Doping in Sport Climbing: Status Quo in a New Olympic Discipline

Commentary Sport climbing was recently selected to be part of the 2020 Olympic games in Tokyo, which is a significant step in the sport’s maturation process (1). Although this is an exciting development for most athletes, coaches, and fans of the sport, this new status of sport climbing comes with more responsibility. With growing pressure to perform on the world stage, sport climbing athletes may become more susceptible to the pressures of doping. The term “rock climbing” is commonly used to refer to all aspects of the sport, but it is important to understand that there are several subdisciplines that are quite different in terms of physical demands and sport environment. Modern competition sport climbing and bouldering are performed on artificial walls. Outdoor “sport climbing” (aka rope climbing) and “bouldering” (climbing short boulders with no rope) are performed on real rock and are considered the two main subdisciplines of sport rock climbing. Because modern rock climbing developed from alpine mountaineering, the sport is loosely rooted in the past where performance-enhancing substances were sometimes used by athletes to reach the world's highest, most hazardous, and difficult peaks (2). In high-altitude mountaineering, performance-enhancing substances are used to reduce the effects of hypoxemia on athletic performance and to minimize the risk of high-altitude illness and disease. Arising in the 1960s and 1970s, a generation of rock climbers developed, of which some world-class athletes were regarded to sweeten their lives with various substances. Today, names of iconic climbing routes remind us of those days (e.g., “Separate Reality,” Yosemite Valley — USA). In the modern forms of rock climbing (competition and outdoor), the purpose of using substances would only follow one goal: to increase one's own performance. Although this practice was more or less accepted in the past, modern sports ethics have dramatically changed. In modern sport climbing, performance-enhancing substances may be used for both physical and psychological athletic performance improvements, real or perceived. Modern competition climbing federations have therefore adapted to antidoping regulations, which had been standardized in other sports many years ago. For competition climbing, a regulation standard has been developed and installed; however, highly renowned records within the sport are broken in a nonface to face competitive setup as performed on real rock, unaffected by any antidoping control. To date, there have yet to be any published scientific studies on the topic of doping in modern sport climbing. This is in contrast to other new Olympic sports, such as baseball or karate (3,4). Knowledge about performance-enhancing substances in modern rock climbing is, therefore, low and mainly based on anecdotal evidence and assumptions. Because climbing is dependent on a high strength-to-bodyweight ratio, low bodyweight has always been an important factor within the sport (5,6). Various substances, such as appetite suppressants, diuretics, and others, were used in the past and are most likely still used in climbing today (7). Regulations to limit the athlete's body mass index to avoid anorectic disorders were, therefore, installed within competition formats but are uncontrollable in the sport's outdoor formats. Stimulant medications have been used in the past to prevent fatigue, thereby allowing more intense and more frequent strength- and power-training sessions in climbers. Anxiolytic and disinhibiting substances, such as tetrahydrocannabinol, also may have beneficial psychological effects on athletic performance in climbers. Although some countries have already implemented effective antidoping programs for competition sport climbing, other countries are far beyond. In contrast to most other sports, many world-class athletes do not participate in competition formats on artificial walls but travel the world to break records on real rock. Those athletes most likely will not face a single doping control within their career. Although fans around the world frenetically celebrate new levels of difficulty, one must thereby rely on the athlete's sports ethics. Another common problem within the sport is the widely underdeveloped sports medical supervision of (top) athletes. Although all internationally competing athletes should get some assistance from their national federations, noncompeting athletes might not even know that they are using substances which are generally associated with “doping.” As the sport is rapidly increasing in popularity, most nations are still within the process of developing nations' team, training, and competition structures. Therefore, many officials, trainers, and especially athletes might not be aware of the importance and impact of their actions. Due to the quick rise of this sport, national antidoping organizations are not aware of the different structures and circumstances within the sport, which also could be caused by lack of sufficient assistance and guidance for the sport. Moving forward, we, therefore, recommend: 1) Increased awareness of sports ethics for both competition climbing and outdoor climbing. 2) Increased antidoping education of fans, athletes, trainers, and officials. 3) Sports medical supervision of elite sport climbers, both in indoor and outdoor climbing. 4) Collaboration between national sport climbing organizations and sports ethics organizations for reciprocal education on doping in climbers. 5) Increased monitoring and antidoping controls for select climbers, both during training and in competition. During the early years of sport climbing as a new Olympic discipline, antidoping regulations with appropriate educational work should be a high priority. With the world watching sport climbing at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, it is even more important for us to increase awareness of antidoping principles and practice within the sport climbing community.

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