The IFSC has just announced new rules governing how world records are set at international championship events. From the official IFSC press release:
The International Federation of Sport Climbing has given a new dynamic to “The Speed Project” to providing stricter regulations at IFSC Speed climbing competitions. The popularity of speed climbing growing hugely since the first IFSC certified speed wall was introduced in 2007. Today the IFSC is taking more steps to provide stricter regulations at IFSC speed climbing competitions. To promote a better climbing experience for athletes, the Sport Department of the IFSC has launched “The Speed Project.” The speed Project aims at ensuring an equal playing field to athletes, enabling them to have any world records they set, officially recognized.
The Speed License Rules 2013 have just been released. To meet the Speed Project constraints and to standardize the speed walls, the first step was to set up some precise specifications for all speed walls around the world. So the IFSC has been working very hard with athletes, technical experts and manufacturers on defining these requirements and constraints. The IFSC has just published the Speed License Rules 2013 that lists all the wall, holds, timing system and competition rules. It can be downloaded from the IFSC website. This document is specifically made to list the technical requirement of the speed equipment as well as the condition of the certification visits of the wall and certification process of the manufacturers.
Speed Walls must be built by one of the companies currently under consideration as an official Speed Wall manufacturer. These companies will be officially confirmed in 2014.
Photo: Entre-Prises
Since March 22, 2013 with the IFSC World Cup in Chongqing, all IFSC Speed Climbing competition walls need to be set with the new official Speed Holds manufactured by Entre-Prises. These holds have been specifically designed for use on IFSC approved Speed Walls and Entre-Prises will manufacture and distribute them using pricing, quality and design agreements set by the IFSC. “To guaranty the origin of these holds, the new Entre-Prises Speed Holds will include a serial number and QR code that can be scanned. This code takes you to a web page and shows certified sets that have been sold and are in regulation. This is a good control system for the IFSC”, says Jérôme Meyer, IFSC Sport Manager in charge of the Speed Project.
Timing system is the third and major requirement to set a Speed World Record. The IFSC has decided to choose only five timing system providers to ensure the exact same timing measurement in every event in any country can take place. To be certain of a precise and fair timing system, it must be one of the following: Alge Timing, Geckoking, Twin Dolphin, Kassa, Rock Timers. Detailed standards on Timer as for the walls and the holds are now released in the Speed License Rules 2013.
Once these requirements are met, speed world records can only be set if the competition is included in the official IFSC calendar of events and is recorded by a Jury President appointed by the IFSC. The official IFSC calendar includes 7 IFSC Speed World Cup and all the IFSC Continental Championships and IFSC World Championships. With the new regulations the show will be fairer, and much more thrilling!…so don’t miss the next IFSC Speed World Cup in Arco on September 7th, 2013.
You can find all the current world records and up to date information at IFSC.
Currently USA Climbing does not host any internationally sanctioned speed events. The biggest US speed event of the year is undoubtedly Youth Speed Nationals held during SCS Youth Nationals in Atlanta, Georgia. When asked if USAC has any plans to standardize an American speed format and records USAC Operations Director, Kynan Waggoner said, “I think the difficult thing is the lack of “Spec” speed walls in the United States. We have a few knock off speed walls, but really there are only 4 that I know of currently in existence: Hoosier Heights in Indianapolis, 10m in Atlanta and at Sender One, and a 15m in Reno. I wouldn’t want to implement some type of standardization when it seems that there aren’t really enough standardized walls. We need like 5 portable 15m speed walls that can be set up in one day. Then we’d be in business…”
With Entre-Prises providing the bouldering wall for the previous two ABS National Championships and the recently held Vail World Cup it’s easy to surmise that a Speed only National Championship could be in the future for US athletes.
The USA climbing’s SCS Youth National championships was held over the 4th of July weekend at Stone Summit in Atlanta, Georgia. Youth Nationals, as it’s known, is the biggest competition in the country, drawing close to 400 competitors ages 7 to 19.
Brooklyn Boulders is expanding its climbing gym operations to Somerville, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. With this addition BKB seeks to redefine climbing gyms with an unusual blend of climbing, retail and community spaces all under one roof.
The gym sits 7 min. from the subway and boasts 25,000 sq feet of climbing built by Vertical Solutions. The gym also has yoga and flex studio, and dry saunas. But what Lance Pinn, manager of Somerville says the “best amenities are the wall design and layout of the facility itself. The place looks like Frank Gehry made it!
Head Setter Phil Schaal will lead 5 full time setters through their paces as they turn over routes and problems every 6 weeks. But what really will separate BKB from the Boston competition is, “the little things; the time we take, the commitment to excellence, the attention to detail, and the desire to innovate. BKB realizes that we only exist by the grace of the communities that we hope to inspire with the facilities we design to service their inherent climbing needs. ” Said Lance Pinn.
The climbing gym standard is rising, and jumping on the revamped-gym bandwagon is Brooklyn Boulders. The premiere bouldering facility of New York is opening up at monstrous 38,000 square foot second location in Somerville, Massachusetts in early summer, which begs the question “So what? It’s just another climbing gym.”
Au contraire my dear friends, au contraire.
Try: climbing gym with the amenities of a yoga studio, a sauna, several multifunctional spaces for local artists and food vendors, as well as space for outdoor gear retailers to set up shop, with the gym rotating brands every three months. This coupled with the fact that you’ll be able to watch T-Swift and Ondra’s new video in high speed while you’re warmed by a fire in the glass encased climber’s lounge is sure to attract a lot of rock nerds in the Cambridge area.
The space, a former forgery that boasts a monstrous 38,000-square-foot floor plan, is strategically located close to Cambridge, Boston’s hotbed of entrepreneurialism and start-up culture. It is precisely this energy that the new gym is hoping to capture and turn into a collaboration between artists, community groups and start-ups, with unique amenities including meeting rooms on top of the gym’s showpiece 22’ by 140’ bouldering wall.
“We are not holding back on anything—the bouldering is going to be absolutely world class. [This facility] has been designed by climbers, for climbers,” says Balboni of the new location. “We all took a pretty active and in-depth role when it came to the design of these walls, with an eye for making sure they stay interesting for years and years to come. When doing something like this, you want to make sure you are designing something so people are having fun in 20 years down the line.”
Colorado Springs, the second-largest city in Colorado with a population of 430,000 will receive it’s third commercial climbing gym this July. The new facility will also be C-Springs first bouldering-only climbing facility. The Pure Bouldering gym will feature 17 foot ceilings, an 1800 square feet footprint and 2000 square feet of climbing terrain. The gym will also have a yoga room and a separate training gym adjacent to the main building that will be available to the youth team, classes and private lessons.
Kegan Minock, Pure co-owner and head setter tells us “The gym layout could be described as a fish bowl. The walls almost form an oval so you are completely surrounded by them. It is hard to describe, it is one of those things where you need to see it.”
Salt Lake City, Utah based Vertical Solutions, lead by Dustin Buckthal built the beautiful birch cabinet-grade all-wood walls and supplied the padding system.
The gym will be staffed by 4 employees. Minock and one other setter will be responsible for a 3 week turnover. “We feel this gives climbers enough time to project and send a good amount of climbs without letting them get bored with what is up” said Minock. Before the grand opening the gym had guest routesetting help from local setter Matt Lloyd and USAC National Chief Setter Kevin Branford.
Minock breaks the setting down like this, “We have divided the gym into 6 different sections and would like to set a v0 through v10 on each wall while also setting extra problems in the most popular range for our clients. This will total out to be around 80 problems give or take.”
The gym hopes to tap into the students at a nearby high school and at the US Air Force Academy, which has a population of 7,526 and a private climbing wall. Colorado Springs also has two major colleges with a combined enrollment of 11,876 both of which have private climbing walls.
Minock tells us that “the whole project (including the walls, pads, holds, other equipment and labor) totaled around $150k.” The gym hopes to bring in an average of 100 daily check-ins.
The Pure Bouldering gym hopes to distinguished itself from the competition by offering, as Minock puts it, “a good slab to climb on which we feel is important because many climbers in town compete nationally and slab has been 40% of ABS Nationals for the past 2 years. No other gym in town offers the slab potential we do. Our roof wall is the biggest in town (and probably the state). It is a 38 foot long wave that peaks at 15 feet off the ground.”
Nicros Inc. is reporting they have obtained a patent on their auto belay system, A.B.S.S. Their system is perhaps the first of it’s kind to address the all too often problem of climbers leaving the ground without being clipped into the auto belay.
Nicros statement:
Nicros is proud to receive a patent on the new Auto Belay Safety System™ (A.B.S.S.™ – Patent Number 8,408,360). This important device provides climbers, climbing wall owners and climbing wall operators a warning for users forgetting to attach to the Auto Belay devices on a climbing wall.
This innovative product uses sensors to determine if a climber is on the wall climbing and has forgotten to “clip in”. In the event this occurs, an audible alarm will sound and a light will change color alerting the climber as well as facility staff that an unsafe condition may be present. This ability to provide an advance warning to climbers and staff is crucial in helping to reduce accidents and can also be used as a proximity device for climbing walls that are closed to users.
Alpine Towers International based in Asheville, North Carolina, was sued for $4.7 million after the plaintiff, a 17-year-old student fell 20’ and was rendered a paraplegic.
This case could have major implications within the indoor climbing industry.
The plaintiff was climbing the tower with another student belaying him. The belay rope became stuck in the belay device. The instructor was close by, and the student attempted to un-stick the rope herself. In doing so the belayer lost control of the rope, and the climber/plaintiff fell to the ground breaking his back. The plaintiff was rendered a paraplegic by the fall.
The plaintiff sued based on three causes of action.
(1) Alpine Towers was strictly liable for the manufacture and sale of a defective and unreasonably dangerous product; (2) Alpine Towers negligently designed the climbing tower without adequate safety equipment, instructions, and warnings; and (3) Alpine Towers was negligent in failing to properly train Fort Mill’s faculty on how to safely use the climbing tower, particularly in failing to train the faculty to teach student belayers to safely use the belay system.
The jury found for the plaintiff and his parents on all causes of action and awarded the plaintiff damages.
It awarded $500.00 for strict liability, $900,000.00 in actual damages and $160,000.00 in punitive damages for negligent design of the tower, and $2,500,000.00 in actual damages and $950,000.00 in punitive damages for Alpine Tower’s negligence in training Fort Mill’s faculty. The jury also returned a verdict for Larry’s parents for $240,000.00 in actual damages.
Grigri versus ATC
The first issue and the third most aggravating issue in this decision was how the court accepted the jury’s decision on the strict liability theory claim. The plaintiff’s experts argued that the belay device being used on the tower was operated manually and if the defendant has supplied automatic devices the fall would not have occurred.
…Gerald George, Ph.D., testified that the Trango Jaws relies on the absence of human error to safely belay a climber. He explained that it was feasible to use an alternative design for the climbing tower incorporating a belay device called a GriGri.
“Absence of human error” is how all accidents occur.
Dr. George testified that without incorporating a “fail-safe” belay device such as the GriGri into the design of a climbing tower used for students, the climbing tower is defective and unreasonably dangerous.
So by using a particular belay device, which was not part of the climbing wall, the defendant was strictly liable. The defendant was liable for the injury because the tower was “defective” based upon the choice of belay devices.
Negligent Design
The next issue was the negligent design claim.
[Plaintiff] presented evidence that Alpine Towers conducted a ten-year study ending in 1999 that concluded the majority of accidents on its climbing towers were caused by human error, specifically belayers dropping their climbers.
Proof of the negligent design claim is knowing you have a problem that injures people and failing to do anything about it. The study was the proof of the knowledge, and the plaintiff’s injury was proof of failing to do anything about the problem.
Granted, it seems to be a stretch to apply design to belayers dropping climbers; however, if you look at the structure as including the ropes and belay devices, then the claim makes more sense.
Problems for our industry
The negligent training claims the final claim and the one that will create the most problems for other people within the industry. The contract signed by the defendant for moving the tower stated that defendant would teach the owner how to use the tower. The purchaser, Fort Mill, intended to use it to teach climbing and belaying. The defendant had manuals, curriculums and classes in how to belay; however, it did not teach the owner how to teach how to belay.
First, Alpine Towers uses a written syllabus when it conducts classes to teach adults how to belay. However, it did not provide the syllabus to Fort Mill to enable Fort Mill to effectively teach students. Second, the belay system designed by Alpine Towers relies on a faculty supervisor to ensure the students are properly belaying the climbers. In addition to [defendant’s employee’s] testimony as to where the faculty supervisor should be positioned, the CEO of Alpine Towers, Joe Lackey, testified, “the staff member should stand directly behind the climber, . . . not thirty feet away.”
However, it gets worse. The plaintiff’s expert testified that no one should belay until they have been tested.
Moreover, despite knowing that Fort Mill would be teaching students to belay and that students were more susceptible to making belaying errors than adults, Alpine Towers did not teach Fort Mill that it should test the students’ competency before allowing them to belay a climber. [Plaintiff’s expert] testified “as a matter of course in my industry, participants are tested,” including whether they are “able to . . . belay in a competent manner, catch falls, lower somebody . . . off a climb.”
However, the statements of the plaintiff’s experts were reinforced by the trade association that the defendant belonged to and that his own employees served on.
Alpine Towers has several employees who serve on the standards committee for the Association for Challenge Courses Technology, which [defendant] called a “climbing society.” Despite evidence of this standard climbing industry practice, Alpine Towers did not teach Fort Mill that it needed to test, how the tests should be conducted, or what particular skills should be tested.
Once again, the trade association (or as the defendant described it the “climbing society”) created standards which instead of helping the defendant win a trial, were used at trial to prove the defendant was negligent.
The final defense to the jury verdict raised by the defendant was Intervening Causation. Basically, this is an argument that something happened after the negligent acts of the defendant caused by a third party who either relieved the defendant of liability or is the real cause of the injury. If the intervening act was foreseeable, then it does not break the chain of liability between the parties. To be a defense, the intervening act must be the “bolt of lightning” without a thunderstorm, which came out of nowhere.
The test for whether a subsequent negligent act by a third party breaks the chain of causation to insulate a prior tortfeasor from liability is whether the subsequent actor’s negligence was reasonably foreseeable. “For an intervening act to break the causal link and insulate the tortfeasor from further liability, the intervening act must be unforeseeable.”
The defendant argued that the actions of the belayer, a co-defendant and the Fort Mill’s actions were an intervening cause. However, in this case, the acts of the defendant were foreseeable. In fact, for the belayer dropping a climber, the defendant had a study which showed what would happen.
It should be noted that the trade association sited above is not the Climbing Wall Association which has far stricter standards regarding the operation of climbing walls. To read the conclusion of the case go to recreation-law.com.
On June 17th, the owners of the New Jersey based, Gravity Vault, received the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2013 New Jersey Small Business Persons of the Year. The Gravity Vault is New Jersey’s biggest climbing gym company with two locations. This year they plan to open a third company owned facility as well as their first franchised location. If they are successful in this expansion it will mark the first time a U.S. based climbing gym has managed to franchise.
For those of us in the indoor climbing profession a hard blow was felt when the International Olympic Committee announced that sport climbing well not be one of the sports in the 2020 Olympics. Climbing was beat out in the second to last round by Squash, Baseball/Softball and Wrestling.
The International Federation for Sport Climbing (IFSC) states:
“First of all congratulations and best wishes to the athletes of the three selected sports for the final vote on 7 September at the 125th Session in Buenos Aires. Despite we climb day by day higher faster and stronger, we did not make it. Now it is time to go climbing again” says Marco Scolaris, IFSC President.
“We remain convinced that Sport Climbing would perfectly complete the Olympic Games program. We will continue our efforts to share our values and our lifestyle with young generations and develop new marketing opportunities in the outdoor marketplace, which is huge and constantly growing. Our mission remains to support the growth of Sport Climbing around the world and to organize state-of-the-art events bringing together the best international athletes. We can count on the young and vibrant climbing community as well as enthusiastic professional climbers to help us in this task.”
Though we are all disappointed by the IOC’s decision to eliminate sport climbing from consideration from the 2020 Olympic Games today, USA Climbing remains committed to supporting the IFSC and a future bid for the 2024 Olympic Games program. While we congratulate wrestling, baseball/softball, and squash for making the short list, we believe strongly that climbing offers the Olympic Games a truly different sport: one that celebrates human excellence in a basic physical movement and that it is uniquely vertical in nature. Sport climbing will someday add a completely new dimension to the Olympic Games as well as new and different athletes and audiences from around the world. Pete Torcicollo, President of USA Climbing summed up the feelings of the climbing community noting “We are obviously disappointed, but we continue to believe that our sport is a great fit for the Olympic program, and that climbing will be part of the games sooner than later.”
USA Climbing will continue to support the development of the bouldering, lead, speed, and paraclimbing athletes that will eventually compete in the Olympic and Paralympic Games. We thank the entire United States climbing community for your support and continued dedication to the Olympic dream as well.
Celebrate your Good Grades with Upper Limits! Summer is here and school is out; reward yourself for all of your hard work. June 1st – June 14th receive $1 off a daily climbing pass for every ‘A’ on your report card.
Maximum of $5 off, valid report card or transcript must be shown at time of payment to receive discount, not valid with other offers or discounts including discount nights. One time use per report card or transcript, offer only valid June 1st through June 14th 2013. Rental gear is additional.
In Essex, England a high school has been fined £10,641 ($16,095) after a 14-year-old boy fell more than four meters (13 feet) from the school’s climbing wall.
The teenager was one of four pupils selected to try their first-ever ‘lead climb’, during a PE lesson at Manningtree High School on 17 October 2012.
He had managed to clip three bolts as he ascended the climbing wall but struggled with the fourth. A fellow student, similarly inexperienced, had been told to ‘belay’ the rope for the boy, keeping it taut or feeding more as necessary. After the climber grew tired, the instructor told him to let go of the climbing wall, which he did.
However, instead of being supported by the belay technique, he fell unrestrained over four metres and hit the safety mat on the floor. The student, now 15, suffered a fractured heel bone, which was later pinned and plated.
The incident was investigated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which prosecuted Manningtree High School today (7 June) at Colchester Magistrates’ Court.
HSE found that prior to the lesson none of the four pupils were aware what lead-climbing was or the risks involved and none had been properly trained or prepared for the more advanced type of climbing that was being attempted.
In addition the school failed to have an adequate safety management system in place for lead-climbing and the instructor was not competent to teach or supervise lead-climbing.
Manningtree High School, of Colchester Road, Manningtree, was fined £9,000 and ordered to pay £1,641 in costs after pleading guilty of breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 for failing to adequately protect the pupils against the risk of falls.
After the hearing, HSE inspector Glyn Davies said:
“A teenage boy sustained a totally preventable injury that required an operation, saw him on crutches for more than 14 weeks, and from which he is still recovering.
“Inexperienced pupils receiving climbing instruction during PE lessons are completely reliant for their safety on the competence of their climbing instructor and the adequacy of the school’s safety management system.
“Unfortunately in this case pupils were let down by Manningtree High School’s failure to ensure the climbing activity was carried out safely and sadly this resulted in one pupil getting hurt.”
