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As some of you have heard I will be going to Italy in mid February to participate in a series of climbing demonstrations during the Olympics. This is an event outside the Olympics and is not a competition but should help to raise the visibility of the sport for the IOC. Many people might feel that it is detrimental to climbing to try and pursue inclusion in the Olympics and a small part of me agrees. The part of me that loves going out on the rock with just some friends and goofing off.

However remember this; competition climbing is an entirely different sport than outdoor climbing and there are many different aspects to both disciplines. Being a competitive climber and coach myself I can only hope to see the sport grow to become more accepted by the masses. We all know how much climbing has impacted each of our lives and I for one would love to have more people involved and would love to see our national team members receive some funding for travel etc...

So I'm going to try and keep a trip log while I am in Italy to keep you guys updated on the happenings and commotion. The trip log is below and hopefully I'll be able to update it regularly. Here's some photos as well.

Here are a few photos of the brochure that will be displayed in Bardonecchia. You can see the schedule and the list of athletes.
    

Mike

Maybe this explains what is going on a bit better -
------------- Press Release from Canadian Competition Climbing ---------------------------
West Coast climber and Canadian coach Mike Doyle has been invited by UIAA Climbing to participate in a series of climbing exhibitions and events that will take place Bardonecchia, Italy later this month. Bardonecchia is the nearest city to the hill where the Olympic snowboard competitions will be held, and UIAA Climbing hopes that participating in its municipal festivals during the period of the Turin Olympics will bring increased exposure to their sport. Mike will be joining climbing personalities from around the world, the purpose to invite the attending public, media, other climbers, and Olympic athletes and officials to participate in a daily series of fun climbing events and demonstrations. We wish Mike success with his mission, and hope that climbing will one day be recognized as a sport worthy also of inclusion in the Games themselves.

A recent news release appearing on the USA Climbing website has created the mistaken impression that Bouldering will be a demonstration sport at the Turin Winter Olympics, and that a selection process was undertaken by National Federations to determine representing athletes. This is not the case. Though it recognizes that climbing and mountaineering are sports, the International Olympic Committee has not 'invited' climbing to participate at the Olympics in any way. The events that will take place in Bardonecchia will not be competitions, but rather demonstrations and social events totally apart from the Games themselves, and the athletes participating will not represent National Federations or teams, but rather were invited to attend by the international climbing federation UIAA Climbing, based on their potential to act as ambassadors for the sport.

11am - Leaving Seattle for Turin, Italy.

Well after a marathon travelling session I am now in Bardonecchia on a beautiful Friday morning. The sun is shining and unfortunately the snow is not falling.

I left Seattle at 11am, flew to Chicago then Munich the on to Torino. It always amazes me when my bags do arrive after two very quick change overs. Other than fighting with Security in Munich the trip was very smooth. I recently bought a travel massage stick that the security people in Munich didn't want on the plane. So I did what any good, honest, law-abidding person would do. I walked out of security and entered somewhere different :).

I was the first of the climbers to arrive in Bardonecchia and managed to find the appartment where we are staying very easily. Checking in was simple and after checking in I went for a little walk. When I returned to the appartment before dinner I went to unlock the door but broke the key in the lock!!! It just broke, I didn't force it or anything. Anyways it was around 8pm and I didn't know who to call. Fortunately it was time for dinner and I met Marco Scolaris the president of UIAA-Climbing and he phoned someone to straighten it all out.

Turns out I'm in the same Appartment as Lei Zhao from China. How cool is that!

Well so far the highlight of the trip has been the Italian coffees, they are simply delicious!

Yesterday was fairly uneventful. We woke up, had breakfast and then went to the facility to check out the climbing. At that point it was only Lei Zhao of China, Alan Pryce and Christina Bedard of Australia and me. The climbing area was partially set since they had held a competition last weekend. We stripped a few routes and threw some holds up for a couple more. The walls themselves are simple but have interesting features added on. It is all a portable structure that could be taken down and set up somewhere else. In addition to the bouldering there is an example of what the UIAA is trying to define as the standard for a speed climb, something that can be used to define World Records.

Literally we spent the whole day at the climbing venue, other than a few excursions for coffee. We didn't climb much just tried to get things ready for today. Oh yeah, Canada didn't hold up it's end in ping-pong, I suck.

All the other climbers arrived last night and almost everyone was at dinner.

Today was another beautiful sunny day. We were expected at the facility at around 10/10:30 for an open training session. People were allowed to come in and climb or watch us train. Basically it just turned into a huge bouldering session but most people were still stretching out after travelling. At around 12:30 everyone was done except Angela Eiter. She is worse than the energizer bunny and was still excited about the climbing and the problems for another hour.

This afternoon we went back to the apartment where I did a bit of work and rested up. We were supposed to be back at the climbing venue by 4 for basically another bouldering session.

At four it took people a little while to warm up from this morning but things got underway. Unfortunately not many people were around to watch. Some people tried the speed climbing but mostly just bouldered.

Tomorrow we are going to watch the Men's halfpipe competition. So look for us! I'll be wearing a very, very bright yellow jacket.

Sorry about the lack of updates it's actually been quite busy but it's not because of the climbing.

Yesterday we went to watch the men's halfpipe competition and while I snowboard and can slightly appreciate the difficulty of the moves it still became tedious. After 44 qualifying boarders on the first run, then 38 boarders on the second run you became a little desensitized to what was happening. That and I don't fully understand how they judge it so you can't help but think that there's some favoritism. Don't get me wrong Shaun White put on a show but I just don't know the difference between some of the riders. All in all it was a beautiful sunny day and I am glad that we were able to attend.

That evening we were supposed to do another "open" climbing exhibitiion, which we did but again it was just more of a session and there weren't that many people there to watch. Hopefully it gets more popular over the next few days.

Today Vadim and I went skiing at the local mountain. Another beautiful sunny day, how could we pass it up? I haven't skied in years and the first few runs were a little slow and unsteady but by the end (we only skied for 3 hours) I was speeding down some runs and having a blast! The snow wasn't that good since it hasn't snowed in two weeks but the runs were well groomed and the views were incredible.

This afternoon we were supposed to be at the facility at 3 to climb with some kids. There were some kids there but there was not a lot of holds for them to use so they mostly just played on a modified version of the speed routes. After another boulder session it's back to the appartment.

Well I'm back in Seattle and I have to say I was a little disappointed with the trip in general. While it was great to meet the other climbers and have a chance to hang out with them I wish that the Olympic experience had been more. The town of Bardonecchia (while we were there) was pretty dead at night and I expected more events surrounding the Olympics.

The turnout of spectators and exposure that was given to climbing was a little disappointing as well. I hope that the other two groups fare better than we did and get more turnout.

On the last day in Italy we had another morning training session but after four days of bouldering it was a little slow. In the afternoon Vadim, Alan, Christina and I all took a gondola up one of the local hills. All of us except Vadim ran/boot skied down the hill but Vadim wasn't feeling well so he rode the gondola back down. The run down was a blast! I'll have some photos up soon.

All in all I'm glad to be home and I hope to hear from the other groups in the coming days.

These guys support me so I'd appreciate it if you support them.

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