, but I'm a safe person because after a bad comp,

01:27:17,520 --> 01:27:22,320
or a bad round, or your head's in just the wrong space, you don't want to go to your coach because

01:27:22,320 --> 01:27:26,800
your coaches spend all this time working on you. You kind of don't want to say, hey, because you

01:27:26,800 --> 01:27:31,440
feel like you're failing them. And the same with the parents. So they kind of wanted like a neutral

01:27:31,440 --> 01:27:39,200
party to, you know, who could empathize with them, but wouldn't judge them. And so that sort of became

01:27:39,200 --> 01:27:47,120
as an older person, I was sort of like the sounding board for a lot of them. Yeah, I was the person

01:27:47,120 --> 01:27:52,080
that a lot of them came to. And there was a few that were bad and I had to go, okay, I actually

01:27:52,080 --> 01:27:57,120
have to escalate this to people in the IFSC because what you're talking to me is abuse.

01:27:57,120 --> 01:28:04,080
Yeah. I guess that's kind of why I think that why I thought that it would be better nowadays than

01:28:04,080 --> 01:28:09,440
in the past because we've like learned from experiences or learned from people who've spoken

01:28:09,440 --> 01:28:15,280
out about it or things like that. I like to think so, but obviously I was in Slovenia last year as a

01:28:15,280 --> 01:28:23,440
coach, I took over a couple of girls that I was coaching to compete and some of them still look

01:28:25,040 --> 01:28:33,600
like they're on the wrong side of the battle at the moment. And so I think that's why I thought

01:28:33,600 --> 01:28:40,400
and it's always tricky. I know, for instance, one of the very good climbing

01:28:42,240 --> 01:28:47,200
females used to say, look, I lose weight for every season to compete, but I make sure I put the weight

01:28:47,200 --> 01:28:52,720
back on in the off season so that I'm not so unhealthy. And I don't know that that was a

01:28:52,720 --> 01:28:56,880
sustainable method or effect that ended up doing long-term harm to her. She's retired now. So

01:28:56,880 --> 01:29:04,880
I can't say, but like kind of like boxes, trying to get down to a fighting weight.

01:29:04,880 --> 01:29:15,280
Yeah. But at what point does cutting get dangerous? At what point are you harming yourself? And

01:29:16,720 --> 01:29:22,880
climbing definitely had a pretty poor culture around that back in the day. And I think,

01:29:22,880 --> 01:29:29,200
I guess just maybe because it's been in the media so much lately and I hear about it and I

01:29:29,200 --> 01:29:36,000
look at some of the photos and I'm like, I still, I used to refuse to sell photos of climbers that

01:29:37,280 --> 01:29:45,360
had obvious health issues and eating disorders. I remember at one stage, Natalie Berry contacted

01:29:45,360 --> 01:29:49,200
me and said they wanted to run a profile on a climber. I said, look, I'm not comfortable

01:29:49,200 --> 01:29:56,800
sending you photos of them because even though I might make 500 or a thousand euros, that's a bad

01:29:57,840 --> 01:30:03,680
precedent to be setting to make that an acceptable body type. And you might go, well, who are you to

01:30:03,680 --> 01:30:11,680
judge? And I'm like, well, I'm someone of eyes. Sure. And because you know these kids, especially

01:30:11,680 --> 01:30:15,920
if you know them from when they're juniors, if they turn up one year and they look amassed,

01:30:15,920 --> 01:30:22,400
did you like hold it? Something's gone wrong. Sure. Yeah. You know, there was a couple of

01:30:22,400 --> 01:30:30,480
cases of that happened where the climbers had taken on upon themselves. And I even had coaches

01:30:30,480 --> 01:30:34,640
come to me and say, can you talk to my climber? Cause they're too skinny and they won't listen to

01:30:34,640 --> 01:30:39,360
me. And I think they're unhealthy. And you go to the athlete and you say, look, we're worried

01:30:39,360 --> 01:30:46,720
about you. You look terrible. I'm fine. And you're like, no, you're not. So, and the thing is as

01:30:46,720 --> 01:30:53,280
well, people tend to gender red S a lot. Um, because obviously a lot of, uh, studies and stuff

01:30:53,280 --> 01:31:01,200
have been around, uh, long-term health and females, but it's also very applicable in the males. Um,

01:31:02,560 --> 01:31:07,920
some of the guys were dreadfully skinny. And I think that in the guys, at least the healthy

01:31:07,920 --> 01:31:12,400
physiques tend to outweigh the unhealthy physiques now, but there was definitely, you know,

01:31:12,960 --> 01:31:20,240
back in the days of Rooster and Demetri and that they were just gaunt, incredibly gaunt.

01:31:21,440 --> 01:31:31,840
You know, when, when you're 46 or 50 kilos is like a five foot nine guy. Yeah. Yeah. And

01:31:31,840 --> 01:31:36,400
you're athletic. You're like, okay, something, you know, you're, you're that's as much as one

01:31:36,400 --> 01:31:41,360
of my legs. Please excuse this brief intermission, but I would just like to remind you that if you

01:31:41,360 --> 01:31:45,920
are enjoying this podcast, please follow and rate it on your preferred listening platform.

01:31:45,920 --> 01:31:50,160
If you're watching on YouTube, I would love to hear your discussion and thoughts in the comments

01:31:50,160 --> 01:31:56,480
below. Anything helps to push this podcast out to more people and get even more amazing guests on

01:31:57,120 --> 01:32:03,520
back to the show. So that reminds me a bit of one, uh, like in the discord when I was getting some

01:32:03,520 --> 01:32:11,280
questions that we could get into a bit later, um, kind of started discussion about, uh, photo

01:32:11,280 --> 01:32:19,680
journalism, um, objectivity of the climbers and getting engagement. Um, like when you said that

01:32:19,680 --> 01:32:23,760
you wouldn't sell certain photos of certain climbers because you didn't feel comfortable

01:32:23,760 --> 01:32:30,640
doing that. I guess they said that photographers or photographers are sometimes making a living from

01:32:30,640 --> 01:32:38,080
exploiting climbers in a way. Um, so for example, like, do you photograph athletes in vulnerable

01:32:38,080 --> 01:32:43,600
moments? Like when they find out they didn't podium or when they get injured or something like that?

01:32:44,720 --> 01:32:52,000
Uh, yeah, absolutely. But I then have to make a judgment call on whether those photos should

01:32:52,000 --> 01:33:04,400
ever be published. So how do you, I guess, take the, if you don't take the photo, then it disappears

01:33:04,400 --> 01:33:11,120
as part of a narrative forever. If you take the photo, then later on someone might come back and

01:33:11,120 --> 01:33:16,720
say, Hey, you know, I was going through a really rough period. Now I want to do a, um, a thing

01:33:16,720 --> 01:33:23,600
about my redemption arc, my getting back to the top. Um, did you get any photos of that? And

01:33:23,600 --> 01:33:33,040
actually, yeah, I did. I just chose not to share them. Um, it's, a lot of it comes down to knowing

01:33:33,040 --> 01:33:38,080
the athletes and what they're comfortable with. I've had some clangers, I've put, put up some photos

01:33:39,440 --> 01:33:46,400
thinking a photo was harmless and just like a fun angle or something. And then the climbers

01:33:46,400 --> 01:33:51,440
copped abuse just from the public. Cause they've gone, Oh, look at the size of their ass. Oh,

01:33:51,440 --> 01:33:56,000
I thought climbers are supposed to be skinny. Oh, the sudden the other. And I'm like, Oh my God,

01:33:56,000 --> 01:34:02,720
that's not what, you know, I had this photo many years ago now of, um, Chloe, Chloe Coolia from

01:34:03,520 --> 01:34:12,320
Belgium. And she was just in this crazy position in Vail. And I posted it cause when I looked at

01:34:12,320 --> 01:34:16,880
the photo and I looked at her face and I looked at her body position, I'm like, that's cool. But

01:34:16,880 --> 01:34:22,640
when I posted it, a lot of people went to town on it and they didn't go to town on me for taking

01:34:22,640 --> 01:34:29,680
the photo. It went to town on her for her physique in that angle wasn't flattering. And I'm like,

01:34:29,680 --> 01:34:36,480
guys, no one's flattering in every angle all the time. Um, but it did make me very conscious. And

01:34:36,480 --> 01:34:46,640
one time, um, I actually pulled a photo down that I posted cause I took a photo in, um,

01:34:47,840 --> 01:34:55,200
Wujiang in, I'm going to say 2019 when everyone was doing speed because they were all trying to

01:34:55,200 --> 01:34:59,760
get them to combine for the Olympics. And there's a couple of the guys and they're assembling,

01:34:59,760 --> 01:35:05,360
like they were, they were miming the route to each other and they're doing that. And I

01:35:05,360 --> 01:35:10,880
took this photo and I put it up and then, um, the Austrian coach messaged me and said, Hey, can you

01:35:10,880 --> 01:35:14,480
take that down? And I'm like, why? And it's like, it looks like they're doing the hit list to lose

01:35:14,480 --> 01:35:20,400
and that's not appropriate. And I looked at it and I went, Oh, okay. Yeah. I like, I wouldn't see that,

01:35:20,400 --> 01:35:29,440
but I could see how someone would see that. And so I took it down. You know, um, so there are,

01:35:29,440 --> 01:35:38,720
uh, there are times you take photos that are inadvertently upsetting and there are times you

01:35:38,720 --> 01:35:44,240
take photos that are upsetting, but you know that it's going to, you take a photo of a climber being

01:35:44,240 --> 01:35:50,800
carried off of a stuff knee. You're not going to post that photo, but you know that that photo

01:35:50,800 --> 01:35:56,960
might have an intrinsic value later on. Um, the question is, do you post it or not? And that comes

01:35:56,960 --> 01:36:04,000
down to your individual ethics and your individual, you know, I've got photos of

01:36:05,120 --> 01:36:12,400
Yanya having a cry after not doing well on a comp and I've not posted them, but took the photo,

01:36:13,840 --> 01:36:21,440
you know, um, cause she's a human, she cries. That's not demeaning to her. That's just

01:36:21,440 --> 01:36:28,080
how important winning is that, you know, all these athletes have standards and when they fail to

01:36:28,800 --> 01:36:35,680
meet their own perceived standards, they, they are emotional and that is part of the three

01:36:35,680 --> 01:36:43,680
dimensionality of the sport. Um, I don't know if you watch back coverage yet of, um, Salt Lake, but,

01:36:43,680 --> 01:36:49,680
Alex was talking in commentary and I thought it was very relevant about sort of the false smiles

01:36:49,680 --> 01:36:56,080
that some of the girls put on now. They, they have like the, the gymnast dash dancer smile where they

01:36:56,080 --> 01:37:00,800
just walk around with like a Richter's grin the whole time and it just looks terrible, but they're

01:37:00,800 --> 01:37:09,760
just like, okay. And it's that in itself as a defense mechanism that

01:37:09,760 --> 01:37:12,960
taught to do it. And it's like, look at me, I'm having fun. And you're looking at the guy,

01:37:12,960 --> 01:37:18,880
that's the most unnatural smile I've ever seen. The thing is some people don't want to show, you

01:37:18,880 --> 01:37:27,840
know, take, and I'm not saying she's a fake smiler, but I'm going to take a smiler versus a

01:37:27,840 --> 01:37:36,560
non-smiler, take Natalia, who's a smiler and Stacia, who's a non-smiler. And I'm going to

01:37:36,560 --> 01:37:43,920
and Stacia, who's a non-smiler and, um, I knew those would be your two examples. Yeah. Or Jan

01:37:43,920 --> 01:37:52,720
Hyler, Jan Hoyer, who's a non-smiler, um, versus maybe Enrico, who's more of a smiler, but not like

01:37:52,720 --> 01:37:58,240
a huge, but you know what I'm saying? Like people show different levels of emotion and some people

01:37:58,880 --> 01:38:03,360
wear their hat on the sleeve and other people close that off and defend it. Um,

01:38:03,360 --> 01:38:12,880
that's a very, that's part of the front they present. Um, and you know, I can't remember how

01:38:12,880 --> 01:38:18,880
we got to smiles off photos people are uncomfortable with, but that's, it's part of the facade. And

01:38:20,080 --> 01:38:27,200
at the end of the day, this may sound a bit brutal, but it's almost part of the athletic

01:38:27,200 --> 01:38:33,600
contract that when you are having photos taken of you as a professional athlete, not every photo is

01:38:33,600 --> 01:38:42,160
going to be flattering. Um, but every photo should tell a story. If a photo is not flattering and

01:38:42,160 --> 01:38:46,400
it doesn't tell a story, well, there's no value in this photo, but if a photo is not flattering,

01:38:47,200 --> 01:38:54,880
but it tells a story, you know, the photo I took of, or a series of photos I took of Ola Muraslow,

01:38:54,880 --> 01:39:03,200
when she qualified for Olympics in Hachioji and she's blubbing like a baby, not the nicest set of

01:39:03,200 --> 01:39:10,160
photos of her, but conveys pure emotion. Cause she's unbelievably happy. Now, should I not put

01:39:10,160 --> 01:39:14,560
those photos, should I not put those photos up because it doesn't show her happy and smiling

01:39:15,360 --> 01:39:20,880
because she, she is very happy, but she's blubbing. So she doesn't, you know, it's not the,

01:39:20,880 --> 01:39:27,440
the most attractive look, but like, but you look at it and you go, okay, that's raw emotion. That's,

01:39:28,720 --> 01:39:37,200
you know, the photo journalism is journalism. It's not just a photo and photo journalism has

01:39:37,200 --> 01:39:42,960
to be a free 60 degree thing. And that means the good as well as the bad, as well as the ugly,

01:39:42,960 --> 01:39:48,560
as well as the pretty, you know, if I was a media whore, that's not a good thing.

01:39:48,560 --> 01:39:55,040
If I was a media whore that just wanted hundreds of thousands of photos or hundreds of thousands

01:39:55,040 --> 01:40:01,200
of followers, sorry, on Instagram or something, I'd just post photos of female climbers and I'd

01:40:01,200 --> 01:40:07,120
just post photos of attractive female climbers. But that again is disrespectful and creepy and a bit

01:40:08,960 --> 01:40:10,480
Yeah, that's so gross to think about.

01:40:11,200 --> 01:40:16,080
You know, when I, you know, I had fairly strong social media following and it's fallen away now,

01:40:16,080 --> 01:40:22,080
of course, cause I haven't been as active, but I would know if I posted a photo of a pretty girl,

01:40:22,080 --> 01:40:25,600
I get twice as many likes as if I posted a photo of Yakub Schubert.

01:40:27,840 --> 01:40:30,640
Even if a pretty girl was just midfield somewhere

01:40:32,480 --> 01:40:35,040
because people just are based.

01:40:35,840 --> 01:40:36,340
Interesting.

01:40:36,340 --> 01:40:47,380
So for me, you know, I had have a pretty strong standard and how I've always done my social media,

01:40:47,380 --> 01:40:55,380
which was where possible and it wasn't always possible. So, but I tried to keep a overall

01:40:55,380 --> 01:41:02,260
balance would be male photo, female photo and blend of ethnicity photo.

01:41:02,260 --> 01:41:07,220
So I would not do a dozen posts of females in a row, a dozen posts of males in a row,

01:41:07,220 --> 01:41:12,740
a dozen posts of white guys in a row, a dozen posts of age. It would, you know, I tried to

01:41:12,740 --> 01:41:24,660
constantly blend the subject matter of the photos by ethnicity, by nationality, by gender,

01:41:24,660 --> 01:41:33,140
so that I wasn't falling into a trap, but that has to be a conscious choice and it has to be

01:41:33,940 --> 01:41:39,940
deliberated, you know, but that's part of a responsibility of being a professional,

01:41:39,940 --> 01:41:44,900
as you need to carry yourself in a professional manner. And sometimes I haven't and I've been

01:41:44,900 --> 01:41:52,420
caught out for it and it's embarrassing. And I don't think I've ever maliciously been

01:41:52,420 --> 01:41:56,100
unprofessional, but there are times, like I mentioned with that Nazi salute one, that I was

01:41:56,100 --> 01:42:01,060
just accidentally non-professional. As a photographer, you get a chance to kind of

01:42:01,060 --> 01:42:10,180
like think about it before you post. I remember one instance, I think last year in copper,

01:42:11,940 --> 01:42:18,580
Mia Crampel like fell early. It was really devastating and the camera kept like cutting to

01:42:18,580 --> 01:42:26,100
her crying, like sitting in the athlete area after. And I think I remember people were like

01:42:26,100 --> 01:42:33,300
pretty upset about it in the comments. Yeah, I was at that comp. I remember it. I don't remember

01:42:33,300 --> 01:42:36,500
if it was copper was the one she fell, or whether I watched that just when I was watching it back.

01:42:36,500 --> 01:42:44,180
I honestly can't remember because I tend to tend to watch the rounds afterwards, even if I'm at

01:42:44,180 --> 01:42:48,580
the round, just because you actually miss a lot when you're taking photos. People always come up

01:42:48,580 --> 01:42:54,340
and say, who won? And I've got no idea. Oh yeah, I've heard that. It's important to show

01:42:55,140 --> 01:43:02,500
the range of emotion, but it's important not to linger. I think you can show that she's upset,

01:43:04,180 --> 01:43:09,140
but by the third time you're showing she's upset, you're being a dick about it.

01:43:09,140 --> 01:43:16,740
You know, it's human nature to be upset. If you want to show

01:43:19,220 --> 01:43:25,140
an athlete, male or female, having a blob after they haven't met their goals, that's not

01:43:25,140 --> 01:43:31,140
disrespectful for them because it just shows how important it is to them to do well. But if you

01:43:31,140 --> 01:43:37,700
keep going back to it, then it becomes a bit voyeuristic. Okay. That's a good word to use,

01:43:37,700 --> 01:43:43,700
I guess. It's always a dark side of the sport is you have one winner and a whole lot of

01:43:44,980 --> 01:43:50,980
losers. But what you need to remember is that winning is not everyone's goal. For a lot of

01:43:50,980 --> 01:43:58,660
them, their goal might just be top 10, top 20, top 50, because it's a stairway to get to the top.

01:43:58,660 --> 01:44:09,140
But in a pure unadulterated format in sport, more people are always going to lose than they're

01:44:09,140 --> 01:44:16,500
going to win. There's no participation award. It's about seeing if you're the best, you can be the

01:44:16,500 --> 01:44:24,100
best in the world. And some people just aren't. But they should be able to take some, if not a

01:44:24,100 --> 01:44:29,460
lot of satisfaction from being in the top tiniest, tiniest percent of people in the world. Because

01:44:29,460 --> 01:44:34,660
to even get to a World Cup, you get to a World Cup and you come last and you're so embarrassed

01:44:34,660 --> 01:44:41,140
and that's so bad and you got to a World Cup. How many people ever get to a World Cup in any sport?

01:44:41,860 --> 01:44:48,900
How many people are good enough that they can go, okay, I am going out on the mats against

01:44:48,900 --> 01:44:58,820
Tomoa Narasaki? And we sometimes have a narrative that someone's a loser because they're a

01:44:59,380 --> 01:45:05,860
regular finalist, but not a winner. And it's like, well, hold it. You look at someone like Oceana

01:45:05,860 --> 01:45:13,380
McKenzie, regular finalist now, and came from a country without a strong climbing culture, without

01:45:13,380 --> 01:45:18,340
a strong climbing history. She's had to forge her own path. She's had to make sacrifices and her

01:45:18,340 --> 01:45:26,260
family's had to make sacrifices far beyond what 99% of people would even be willing to make.

01:45:27,300 --> 01:45:34,740
To me at every level, that's a winner. But some people will go, well, she never won a World Cup.

01:45:34,740 --> 01:45:41,540
She'll just go down as an also around that area. And it's like, she's not. She's not a winner.

01:45:41,540 --> 01:45:50,180
She's not. She's the best competition climber Oceana has ever had. Someone like Campbell Harrison,

01:45:50,180 --> 01:45:54,100
he's been plugging for years. And sorry, I'm focusing on the Australians now, but

01:45:54,100 --> 01:45:58,340
geographically they're close to me. And I've had Campbell on the podcast.

01:45:58,980 --> 01:46:06,180
Yeah. And he's nicest dude ever. And I've known him since he was about 15. And he's in that

01:46:06,180 --> 01:46:10,340
category, how I described, some people had the talent, some people had the bloody mindedness.

01:46:10,340 --> 01:46:16,980
No one I've ever met has been more bloody minded than Campbell. He wants to be the best Campbell

01:46:16,980 --> 01:46:25,620
can be. And will he ever win a World Cup? Probably not. Will he retire one day and look back and go,

01:46:25,620 --> 01:46:29,620
my goodness, look at what I achieved. Look at how far I pushed the sport in my part of the world.

01:46:29,620 --> 01:46:40,420
Look at what I did for the sport among his demographic, incredible accomplishment.

01:46:40,420 --> 01:46:44,420
So an example of Campbell is I remember Campbell as maybe a 17 year old.

01:46:46,580 --> 01:46:51,220
And we were in Imps and he had a bad World Cup and he came off and he just threw his shoes.

01:46:52,420 --> 01:46:57,700
Like, and I pulled him up and I told him off and I said, dude, I know you're upset, but

01:46:57,700 --> 01:47:03,940
it's not a good look. And he was pretty frustrated at me. And he was pretty frustrated about the

01:47:03,940 --> 01:47:11,140
whole thing. I said, look, at the end of the day, it takes a certain amount of toughness and maturity

01:47:11,140 --> 01:47:18,340
to be an athlete. And we all have bad days, but you know, that's kind of disrespectful and distracting

01:47:18,340 --> 01:47:24,820
to everyone else around if you start performing like that. And he took that on board and it didn't

01:47:24,820 --> 01:47:31,780
do it again. And that's the, you know, he was very upset with himself because he was climbing very

01:47:31,780 --> 01:47:38,820
well and he made a silly mistake. And then, you know, and that's the thing with athletes is

01:47:41,940 --> 01:47:50,420
they are emotionally highly strung because they've committed so much. You know, you think of

01:47:50,420 --> 01:47:57,780
how scary like a major exam is. And every time they do a World Cup, it's like a major exam in public

01:47:57,780 --> 01:48:05,620
with thousands of people. They don't know watching them. Like that's confronting. You know, in

01:48:07,780 --> 01:48:14,260
2017 at World Games, Stacia Gaiot came up to me after qualifiers and she qualified sixth in the

01:48:14,260 --> 01:48:20,420
finals. So last in the finals. And she was in tears and she wanted to quit and she didn't want to do

01:48:20,420 --> 01:48:26,260
this again and yada, yada, yada. And I was like, look, you're really good. It's one more round.

01:48:26,260 --> 01:48:30,260
You've made it to the next round. Give it your all and see how you feel afterwards. And she ended up

01:48:30,260 --> 01:48:38,500
winning. So, you know, it's like, sometimes you

01:48:38,500 --> 01:48:46,180
as a human, as an athlete, as a young person, you need to release all this pent up tension and

01:48:46,180 --> 01:48:53,780
anger and angst. But then when you come back and focus again afterwards, you're, you're lethal

01:48:53,780 --> 01:49:02,260
because you're absolutely tuned in. You, everything is right at the top of the fight or flight thing.

01:49:02,260 --> 01:49:08,820
And everything means a lot and you climb your backside off. So, you know, people

01:49:10,580 --> 01:49:19,140
forget that when they talk about climbers like, uh, Janya or Natalia or, um, people like that, that

01:49:19,860 --> 01:49:24,740
they're climbers they've only ever given the opportunity to lose because they're so good at

01:49:24,740 --> 01:49:30,820
winning. The only way is down. And then you're like, oh, I'm going to win. And then you're like,

01:49:30,820 --> 01:49:36,340
oh, I'm going to win. And you're like, oh, I'm going to win. And the only way is down.

01:49:37,220 --> 01:49:44,740
They can maintain the status quo or drop. And that's a brutal place for an athlete to be. That's

01:49:44,740 --> 01:49:51,860
almost worse than not being a winner. Geez. Yeah. You know, I remember years ago, I interviewed

01:49:51,860 --> 01:49:56,980
Killian Fishuber, um, you know, one of the absolute legends of competition bouldering,

01:49:56,980 --> 01:50:00,020
and the hardest thing to win after that is your second World Cup.

01:50:01,860 --> 01:50:05,860
He said, you know, until you've won a World Cup, you're one of the many that have never won a World

01:50:05,860 --> 01:50:12,020
Cup. And then you win a World Cup, and you become one of the many that's only won one World Cup.

01:50:13,460 --> 01:50:20,100
And once you won a couple of World Cups, it kind of gets a little bit easier, not easier, but like,

01:50:20,100 --> 01:50:25,940
it's a little bit easier to take less pressure. But it flips when you suddenly, you're someone who's won

01:50:28,100 --> 01:50:32,180
10 World Cups or 20 World Cups, or in Yanyi's case, more than 40 World Cups.

01:50:33,060 --> 01:50:37,300
Every time you go out there, you're putting yourself in a position of vulnerability.

01:50:39,140 --> 01:50:44,740
You know, Yanyi could retire tomorrow, and I'd give her the biggest hug and say, congratulations

01:50:44,740 --> 01:50:50,820
on a fantastic career. And I completely understand why she's retiring, even though she could have

01:50:50,820 --> 01:50:57,700
another decade at the top of the sport. When Yula Worm retired, she won the World Championships in

01:50:57,700 --> 01:51:04,500
2014, and then retired. And I'm like, you're 24, why are you retiring? And she's like,

01:51:05,060 --> 01:51:11,540
I've been on the road for eight years. I haven't had normal life for eight years. What more can

01:51:11,540 --> 01:51:17,700
I achieve from being a world champion? And I was like, yeah, fair. You know?

01:51:17,700 --> 01:51:22,500
And I guess it's like, you don't want to watch your own downfall, I guess, as you eventually

01:51:23,540 --> 01:51:28,020
start to age and stuff like that. You don't want to be the has-been.

01:51:29,220 --> 01:51:32,820
Some people do because it's all they know. And they just, it's their people,

01:51:32,820 --> 01:51:37,300
it's their environment, and they're almost at peace with themselves and that decline. But

01:51:37,300 --> 01:51:43,220
you know, it's not a sport that most people will be doing when they're 40. It's not a sport that

01:51:43,220 --> 01:51:47,060
most people will be doing when they're 30. And then the females, it's not a sport what

01:51:47,060 --> 01:51:51,860
most people will be doing when they're in their late 20s. You know, I remember

01:51:53,300 --> 01:52:02,580
Kyra and Jessie and all Vatten Juniors when they were 18, 19. And now they are kind of in the

01:52:02,580 --> 01:52:07,380
twilight of their careers. They might have another three or four seasons, but they are, you know,

01:52:07,380 --> 01:52:13,140
I guess, yeah, between six, 27. You know, at what point do you go, well, actually,

01:52:14,180 --> 01:52:19,940
I want a family, I want a life, I want normalcy. But speaking on those terms, like

01:52:20,580 --> 01:52:26,340
Campbell, you were talking about earlier, he's also getting older. He's been in the scene for

01:52:26,340 --> 01:52:31,540
a long time, but this is also kind of like the best season he's had. And he's been in the

01:52:31,540 --> 01:52:37,220
the best season he's had so far. Oh, absolutely. Because it's not just purely age related.

01:52:37,780 --> 01:52:46,420
You do definitely see older climbers still rising to the top. But there is a, you know,

01:52:46,420 --> 01:52:53,140
as I said with Campbell, he's so bloody minded, which is a huge, and I mean that as a compliment,

01:52:53,140 --> 01:53:04,580
it's a it's a very important attribute for an athlete to have is to be willing to sacrifice.

01:53:05,940 --> 01:53:11,060
You know, Campbell's in a relationship, he leaves his partner at home, he goes and does what he does.

01:53:11,700 --> 01:53:16,500
That's got a way on him. But maybe that's a positive weighing on him, because by knowing

01:53:16,500 --> 01:53:20,660
how important that is, it gives him some and knowing that he's got something to come home to,

01:53:20,660 --> 01:53:29,300
it's put him in a better place. It's a person to person thing. You know, you look at some of the

01:53:29,300 --> 01:53:38,500
older campaigners like Sean McCall or Jakob Schubert or even Adam now, and you know, their time will pass.

01:53:40,260 --> 01:53:45,380
Great thing about climbing is you can pass for competitions and still go and have a fantastic

01:53:45,380 --> 01:53:54,020
life in the sport. Look at Shawna. You know, she closed the chapter on competitions, but she's gone

01:53:54,020 --> 01:54:02,900
on to be Shawna. So yeah, it's, you know, if you're a football player, once you stop playing

01:54:02,900 --> 01:54:08,740
football, you stop playing football. Right. Yeah, I guess so. If you're a

01:54:08,740 --> 01:54:16,340
boxer, once you stop boxing, you stop boxing. If you're a climber, once you stop competing,

01:54:16,980 --> 01:54:22,260
you've got the whole world of outdoor boulders and roots. I'm sorry, I'm a boulder at heart.

01:54:24,260 --> 01:54:29,220
Or you become like a ninja warrior. If you want to make some money.

01:54:31,140 --> 01:54:35,540
So yeah, or you use your platform in another way. You know, a lot of people

01:54:35,540 --> 01:54:40,740
now in the age of social media and stuff, they like to use their platform more to

01:54:41,860 --> 01:54:48,660
talk about social issues or empowerment or whatever it may be. Now, are they qualified to do so?

01:54:48,660 --> 01:54:52,820
Arguably not. Are they within their rights to do so? Absolutely.

01:54:55,860 --> 01:55:03,700
And, you know, so you get that sort of being an influencer can come after you retire.

01:55:03,700 --> 01:55:09,380
You know, there's all sorts of things that you can do. And

01:55:11,860 --> 01:55:16,020
yeah, hanging up your chalk bag for the last time in competition is very different to hanging up

01:55:16,020 --> 01:55:20,820
your chalk bag for the last time in real life. And, you know, we're lucky that we're in a

01:55:20,820 --> 01:55:27,220
lifelong sport where, you know, yeah, some people will probably hang up and maybe never climb again,

01:55:27,220 --> 01:55:34,580
but the vast majority won't. I kind of wanted to get into areas of improvement that you see for the

01:55:34,580 --> 01:55:41,140
IFSC, since I think you have some pretty strong opinions about that as well. See, I know people

01:55:41,140 --> 01:55:47,140
will be sick of me saying this now and I sound like a broken record, but, you know, last couple

01:55:47,140 --> 01:55:53,140
years because so I had a pretty major knee injury. I said earlier in the episode about how that stopped

01:55:53,140 --> 01:55:57,860
me climbing at my limit. When I got back to New Zealand, it had become unstable. So I finally had

01:55:57,860 --> 01:56:07,220
the operation required in putting my knee back to how it should be, but it'll never be the same now

01:56:07,220 --> 01:56:12,740
because so much damage happened over the years that I was on the road, but it wasn't being done.

01:56:12,740 --> 01:56:16,740
And so I myself, I haven't actually climbed in three years because I'm too scared to fall now.

01:56:16,740 --> 01:56:23,300
So maybe that door has shut forever for me. I don't know, but, you know, there's days I desperately

01:56:23,300 --> 01:56:32,740
want to go to the gym and then I think, I don't know if I'm brave enough to. And so I've taken up

01:56:32,740 --> 01:56:36,660
disc golf as a sport because disc golf is kind of a great retired climber sport because

01:56:37,220 --> 01:56:43,700
it's physical problem solving to achieve an objective, which is effectively climbing.

01:56:43,700 --> 01:56:51,620
You know, you've not nearly as physical, so it's good for the decrepit broken people like me.

01:56:52,580 --> 01:56:56,820
But it's still, you know, what disc do you use? How do you shape the shops? How do you get to

01:56:56,820 --> 01:57:03,380
where you need to be? But the thing that's astounded me is disc golf, I would say is a

01:57:03,380 --> 01:57:10,100
very similar size sport to climbing. So there's a professional tour, there's a professional body,

01:57:10,100 --> 01:57:17,300
there's approximately 20 disc golfers, 20 million disc golfers, they said worldwide.

01:57:17,300 --> 01:57:23,220
There's approximately 20 million gym users worldwide, according to most of the statistics

01:57:23,220 --> 01:57:32,820
we see from the IFSC in that. And so disc golf has its pro tour. And, you know, they had champions

01:57:32,820 --> 01:57:38,740
cup a couple of weeks ago and first place is nine and a half thousand dollars. And so it's a

01:57:38,740 --> 01:57:47,300
$1,500 and they pay down to 40th. And you get what two and a half for winning a World Cup and

01:57:47,300 --> 01:57:57,060
they pay down to eighth. Like, you can't actually survive being a competition climber, even if you

01:57:57,060 --> 01:58:07,700
won every World Cup you went to. And that's not a sustainable way for a sport to exist. And I think

01:58:07,700 --> 01:58:15,300
that they need to, for starters, I think they need to have prize money down to everyone who

01:58:15,300 --> 01:58:24,020
makes semis should get prize money. If you're televised, you should be paid. I also think

01:58:25,780 --> 01:58:33,940
semis should be 20 for LEAD as well as Boulder because I think 26 is a bit of a hangover to the

01:58:33,940 --> 01:58:42,500
old days. Yeah. Do you know why it's 26? Seems kind of random. Like a division to eight. Not even. I

01:58:42,500 --> 01:58:52,500
don't know. No, I've got no idea. No, I was spitballing, but nothing. But I think it'd speed up

01:58:52,500 --> 01:58:57,540
the event, make it run smoother if it was just 20 in each. And I think if you're televised, you

01:58:57,540 --> 01:59:08,260
should be getting money. And so there's a couple of big changes I would do, which would forever

01:59:08,260 --> 01:59:16,500
change the IFSC. The first thing I would do is I'd stop competing for countries. I'd get rid of

01:59:16,500 --> 01:59:24,340
national federations. I would compete for sponsors. And your body is the real estate that you can put

01:59:24,340 --> 01:59:30,740
sponsors advertising on. So if you're a North Face Scarpa athlete and you're climbing Logut up in

01:59:30,740 --> 01:59:37,540
North Face Scarpa, North Face and Scarpa are going to pay you better. Because at the moment,

01:59:37,540 --> 01:59:44,900
they get these tiny little sponsor things that they can put on. But you might be an Adidas sponsored

01:59:44,900 --> 01:59:53,940
athlete climbing for a country which has a North Face outfit. And there's all these limiting

01:59:53,940 --> 02:00:01,380
factors. And why does the sponsor want to pay real money for a two inch by one inch patch on the back

02:00:01,380 --> 02:00:07,380
of your shorts that you harness as covering half the time anyway? Is that like something that Disc

02:00:07,380 --> 02:00:13,860
Golf does? It's like individual sponsored? Yeah, you're individually sponsored and you compete on

02:00:13,860 --> 02:00:22,740
and tennis and many other sports. You might be from such and such country, but you're wearing

02:00:22,740 --> 02:00:30,020
what you want and competing for yourself. And you get into events on your rating and your ranking,

02:00:30,020 --> 02:00:35,620
not on a national pick. And if that means that there's 20 Japanese guys that are good enough

02:00:35,620 --> 02:00:39,780
to be in the World Cup, well, if they've got sponsorship, then there's 20 Japanese guys in

02:00:39,780 --> 02:00:48,820
the World Cup. That's fine. You know, it's almost embarrassing that we cull some of the top athletes

02:00:48,820 --> 02:00:53,380
because there's so many good athletes from that country and then let in much lower athletes from

02:00:53,380 --> 02:01:01,700
another country just to make quotas. So that would be the first thing I would do. And then the second

02:01:01,700 --> 02:01:10,580
thing I would do would be I would massively raise entry fees. But the entry fees would go back into

02:01:10,580 --> 02:01:17,460
the prize pool. If people want to compete, they're spending so much to go to these competitions

02:01:17,460 --> 02:01:27,700
anyway. If you make entry to a World Cup $500 and you've got 120 guys competing, but the top 40 say

02:01:27,700 --> 02:01:36,420
get paid and everyone's putting $500 in, you know, suddenly you've got a $70,000, $60,000 prize pool

02:01:38,180 --> 02:01:43,940
that you can then go, okay, your winner gets $15,000, your second place gets $9,000, your third

02:01:43,940 --> 02:01:50,900
gets $6,000. And you make sure that even the last cash gets more than the entry fee.

02:01:54,340 --> 02:02:00,020
And I think that would just revolutionize the sport because it would make it,

02:02:02,900 --> 02:02:10,100
one, it would make getting to the cash line more important. You know, if you get to the cash line,

02:02:10,100 --> 02:02:14,740
you're going to get real money. You know, what's eighth place in a World Cup, 90 euro or something,

02:02:14,740 --> 02:02:19,940
who cares? Yeah. Okay, great. So you flow in from

02:02:22,020 --> 02:02:30,900
Great Britain to China. And it's cost you 2000 euros in flights, and 1000 euros in hotels,

02:02:30,900 --> 02:02:42,820
and 500 euros in food. And you come eighth and they go, here's 90 euro. Where's the math in that?

02:02:44,020 --> 02:02:53,060
Where's the logic? And I think if you get rid of the federations, now a lot of federations pay

02:02:53,060 --> 02:02:57,060
their athletes, but a lot of federations don't pay their athletes. You get rid of the federations,

02:02:57,060 --> 02:03:01,780
and instead you turn around to the climbing hold manufacturers, the gyms, the people with money.

02:03:03,380 --> 02:03:07,300
And you say, look, we're a professional sport, it's about time you started putting in.

02:03:08,340 --> 02:03:13,060
If you're touchstone climbing, and you've got 10 gyms through the country, you can afford to sponsor

02:03:13,060 --> 02:03:22,580
half a dozen climbers. If you're boulder belt, or studio block, or climbing works, you can afford

02:03:22,580 --> 02:03:29,060
to sponsor a climber or two. You know, they're effectively just an employee. You're just paying

02:03:29,060 --> 02:03:36,260
them to compete for you rather than, because they're representing your brand, and an advertisement

02:03:36,260 --> 02:03:43,380
for your brand. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So that would be the biggest change I'd put in place,

02:03:44,180 --> 02:03:52,420
would be, I would take away federations, open up advertising, increase entry fees,

02:03:52,420 --> 02:03:57,380
but increase prize money accordingly. So if you have a look at the first world to first

02:03:58,500 --> 02:04:03,780
English, remember how to speak English. If you look at the first two World Cups this year,

02:04:05,380 --> 02:04:12,660
okay, you had China, and you had the US, and you had half the climbers made the effort to go to China,

02:04:13,300 --> 02:04:18,820
and the other half made the effort to go to the US. What does that mean? That means that

02:04:18,820 --> 02:04:23,620
the World Cups have lost their mana, they've lost their value, they've lost their importance,

02:04:23,620 --> 02:04:29,620
because it's not an economic, there's no economic incentive to make the effort to go.

02:04:30,500 --> 02:04:36,660
Well, also the Olympics. Also the Olympics, but, well, that's another thing that we can crack on to,

02:04:36,660 --> 02:04:46,020
but if it's 10,000 euros to win, and 6,000 for second, and 5,000 for third, or whatever,

02:04:46,020 --> 02:04:56,740
are you going to go to the US? And if you then guarantee that you got all the athletes,

02:04:56,740 --> 02:05:04,180
are you going to sell more tickets? And are you going to get better venues? You know, it's,

02:05:06,100 --> 02:05:12,100
to me, climbing has a poverty mentality, everyone loves to tell you how bad they're doing.

02:05:12,100 --> 02:05:19,540
If there's 20 million gym users around the world, and say 10 million of them own their own climbing

02:05:19,540 --> 02:05:25,940
shoes, and say 5 million of them are buying more than one pair a year, that's a lot of money goes

02:05:25,940 --> 02:05:31,220
into climbing shoes. So, okay, the climbing shoe companies can afford to sponsor some climbers.

02:05:32,420 --> 02:05:36,580
Okay, if there's 20 million gym users a year, that's a lot of people paying membership, so

02:05:36,580 --> 02:05:42,740
gyms can afford to sponsor some people, the hold companies can afford to sponsor some people. And,

02:05:44,020 --> 02:05:49,220
you know, and then there's outside sponsors, who are really bad at external sponsors in climbing.

02:05:49,940 --> 02:05:53,140
You look at all these sports, and they have all these wonderful corporate sponsors.

02:05:54,020 --> 02:05:58,660
Who are the IFSC sponsors currently? I have no idea really.

02:06:00,740 --> 02:06:05,060
For a couple years, they had Japan Airlines, but they don't appear to be here this year.

02:06:05,060 --> 02:06:09,620
I haven't seen them here, they had Toyo tires, they don't appear to be here this year.

02:06:09,620 --> 02:06:15,620
So there's all these things that we're not retaining sponsors, and if we're not retaining sponsors,

02:06:15,620 --> 02:06:20,100
there's a problem. And if there's a problem, we need to work out what that problem is and fix it.

02:06:21,540 --> 02:06:29,220
And, you know, I think that we need to look at a way of making

02:06:29,220 --> 02:06:34,820
professional competition climbing a viable pathway for the athletes, so that they want to

02:06:34,820 --> 02:06:41,620
professionally competition climb. And we need to give back the World Cup and the World Championships,

02:06:41,620 --> 02:06:48,580
they're important, that the athletes are going to want to go to them. Because, you know, so I was

02:06:48,580 --> 02:06:53,460
working on a book, and for mental health reasons, I shelved it, because it was very emotionally

02:06:53,460 --> 02:07:01,060
draining. And the book was just a photo book of five years leading to the first Olympics.

02:07:02,020 --> 02:07:08,900
And I was going to call it on the circuit, and then I actually changed the name to Before the Fall,

02:07:10,580 --> 02:07:20,100
because I feel that competition climbing is falling. I feel that with the exception of Olympics,

02:07:20,100 --> 02:07:26,740
World Cups and World Champs have lost their prestige. People are, you know, being the World

02:07:26,740 --> 02:07:30,820
Champion used to be the most important thing, being the World Cup Champion used to be the second most

02:07:30,820 --> 02:07:35,940
important thing, winning a World Cup used to be the third most important thing. Now, obviously,

02:07:35,940 --> 02:07:40,740
winning the Olympics is the most important thing. And the other things have slid into a degree that

02:07:40,740 --> 02:07:45,780
people won't even attend. Well, I guess I kind of want to see what happens next year after the

02:07:45,780 --> 02:07:51,540
Olympics happens to see if it kind of gets that back, since it won't be an Olympic year.

02:07:52,580 --> 02:07:57,700
Because we've we had a messed up Olympic schedule because of the delayed Tokyo Olympics. So we've

02:07:57,700 --> 02:08:03,140
never had a proper cycle. So that is one thing that we have to look at. But I mean, I'll tell

02:08:03,140 --> 02:08:08,180
you right now, if the prize money is not there, a lot of these athletes that have put so much into

02:08:08,180 --> 02:08:13,940
going to the Olympics will probably take a year off. And I think that's the reason why we're

02:08:13,940 --> 02:08:19,540
saying that. We'll probably take a year off, or at least a bunch of comps off. And then you left with

02:08:19,540 --> 02:08:28,580
the same issue. You know, if you turn around to Yanya and said, Yanya, you've had a great season,

02:08:28,580 --> 02:08:37,940
you've won five World Cups, you've made 10,000 euros. You turn around to her and said, Yanya,

02:08:37,940 --> 02:08:42,180
next year, if you win that number of World Cups, you're going to have 70,000 euros.

02:08:42,180 --> 02:08:44,260
That is a pretty big difference, actually.

02:08:45,620 --> 02:08:51,380
So and we keep cannibalizing and internalizing our resources. You know, obviously, we need to

02:08:51,380 --> 02:08:55,540
pay route setters, we need to pay venue hire, we need to pay all these things. I appreciate that.

02:08:56,180 --> 02:09:00,820
Do we need to send the IFSC on holiday every year to a different part of the world for their

02:09:00,820 --> 02:09:07,460
plenary assembly? Because, you know, they just were in Chile a couple of months ago. Last year,

02:09:07,460 --> 02:09:11,540
they were in whatever part of the world. The year before that, they were in, was it the US?

02:09:11,540 --> 02:09:17,780
I can't remember. And they fly their whole staff across, you know, 12, 13 people jump on a plane,

02:09:18,820 --> 02:09:26,980
probably not all in economy. They bring in, you know, the members of the board from Japan

02:09:26,980 --> 02:09:32,260
and the US or whatever, probably not an economy. They fly to these places, they probably don't stay

02:09:32,260 --> 02:09:42,420
in a UFOstle. And they have a meeting, have they not heard of zoom? You know, we've got climbers

02:09:42,420 --> 02:09:49,860
struggling to make ends meet. And they're probably spending 50,000 euros or more on a meeting.

02:09:52,020 --> 02:10:00,900
You know, to me, that's fundamentally broken in the sport. To me, if we injected that 50,000

02:10:00,900 --> 02:10:08,740
euro back into the sport, maybe we hire someone effective at sponsorship acquisition so that we

02:10:08,740 --> 02:10:15,060
can get some recent sponsors. So for me, that's a huge thing. And the other thing,

02:10:18,340 --> 02:10:25,620
and I know there's a lot of good people at the IFSC. I've worked with several, but

02:10:25,620 --> 02:10:33,540
the IFSC has over the last several years picked up a lot of, quote unquote, middle management from

02:10:33,540 --> 02:10:40,020
other sports, who I would say are not invested in climbing, they're just sports administrators.

02:10:41,300 --> 02:10:46,260
But I would question whether they have our best interests at heart, or whether we're just a step

02:10:46,260 --> 02:10:53,940
on the career progression for them. And I think that there's been some pretty poor

02:10:53,940 --> 02:11:01,860
pretty poor acquisition or choices. Because they go look at such and such, he's really big in the

02:11:01,860 --> 02:11:08,180
shooting world of a sailing world, or he ran an event once in boxing. And I was like, okay,

02:11:08,180 --> 02:11:16,580
that's great. But do they understand our culture? But do they understand our ethos? And, you know,

02:11:16,580 --> 02:11:22,820
there's nothing cheesier than reading the IFSC staff profiles, which are such and such is blah,

02:11:22,820 --> 02:11:29,300
blah, blah. But now he's going to give climbing a try. It's like, you know, to me,

02:11:31,220 --> 02:11:35,140
I feel like we've probably got many resources in climbing who were overlooking.

02:11:36,180 --> 02:11:40,740
And we should be going back to our roots a bit and choosing people within the sport.

02:11:41,300 --> 02:11:50,180
You know, there are some incredibly wealthy people who climb, and who represent major companies.

02:11:50,180 --> 02:11:55,940
And are we engaging them to talk about sponsorship or talk to what they can give back to the sport?

02:11:56,340 --> 02:12:03,060
Not that I know of. You know, we literally in Vale have people flying in on private jets to watch

02:12:03,860 --> 02:12:09,860
the GoPro games. You know, we have people worth literal billions of dollars. We have Jared Leto

02:12:09,860 --> 02:12:16,580
in the front row. And wait, what? Yes, I can send you photos. The actor dude, he's a get.

02:12:16,580 --> 02:12:24,500
Wait, does he climb? Yeah. Oh, I had no idea. Yeah. You know, we'd love to see those photos.

02:12:24,500 --> 02:12:29,220
Yeah, you got Jason Momoa is a big climbing fan. I'm sure he's got contacts. Why aren't we

02:12:29,220 --> 02:12:34,500
utilizing these contacts to get the brands who can provide some sponsorship, the sponsorships

02:12:34,500 --> 02:12:44,740
then pay for the events. And then the event organizers can hunt money for prizes. And then

02:12:44,740 --> 02:12:52,340
the event organizers can hunt money for prize giving. Hunt money for, you know, because if you

02:12:52,340 --> 02:12:57,700
get if you raise the money for athletes, but in disc golf, and yes, I know disc golf, they

02:12:58,820 --> 02:13:04,100
do what's called added cash, which is the event has to give money to prize money on top of the

02:13:04,100 --> 02:13:12,660
entry fees. So if they if the event gets $50,000 in entry fees, the event then has to put in

02:13:12,660 --> 02:13:24,260
$50,000 of its own towards prize money. So, you know, I think I always described the IFC I had

02:13:24,260 --> 02:13:30,740
like an analogy. It's a little bit outdated now because everyone shops online, sorry. But I always

02:13:30,740 --> 02:13:38,580
said, you know, it's like, can you imagine walking into a mobile phone shop? Really nice mobile

02:13:38,580 --> 02:13:42,100
phone shop, you've got all the different brands, you got all the different models over different

02:13:42,100 --> 02:13:52,420
handsets. And the IFC own the phone shop. And you walk in and the athletes are the phones. And every

02:13:52,420 --> 02:13:56,180
phone is unique. And every phone does something different. And every phone has different strengths

02:13:56,180 --> 02:14:05,940
and weaknesses. And you say to the IFC, Hey, I want a phone. And they go, Look at our pretty shop.

02:14:05,940 --> 02:14:10,020
Isn't our shop pretty? Look at our new walls. Look at this. Look at that. And you're like,

02:14:10,020 --> 02:14:14,900
Yeah, but what about the phones? Well, we got a really good new computer system here. Look at

02:14:14,900 --> 02:14:20,180
this. Yeah, but what about the phones? You know, the athletes who are the phones are not the

02:14:20,180 --> 02:14:27,460
priority is everything else is the priority. And the IFC has to be athlete first. So yeah, for me,

02:14:27,460 --> 02:14:34,740
it's so incredibly important that we are an athlete focused sport. And I do feel that that

02:14:34,740 --> 02:14:39,860
is not what we appear to be because we're not looking after the athletes. We're not giving them

02:14:39,860 --> 02:14:47,300
a viable financially viable option to exist in the world. We're not letting them be professionals.

02:14:47,300 --> 02:14:53,620
We're not letting them make a living. We're relying on them scrounging, doing GoFundMe pages,

02:14:54,420 --> 02:15:01,380
leeching off their parents, because it's not a sustainable model. That's not, you know, I,

02:15:01,380 --> 02:15:08,740
I would love to see the whole IFC board gone and half the staff gone, purely because I think that

02:15:08,740 --> 02:15:14,260
we need new blood. I think that they did a really great job establishing the sport. But I think

02:15:14,260 --> 02:15:21,140
that we're now at a place in our progression where we actually need people coming in who afford

02:15:21,140 --> 02:15:29,860
thinking and have the right focus on the future. And I don't think that the board, as it stands,

02:15:29,860 --> 02:15:33,700
can stand there and say, well, look at what we've done over the last however many years

02:15:34,980 --> 02:15:38,660
to do this. All they've done over the last however many years is basically Olympics and

02:15:38,660 --> 02:15:44,260
everything else is secondary. There's been train wrecks every year, whether it be R-Skate,

02:15:44,260 --> 02:15:49,940
or the Alana Farber, whether it be Red S, whether it be whatever, you know, climbing's great at

02:15:49,940 --> 02:15:54,580
making it into the news for all the wrong reasons. I think some people won't know that reference.

02:15:54,580 --> 02:15:59,620
Those that do do, those that don't don't. But climbing's great for making it into the news

02:15:59,620 --> 02:16:03,060
for all the wrong reasons. Well, maybe we need to change those bloody reasons.

02:16:03,060 --> 02:16:09,780
Yeah, it sounds like sponsors is probably one of the biggest things. I guess I'm not as sure about

02:16:11,060 --> 02:16:17,700
having athletes pay more for entrance. Because like, obviously, a lot of them are already

02:16:17,700 --> 02:16:25,380
struggling. And I think the IFSC also tries to do stuff with like, universality and like trying to

02:16:25,380 --> 02:16:30,820
get athletes from smaller countries who maybe don't have as much opportunity to compete at a

02:16:30,820 --> 02:16:37,380
high level. And that might kind of make it difficult for those athletes to get a chance

02:16:37,860 --> 02:16:42,500
and that experience. I mean, I hear that. But I think if you've got the money coming into the

02:16:42,500 --> 02:16:49,300
sport, then you have more opportunities to then take some of that money into development programs.

02:16:50,820 --> 02:16:54,740
I think, you know, from the start, I think that there's just not enough money coming into the

02:16:54,740 --> 02:17:02,180
sport. For the size of the sport, for the viewership, for the global reach of the sport,

02:17:02,180 --> 02:17:09,300
I think that we're not achieving our goals financially. And so yeah, I'd like to see

02:17:09,300 --> 02:17:16,500
yeah, maybe the raised entry fee isn't the right way, but I'd like to see in some way.

02:17:18,020 --> 02:17:23,700
And this is why people much more intelligent than myself are employed into these positions to

02:17:24,740 --> 02:17:29,140
come up with solutions. Well, I mean, I think those are kind of the best solutions I've heard

02:17:29,140 --> 02:17:33,540
so far. So most people, yeah, I think

02:17:33,540 --> 02:17:38,580
everyone knows that there should be more money coming into comp climbing, but no one really knows

02:17:38,580 --> 02:17:45,380
a way of how to do it. So yeah, I think sponsors. Yeah. And at an athlete level, sponsoring an

02:17:45,380 --> 02:17:54,980
athlete for a year, if you're a gym is the equivalent of an employee. And, you know, that's

02:17:55,700 --> 02:18:00,100
because then if I also have a shoe sponsor, if I also have a shoe sponsor, I can't do it.

02:18:00,100 --> 02:18:05,300
You know, that's because then if I also have a shoe sponsor, if I also have some apparel sponsors,

02:18:05,300 --> 02:18:10,660
guess what? Between the three, they're covered. You know, I know,

02:18:13,300 --> 02:18:21,540
I know, like multiple World Cup winners who were getting offered like $3,000 shoe deals.

02:18:21,540 --> 02:18:33,300
And that's just a joke. You know, I know, one of the very good climbers who was sponsored by a

02:18:33,300 --> 02:18:40,660
pretty major shoe company and they're getting $26,000 a year. And that's still not even a wage.

02:18:42,340 --> 02:18:47,620
And if you are spending $20,000 a year on travel, that's leaving you $6,000 a year to live.

02:18:47,620 --> 02:18:54,180
So you're grafting, you're having to coach, to rely on your parents, to

02:18:54,980 --> 02:19:00,180
rely on your partner, whatever it may be. You know, how many professional climbers are actually

02:19:00,180 --> 02:19:11,380
living comfortably? And that's, if the answer is, I would say if the answer is more than 20%

02:19:11,380 --> 02:19:18,900
I would say if the answer is more than 20% out of climbing, I would be surprised.

02:19:19,940 --> 02:19:24,980
And I'd say if the answer is less than 80%, it's unacceptable.

02:19:28,820 --> 02:19:31,780
Because the answer should be 80%, but I think we're less than 20%.

02:19:31,780 --> 02:19:41,060
So to me, there's a big disconnect that has to be addressed. And

02:19:43,540 --> 02:19:48,660
yeah, as I said, I do feel that the current board has done a lot of work, but

02:19:50,420 --> 02:19:56,180
how long do their 10 years need to be before you go, let's bring in someone refreshed by,

02:19:56,180 --> 02:19:59,300
I'd like to see some guys from IFSC Europe, for instance, step up.

02:19:59,300 --> 02:20:02,500
Because I feel like they're more energetic, younger, forward thinking.

02:20:03,700 --> 02:20:10,500
You know, it was obviously a huge, it's a tragedy, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which is

02:20:11,300 --> 02:20:15,780
a terrible, terrible thing. And because of that, I had to make a hard choice

02:20:16,740 --> 02:20:20,900
not to publicize Russian climbing or anything to do with Russian climbing on my social media.

02:20:21,940 --> 02:20:24,180
And one of the things at a personal level that

02:20:24,180 --> 02:20:29,620
is inconsequential compared to the actual depth and breadth of the conflict, but to me was I

02:20:29,620 --> 02:20:34,500
always wanted Dmitry Bishkov, president of Russia climbing to be the next head of the IFSC.

02:20:35,380 --> 02:20:37,860
Because if you look at what he's done for climbers in Russia,

02:20:40,180 --> 02:20:47,140
so, so much, you know, he was a younger guy with vision who grew the sport from the doldrums in

02:20:47,140 --> 02:20:52,180
Russia into a major sport. And now obviously, that can't be now, but he's a young guy,

02:20:52,180 --> 02:20:59,540
and now obviously that can't be now because of global politics. But, you know, Heiko Wilhelm

02:20:59,540 --> 02:21:07,460
is another one who I think could step into a role like that and really excel. His name slips me

02:21:07,460 --> 02:21:12,900
right now, but the ex head of Austria climbing before Heiko, Michael, Michael Schimpf, like,

02:21:14,580 --> 02:21:19,140
I would love to see someone like him given the reins of the IFSC and told to run with it.

02:21:19,140 --> 02:21:28,260
Because I think they would revolutionize it. You know, I don't have a lot of time or respect for

02:21:30,900 --> 02:21:37,940
many people in the board or in the workings of the IFSC because I think that they're squandering

02:21:37,940 --> 02:21:42,580
opportunities. And I think that they're doing more damage control than development.

02:21:42,580 --> 02:21:50,100
So I guess that kind of transitions into one of the discord questions. I guess we can kind of move

02:21:50,100 --> 02:21:58,340
into that. Just like the last couple of questions, since we're running on time. One of the questions

02:21:58,340 --> 02:22:03,540
that came in was, do you think it's possible that there could or should be an alternative to the IFSC?

02:22:04,420 --> 02:22:08,180
And is that something that's viable or would like maybe be better?

02:22:08,180 --> 02:22:16,180
So 100%. And something that had been discussed at an informal level prior to COVID.

02:22:19,380 --> 02:22:22,180
Some of us had said it would be great if you had

02:22:25,300 --> 02:22:29,220
unofficial or less official or whatever you care to call it alternative series

02:22:29,220 --> 02:22:36,420
that was based around StudioBlock, Kwiff, DocMasters, and so on.

02:22:36,420 --> 02:22:46,340
DocMasters, North Face Cup in Japan, Dark Horse, for instance, in the US, where you amalgamated

02:22:46,340 --> 02:22:51,460
a bunch of existing independent comps and said you can run the comps as you run them,

02:22:52,580 --> 02:22:57,380
but we want to make it part of a global series and make it attractive for international athletes to

02:22:57,380 --> 02:23:02,900
attend because not only are they attending these comps as out of season training, but they're

02:23:02,900 --> 02:23:08,820
attending these comps as something which has a cumulative outcome for them.

02:23:12,180 --> 02:23:17,140
I think the other thing that I'd love to see us get back to, and sorry, I know this is a slight

02:23:17,140 --> 02:23:22,740
tangent, is I'd love to see the seasons separated properly again. I'd love to see a bolder season

02:23:23,940 --> 02:23:30,100
and a lead season. And speed can go wherever, but I'd probably put speed in the middle. It'd be

02:23:30,100 --> 02:23:36,260
bolder speed lead through the year, and then you could have independent comps outside of that

02:23:36,260 --> 02:23:42,660
season, but that way the athletes can train and peak specifically for the events in those

02:23:42,660 --> 02:23:49,620
disciplines and there's no overlap. Now I know obviously with the Olympics, and I'm not the fan

02:23:49,620 --> 02:23:54,820
of Olympics list, let me make that very clear. I think Olympics is one of the worst things that's

02:23:54,820 --> 02:24:05,700
ever happened to the sport, but I think that that has broken the individual disciplines because of

02:24:05,700 --> 02:24:12,740
the combined aspect, which is my problem with the Olympics. Well, I mean they're working towards it

02:24:12,740 --> 02:24:19,540
at least. I know they're working towards it, but from a personal level I would have preferred us

02:24:19,540 --> 02:24:26,100
not to be in the Olympics until we could provide the product we wanted to the Olympics, rather than

02:24:26,100 --> 02:24:35,460
us create a mongrelized product that really didn't represent the sport at its peak. It was a bit

02:24:35,460 --> 02:24:40,580
embarrassing watching the lead climbers and speed in Tokyo and the speed climbers in Boulder at Tokyo

02:24:40,580 --> 02:24:47,860
sort of thing. Oh, but I love seeing that. See, I didn't. I wanted to see the best speed. I would

02:24:47,860 --> 02:24:54,660
have been much happier if Olympics had just been speed initially, to see the best in the world at

02:24:54,660 --> 02:25:01,060
a discipline representing themselves as the best at the world. Asking climbers to be something

02:25:01,060 --> 02:25:07,060
they're not, asking boulders to lead climb and vice versa, I still don't think is a

02:25:09,220 --> 02:25:10,100
clean solution.

02:25:10,100 --> 02:25:15,860
I hate the fact that they changed combined as much as I don't like combined, because for the sake of

02:25:15,860 --> 02:25:20,820
continuity, whoever wins this Olympics is won a different format to the last Olympics. So what

02:25:20,820 --> 02:25:25,700
happens to LA? Do we then have a fair, you know, if we get all three disciplines is it then a

02:25:25,700 --> 02:25:34,340
different, the whole thing, I think we were too busy desperately trying to fit in, rather than

02:25:34,340 --> 02:25:39,940
standing our ground and saying this is our value as a sport. And this is what we represent. Yeah,

02:25:39,940 --> 02:25:45,860
I guess I'm not sure their perspective or what happened behind the scenes. But I guess I was

02:25:45,860 --> 02:25:51,060
assuming it was either you only get one medal or just like, don't even bother like it's not gonna

02:25:51,060 --> 02:25:56,420
happen. And as I said, personally, I would have preferred that to have been speed. Well, I think

02:25:56,420 --> 02:26:01,140
because it's the easiest idea to believe in those things, but I think it's the best way to

02:26:01,140 --> 02:26:06,100
think about it. Because it's the easiest idea to believe in those disciplines. And I'm not actually

02:26:06,100 --> 02:26:14,740
a huge fan of modern speed. I would have preferred that to just showcase the best speed climbers in

02:26:14,740 --> 02:26:25,620
the world, rather than showcase a bunch, you know, it'd be like, it'd be like taking a bunch of the

02:26:25,620 --> 02:26:31,700
best track and field athletes in the world and making them do decathlon, but they're not decathletes.

02:26:32,500 --> 02:26:37,540
Yeah. So it'd be like saying, well, yeah, you got to do shot put and long jump and hurdles and

02:26:37,540 --> 02:26:42,980
running. Oh, but you're a javelin throw. Well, too bad. That's what you got to do these. I feel like

02:26:42,980 --> 02:26:48,500
their thought process was like a foot in the door technique. Like, we get all three and then because

02:26:48,500 --> 02:26:52,980
if it's just speed, then they could just be like, well, we already gave you speed. Why do you need

02:26:52,980 --> 02:27:00,820
more? Yeah. Yeah. I understand the argument. I just don't think that the solution was attractive.

02:27:03,140 --> 02:27:09,220
I think that, and I think that the damage is done to the World Cup Series and the World Champs

02:27:09,220 --> 02:27:15,060
actually counterweighs any benefit. Yes, a few athletes have done extraordinarily well out of it,

02:27:15,060 --> 02:27:20,900
but the vast majority of athletes have probably regressed from it. Do you think it'll go back to

02:27:20,900 --> 02:27:25,540
normal once everything's split out into three different disciplines in the Olympics?

02:27:27,140 --> 02:27:32,660
I don't know how long we'll be in the Olympics. Like you think we'll get removed? Well, I can see

02:27:32,660 --> 02:27:37,540
us being in LA because LA, you know, the US has a strong climbing culture and they have our

02:27:38,100 --> 02:27:46,580
athletes that are relevant for medals. Are we going to be in Brisbane in 2032? Are we not? I

02:27:46,580 --> 02:27:51,140
didn't know that was an option to not be in it anymore. Well, this is the question. Like

02:27:51,860 --> 02:27:56,500
how many strong climbers does Australia have? By then, will Campbell and Osh still be around? Will

02:27:56,500 --> 02:28:02,020
the next generation be medal prospects? Does Australia want to spend hundreds of thousands

02:28:02,020 --> 02:28:05,220
of dollars building a climbing stadium for a sport that they won't do well in?

02:28:06,660 --> 02:28:10,420
We're still a French sport. As far as I'm aware, we're not a core sport yet.

02:28:10,420 --> 02:28:16,660
Oh really? Well, I guess I kind of thought once you get into the Olympics, you kind of just

02:28:16,660 --> 02:28:25,220
stay there. Like they don't remove sports, do they? No, they can. They can do. And so that's the thing.

02:28:26,100 --> 02:28:35,380
If Olympics disappears after three Olympics, was it worth it? I desperately hope that we make it

02:28:35,380 --> 02:28:43,060
for Brisbane. I think that once you've done three, you should pretty much be a core sport,

02:28:43,060 --> 02:28:46,500
but I'm not sure how that works with us changing the format of the sport every time.

02:28:47,220 --> 02:28:56,260
Oh, interesting. There's layers of politics and complexities behind this that I'm not okay with.

02:28:56,260 --> 02:29:04,180
And so I can't give an expert opinion, but I can definitely see challenges. I mean, ideally, yes,

02:29:04,180 --> 02:29:11,220
I'd love to see three disciplines competing for three medals, and I'd love to see

02:29:12,580 --> 02:29:19,380
the World Cups giving back their relevance because people aren't having to sacrifice

02:29:19,380 --> 02:29:21,780
to train for something that isn't their priority.

02:29:21,780 --> 02:29:26,020
So that they're better in Olympic qualifier, but it's also going to change the sport going forward

02:29:26,020 --> 02:29:31,860
because back in the day, a young boulder coming up was a young boulder, a young league climber was a

02:29:31,860 --> 02:29:37,700
young league climber and so on. Now the cross pollination of skills from this, you always had

02:29:37,700 --> 02:29:42,260
some multi-discipline athletes, but now you've got more than ever. So is that a good thing? I don't

02:29:42,260 --> 02:29:47,300
know. Maybe it is. I won't lie. You probably won't find anyone less interested in

02:29:47,300 --> 02:29:55,140
this year's Olympics than me because I am quite jaded by the impact that the Olympics has had on

02:29:55,780 --> 02:30:04,820
the World Cups. And so I'm pretty anti. I hope the athletes do well. I hope the athletes have a

02:30:04,820 --> 02:30:09,700
wonderful time. I hope the athletes and the presentation of the sport really sells the sport

02:30:09,700 --> 02:30:18,980
to a broader audience and grows it. But I, at a personal level, am less engaged in it than I am

02:30:18,980 --> 02:30:25,940
in a lot of other events. So, you know, I still think it's a lottery. I still think the scoring

02:30:25,940 --> 02:30:32,020
system leaves a lot to be desired. I still think the selection process is ridiculous. I think that

02:30:32,020 --> 02:30:37,620
this close to Olympics, when you have however many athletes, you know, you have to be very

02:30:37,620 --> 02:30:41,620
focused on the Olympics when you have however many athletes don't even know if they're going to be in

02:30:41,620 --> 02:30:50,740
yet. So how is their training cycles going? I think it's way too close to the Olympics for these guys

02:30:50,740 --> 02:30:56,100
to be still trying to qualify in. They should have known six months ago. The IFSC always seems to

02:30:57,540 --> 02:31:02,100
struggle with these things. And, you know, I don't say this as a hater, but I'm going to use the

02:31:02,100 --> 02:31:08,900
Youth Olympics as an example. Youth Olympics was the first time they had, in Buenos Aires,

02:31:08,900 --> 02:31:14,820
first time they had skating was the first time they had freestyle BMX, all these other sports.

02:31:15,620 --> 02:31:25,620
So they, all the sports brought demonstration athletes who were top adults to do demos in front

02:31:25,620 --> 02:31:32,100
of the youth. So skating had Tony Hawk and Leticia Bafoni, two of the best skaters in the world.

02:31:33,220 --> 02:31:37,860
BMX had incredible dude from Australia called Logan won the gold at Olympics. And I can't

02:31:37,860 --> 02:31:43,060
remember the other person's name, incredible athletes. We had Josh Levin and Charlotte Gereff.

02:31:44,740 --> 02:31:51,060
So, you know, why did we not have Adam Ondra or Alex Honnold or

02:31:51,060 --> 02:31:55,540
Sean O'Coxie or someone like that? And they were both good climbers in their own way,

02:31:55,540 --> 02:32:01,620
but they weren't World Cup winners. They were just good climbers. They were, you know, Charlotte

02:32:01,620 --> 02:32:10,420
Gereff was, and Josh were athlete representatives, but they weren't the top, they weren't Tony Hawk.

02:32:10,980 --> 02:32:17,860
Yeah. You know, when they had the exhibitions on for the sports, and they had Tony Hawk and

02:32:17,860 --> 02:32:22,260
Leticia Bafoni out on the skate ramp and there were thousands of people around watching,

02:32:22,740 --> 02:32:27,140
when they had the exhibition on for climbing, there wasn't thousands of people.

02:32:28,740 --> 02:32:35,140
So, you know, that sort of thing seems to just be the prerequisite short sightedness that I just

02:32:35,140 --> 02:32:39,780
don't, when you're watching it, you're like, how did they miss this opportunity?

02:32:41,620 --> 02:32:45,780
So yeah, that's, but that's just me. I'm, you know, I'm a grumpy old man at times,

02:32:45,780 --> 02:32:50,500
a bit cantankerous. I mean, now they're trying with Alex Honnold, so maybe they've learned some

02:32:50,500 --> 02:32:55,060
lessons. I thought that was a huge step in the right direction. And I won't lie, I was incredibly

02:32:55,060 --> 02:33:02,980
impressed by his commentary. I thought he was just unfiltered enough to do an excellent job in

02:33:02,980 --> 02:33:10,260
co-commentary. Got the personality for it. Well, I was surprised because I've only met him in passing

02:33:10,260 --> 02:33:14,100
a couple of times over the last decade. And obviously I'm not friends with him, so because

02:33:14,100 --> 02:33:19,620
I've only met him a couple of times and he didn't really come across as Mr. Personality, but.

02:33:20,740 --> 02:33:22,260
He turns it on for the camera, I guess.

02:33:22,260 --> 02:33:26,900
He turns it on for the camera. He's obviously savvy enough and sharp enough, but yeah, I was,

02:33:27,700 --> 02:33:28,900
I was very impressed.

02:33:28,900 --> 02:33:36,100
Yeah. Okay. One last question. I think we'll harken it back to the climbing photography

02:33:36,980 --> 02:33:42,900
come full circle. What are the differences between competition climbing photography and

02:33:42,900 --> 02:33:53,620
photography for other types of climbing, just like small gym climbing or alpine sport, trad stuff,

02:33:53,620 --> 02:33:54,820
if you've done it.

02:33:54,820 --> 02:34:00,420
Well, obviously I haven't done alpine. I quite like being alive.

02:34:01,860 --> 02:34:02,340
I agree.

02:34:02,340 --> 02:34:10,260
I refuse to photograph soloing. Even high ball bouldering can be uncomfortable because I have

02:34:10,260 --> 02:34:17,140
had instances where climbers have had camera courage and have gotten over their heads and got

02:34:17,140 --> 02:34:22,500
hurt because they've wanted to do something because they know a good photographer's there

02:34:22,500 --> 02:34:26,900
and they think it would be a great photo, but they end up getting into a position they're not

02:34:26,900 --> 02:34:31,380
really capable of getting out of. And that's pretty uncomfortable. So I drew a line in the sand

02:34:31,380 --> 02:34:36,260
personally under that, that I wasn't, wasn't going to do photos like that.

02:34:36,260 --> 02:34:45,460
Obviously one of the big differences is outdoor boulders. You've got a range of different

02:34:45,460 --> 02:34:52,660
perspectives, outdoor routes the same. One of the major hindrances is they tend to be in public

02:34:52,660 --> 02:34:58,740
areas. And so it's incredible how messy climbers can be. So you're up on a rope shooting down on

02:34:58,740 --> 02:35:03,380
someone on a hard route and it looks like a tip on the ground because climbers have emptied their

02:35:03,380 --> 02:35:08,900
bags everywhere. And so you're trying to like take clean photos without showing that there's

02:35:08,900 --> 02:35:17,780
down jackets and rope mats and samler drappers and everything everywhere. That's actually one of the

02:35:17,780 --> 02:35:22,340
bigger challenges for me shooting outside is that if you've got a background, you have to try and

02:35:22,340 --> 02:35:29,060
ensure that the background is clean. Conditions can be pretty character building because good

02:35:29,060 --> 02:35:41,460
climbing conditions can be horrible. Oh, I hate it. Yeah. Like it's cold. It's misery. I shot

02:35:43,860 --> 02:35:52,420
Nathan Phillips on Voyager. And so I'd just been in Bishop shooting for a while and Bishop was about

02:35:52,420 --> 02:35:59,780
10, 15 below freezing. But it was the desert. So it was actually quite comfortable because as long

02:35:59,780 --> 02:36:04,580
as you had a down jacket on and thermals, you were, you know, it was very dry air and quite

02:36:04,580 --> 02:36:12,900
comfortable. Then I went to Sheffield and Nathan had just done Voyager. So I went wanted to get

02:36:12,900 --> 02:36:19,460
some photos on that because it was this legendary Ben Moon boulder. Beautiful looks on it. And so

02:36:19,460 --> 02:36:28,660
legendary Ben Moon boulder, beautiful looks out over Burbage. And it was about six degrees Celsius,

02:36:28,660 --> 02:36:39,620
about 42, 44 Fahrenheit. But it was humid and windy and we're wearing everything we owned. And we went

02:36:40,580 --> 02:36:44,420
warmed up in the gym, drove up there within 40 minutes, we had to leave because we were

02:36:44,420 --> 02:36:51,060
freezing solid. And it was just grim. And you know, he's stripping down to a t shirt and pants to

02:36:51,060 --> 02:36:54,980
get on the climb. And then as soon as he's off, he's racking up and everything, beanie back on.

02:36:55,700 --> 02:37:00,900
And it's just the conditions can be, you know, the guy's doing Burden of Dreams last winter,

02:37:00,900 --> 02:37:05,860
the conditions there just for Will and that looks crisp, crisp, very crisp.

02:37:06,900 --> 02:37:13,060
Wait, so quick detour question. Does this happen after they already do the climb and then they just

02:37:13,060 --> 02:37:19,460
like take photos pretending like they're doing the climb or? Totally depends. I prefer to get

02:37:20,020 --> 02:37:27,380
actual attempts. That's the goal is to get actual attempts. But sometimes for a sponsor or something,

02:37:27,380 --> 02:37:32,820
they might say, Oh, can you get photos after the fact? Or for instance, it depends on as well,

02:37:32,820 --> 02:37:42,740
the climber. So Jimmy Webb was trying the game in Boulder Canyon, which is a legendary hard Daniel

02:37:42,740 --> 02:37:49,940
problem. I think it's Daniel. Sorry to whoever sent it first, if it wasn't Daniel. And I said,

02:37:49,940 --> 02:37:54,580
Hey, can I take photos of you on it? And he said, No, look, while I'm working it, I'd rather not

02:37:54,580 --> 02:38:00,900
because it adds pressure and respect. So I left him to it. About half an hour later, he drove up

02:38:00,900 --> 02:38:04,900
and said, I've just done that. Can you come down and take photos of me on it? So I then went back

02:38:04,900 --> 02:38:14,340
and took photos of him on it just after he'd done it. flipside, for instance, Rustam Galmanoff,

02:38:14,340 --> 02:38:19,220
when he did the second attempt to second ascend of hypnotized minds, which is a very hard Daniel v

02:38:19,220 --> 02:38:26,580
16 in Rocky Mountain National Park. And we were there for the whole process. I took photos right

02:38:26,580 --> 02:38:32,340
through. But I actually when I went, he's gonna send now, I actually flipped a video and videoed

02:38:32,340 --> 02:38:37,220
the scene because I was like, well, that's gonna stop anyone going, Oh, well, did he really do it?

02:38:37,220 --> 02:38:41,700
Well, you know, so even though I'm not a videographer, I'm definitely a photographer.

02:38:41,700 --> 02:38:46,180
I flipped a video just for the scene, which was reasonably clean video until he gets to the top.

02:38:46,180 --> 02:38:50,820
And I'm shouting, Can someone put mats under the top out and scurrying backwards to get out of the

02:38:50,820 --> 02:38:56,900
way? So the video goes a bit average then. But um, yeah, you're trying to take photos of them while

02:38:56,900 --> 02:39:03,220
they're doing it. But it comes down to the climber. Some of them. Yeah, just a bit. You know,

02:39:03,220 --> 02:39:09,860
the outdoor climbers can be, you know, outdoor climbing is being an elite outdoor climber can

02:39:09,860 --> 02:39:14,980
be freaking grim. Because you got to go to these out of the way places, wait days for the right

02:39:14,980 --> 02:39:19,860
conditions, have a couple of attempts, split it up, go back to your Airbnb or whatever, wait days

02:39:19,860 --> 02:39:24,580
again for the conditions, go out, split another two, you know, it's, it's not a glamorous life.

02:39:24,580 --> 02:39:35,380
It's pretty dedicated. But it actually reminds me of a fun Will Bosse story. We were in Innsbruck

02:39:37,220 --> 02:39:46,180
for World Championships. And some guys came up. And I was standing with the English boys and they

02:39:46,180 --> 02:39:51,140
said, Are you Eddie from the circuit? And I said, Yeah. And they said, Can we get a photo with you,

02:39:51,140 --> 02:39:57,300
which was embarrassing because I was standing next to Nathan Phillips and Jim Pope and Will

02:39:57,300 --> 02:40:00,900
Bosse. And I said, Well, no, take a photo of these guys. I'm just a photographer. These guys are

02:40:00,900 --> 02:40:05,060
stars. And I was like, Oh, no, we always followed your photos. Can we get a photo of you? Wow.

02:40:05,060 --> 02:40:09,460
So it's like, only if you have the other guys in the photo. So I got I made sure that it was me

02:40:09,460 --> 02:40:16,180
and the good climbers in the photo. And they didn't care at all about the climbers. Well,

02:40:16,180 --> 02:40:20,740
they didn't know who they were because they were just random Brits. Oh, okay. Yeah. Um,

02:40:20,740 --> 02:40:24,660
you know, these are German kids and they didn't know who any of these guys were. And I'm

02:40:24,660 --> 02:40:29,540
now sure that if they look at those photos now, they're like, Look, I got a photo of Will Bosse

02:40:30,820 --> 02:40:36,100
because he remembers who I am. I'm gone. I'm old news. But they're probably far more excited

02:40:36,100 --> 02:40:42,580
that Will Bosse is in the photo. But that was a cool trip because after that, we went to

02:40:42,580 --> 02:40:53,300
Adidas Rockstars. And we he climbed there, I took photos. And then we were going to come back down

02:40:53,300 --> 02:41:00,500
and train in Munich for a week and then drive down to Cran for the World Cup in Slovenia. But

02:41:00,900 --> 02:41:05,700
it was Oktoberfest. So there was no room in Munich. All the hotels were basically full.

02:41:05,700 --> 02:41:10,500
So we drove down to Magic Wood and just I said, Hey, do you want to go bouldering instead? So I

02:41:10,500 --> 02:41:14,340
drove him down to Magic Wood and he jumped on he did practice it for a while. And while we were

02:41:14,340 --> 02:41:21,540
there, Felipe Camargo, Vadim Timonov, Dave Graham, Giuliana Camilini, all working practice.

02:41:22,420 --> 02:41:29,140
And Will, who's pretty much unknown at this stage, just walks it in like three days. Like,

02:41:30,020 --> 02:41:35,860
which was just, I mean, hard v15 outdoors, a bunch of the best outdoor guys in the world trying it.

02:41:35,860 --> 02:41:42,420
This young kid just shows up and and then we drove down to Slovenia and from memory made finals. So

02:41:42,420 --> 02:41:49,620
it was a good, good warmup. Okay. But it's been excellent watching his progression as a climber.

02:41:49,620 --> 02:41:57,140
He's a absolute hero. It's a legendary hard man. Yeah, honestly, I didn't know he did competitions.

02:41:57,860 --> 02:42:03,460
He was very good at competitions. Interesting to know. And lead competitions, even though

02:42:03,460 --> 02:42:08,740
he's a very good boulder, he's a very good lead competitor. I had no idea. So yeah, he's made a

02:42:08,740 --> 02:42:15,380
bunch of finals. So I made finals in Chamonix as well. And yeah, well, that's the problem of you

02:42:15,380 --> 02:42:20,980
youngsters. I know, I gotta look back. But there's just, there's just so many. There's just so many

02:42:20,980 --> 02:42:26,100
and COVID was such a speed bump and a lot of people changed their priorities and their,

02:42:26,100 --> 02:42:33,140
their futures. And then yeah, that was like, there's like a COVID, pre-COVID period and a

02:42:33,140 --> 02:42:39,700
post-COVID period and the sport has changed hugely. You know, I've been, except for coaching,

02:42:39,700 --> 02:42:48,020
I've been off the road internationally since COVID. And it's funny when you watch it now,

02:42:48,020 --> 02:42:56,260
it is a different generation. So, you know, the young kids I remember are now the old stages.

02:42:57,140 --> 02:43:01,140
And the old stages are all retired and sitting behind their keyboards talking about how it's

02:43:01,140 --> 02:43:06,980
not like it used to be. Yeah, I've heard that a lot of like the young kids grow up now wanting to

02:43:06,980 --> 02:43:13,140
specifically do competitions and, of course, but then, you know, that was the same even in the day,

02:43:13,140 --> 02:43:18,180
but then once they finish your competitions, they realize they've got the tools for outdoors.

02:43:18,180 --> 02:43:23,380
Yeah. Because what people don't realize is that to be a good comp climber, you're doing all these

02:43:23,380 --> 02:43:28,020
funny moves, but you're only doing these funny moves is because you're so good at the normal

02:43:28,020 --> 02:43:34,980
ones that they need to do something to differentiate you. And so if you're a very good comp climber

02:43:34,980 --> 02:43:38,020
and you can adapt to rock, you're probably going to be very good rock climber.

02:43:38,020 --> 02:43:44,420
Yes. You I'm sure you have plenty of other stories, and I'm sure they're extremely interesting.

02:43:44,420 --> 02:43:45,220
I can write a book.

02:43:45,220 --> 02:43:52,260
Yeah, I think you should work on that because we're definitely out of time. And I appreciate

02:43:52,260 --> 02:43:57,380
all the time that you spent with me today. This is going to be an awesome episode. So yeah,

02:43:57,380 --> 02:44:01,780
I just want to thank you for joining me. Anything that you want to shout out or let people know

02:44:01,780 --> 02:44:06,580
where they can find you or any other information that you might have, please let us know.

02:44:06,580 --> 02:44:09,540
Find you or talk about future book plans.

02:44:10,180 --> 02:44:16,340
I'm the circuit climbing on social media. I still exist to a limited degree, not as much as I used

02:44:16,340 --> 02:44:23,060
to. Who knows one day my book might come out. Who knows one day it might not. I also want to give

02:44:23,060 --> 02:44:27,780
a huge shout out to the brands that sponsored me over the years. Obviously I'm not active with a

02:44:27,780 --> 02:44:41,940
lot of them, but like climbingholds.com, 80-510, Mad Rock, Carbon Grip, Climbskin. So many brands

02:44:41,940 --> 02:44:46,580
helped me over the years, which being a photographer, you're generally not the

02:44:46,580 --> 02:44:53,780
person in the spotlight. And at times it was a hard road. And I'm incredibly appreciative to

02:44:53,780 --> 02:44:58,900
all those brands that put their money into the development of a sport by realizing that a

02:44:58,900 --> 02:45:04,100
photographer was going to, or photojournalist was going to help promote it in the way I was able to.

02:45:04,100 --> 02:45:10,100
And yes, I know huge thanks to everyone that supported me over the years, because it's been

02:45:10,100 --> 02:45:16,740
a ride. And let me know if anything comes out. I can shout it out. Yeah, for sure. There'll be,

02:45:16,740 --> 02:45:22,100
who knows, something at some stage. I mean, I still really do want to do the book. I just,

02:45:22,100 --> 02:45:27,620
as I said, for mental health reasons, I had to step back. It was very draining and there was a

02:45:27,620 --> 02:45:35,380
lot of emotions for a while there. But the great thing about the book is it's a part of history.

02:45:36,100 --> 02:45:42,260
It doesn't have to be on time because it's already covering a historic period. And my goal for the

02:45:42,260 --> 02:45:47,700
book was always something that, you know, one day Hannah Schubert's going to be sitting there with

02:45:47,700 --> 02:45:51,860
her grandkids sitting on her lap and she'll be a little 85-year-old lady and she'll be like,

02:45:51,860 --> 02:45:56,820
and she'll be showing her grandkids photos of what she did when she was young. And I'll probably be

02:45:56,820 --> 02:46:04,740
long dead, but she'll be like, still talking about the work I did. So, you know, that legacy

02:46:04,740 --> 02:46:09,940
aspect of photography and capturing something for the future is, you know, I don't want it to go to

02:46:09,940 --> 02:46:16,660
waste. So I will eventually get the book out and, you know, one day, one day. Leave that impact.

02:46:16,660 --> 02:46:21,300
But yeah, thank you again. It was amazing to talk to you.

02:46:21,300 --> 02:46:22,420
No worries. Thank you very much.

02:46:22,420 --> 02:46:27,460
Yeah. Thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast. Don't forget to like and

02:46:27,460 --> 02:46:32,900
subscribe if you enjoyed. Otherwise, you are a super fake climber. If you're listening on

02:46:32,900 --> 02:46:37,700
a podcasting platform, I'd appreciate if you rated it five stars and you can continue the

02:46:37,700 --> 02:46:43,220
discussion on the free competition climbing discord linked in the description. Thanks again

02:46:43,220 --> 02:46:52,180
for listening.