As you should be made aware, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics is a massive breakthrough for climbers across the globe as the competitive side of climbing has been added to the list of approved sports for this year’s Olympics. With an incredible lineup of climbers from the Central Europe, the U.S. and Japan itself. It’s quite an interesting setup for scoring so let’s walk through it.

Competitors in the 2020 Olympics will be met with all three disciplines of the sport; bouldering, sport and speed climbing. The three will test strength, endurance and, of course, speed. What makes the Olympics such a unique competition compared to the typical USAC sanctioned event is the inclusion of a score multiplier. By forcing qualified competitors to compete in all three divisions, each climber’s rank in the events will be multiplied by their other scores. If Adam Ondre’s incredible sport climbing ability lands him first place, his bouldering ranks him at third but his lack of experience in speed leaves him in seventh place, his score will be 21 and will be in good spirits (1 x 3 x 7 = 21).

Many climbers aren’t comfortable with the format as they specialize in their respective disciplines but the introduction of the sport is relatively new and not much distinction can be expected from such a narrow playing field. Only 40 climbers will be competing, 2 athletes per gender from each participating country. With so few competitors, a lot needs to be accomplished with little resources.

Given the incredible competition scene available for all climbers to watch this summer, I personally can’t see these technical details getting in the way of an enjoyable Olympics but I do await the day that climbing gets its full spotlight on the world stage. Winter Olympics will surely highlight the incredible ice climbers of the world, giving us another chance to see how the competitive scene will change over four years.

Until then, keep watching for updates on this incredible opportunity to see the world’s best climbers go head-to-head in the most wicked competition climbers will witness to date.

Keep climbing,

Peter – Club Climbing President

USAC confirmed a sanctioned Local competition will be held at Hoosier Heights, Indianapolis on Saturday, February 21. The competition will feature rope routes, consisting of both top-rope and lead climbing disciplines.

This is an ideal opportunity for new competitors in the club who did not join in the fall to get in their one required Local competition before Regionals occur in March.

The competition remains a USAC Youth Local in the morning but will transition to be open to the public in the afternoon, allowing Collegiate climbers to also compete.

As the last few Local competitions finish, Butler Club Climbing looks ahead to the Regional competition this spring, held in Columbus, Ohio at Vertical Adventures.

With outdoor trip planning and competitions racking up, exciting climbing opportunities never seem to end!

– Peter Larson, Club Climbing President

The semester is coming to an end, and our climbers will soon head home. Some will hang their shoes over the fire in hopes that Santa will drop a chalk ball into the soles and hopefully all will continue climbing indoors during the cold winter months.

In all seriousness, the Climbing Club has had an amazing year so far. We’ve competed in twice as many competitions, traveled outdoors twice as much, and increased our competition team by more than double from last year.

Climbing Club has taken a serious turn but hasn’t forgotten about our newer members; we’ve held strong at 38 members and hope that even more will join us following the Olympic debut of competitive climbing. We also introduced our new constitution, where we clearly defined our officer roles and hope it will help when we roll out elections this coming Spring. Our Junior officers won’t be around forever!

Finally, from the Climbing Club to you, we all wish everyone a sendy holiday season. Keep crushing and come back in the Spring, when we hope to be stronger than ever and ready for Heartland Regionals!

Keep rocking on,
Peter – Climbing Club President

This past weekend Climbing Club worked competed at Brooklyn Boulders in Chicago, IL for our second competition for Fall 2019!

With 7 climbers in tow, Butler crushed plenty of the 66 routes at the competition, with one climber reaching number 55 (~V5 route).

Everyone agreed, these routes were sandbagged (set harder than they were rated) but regardless, our climbers endured. The results for the competition are below:

Female Adult:

— Highest Score: 21,800 points —

• Emily Costello – 11th place, 12,400 points
• Jory Dattilo – 14th place, 10,000 points

Male Adult:

— Highest Score: 30,500 points —

• Joe Weddle – 9th place, 23,500 points
• Peter Larson – 12th place, 23,300 points
• Drew Hauber – 16th place, 22,300 points
• Austin Ware – 24th place, 19,400 points
• JP Clark – 31st place, 15,100 points

Professional climber Michaelas Kiersch also competed. Recently, she became the first female climber to ascend a 5.14d route known as “The Golden Ticket,” marking her place in history at just 21 years-old.

Q&A with Michaelas, free pizza/kombucha/cryogenics and some amazing climbing made for quite the weekend. This made us start looking into doing one more competition before Regionals in the Spring!

Keep rocking on,

Peter – Climbing Club President

The largest outdoor trip yet! Over 13 climbers made their way south to Muscatatuck Park. Over half being their first time outdoors, the trip was a great experience that helped team bonding and really showed off the work done in the gym.

Climber Jp Clark took some amazing pictures, with some highlights below. With our newly purchased crash pads, the day trip was safe, successful and complete with lots of sends.

Climbing Club’s first competition is coming up this weekend on Saturday, October 12.

Sanctioned by USA Collegiate Climbing, the club has 8 members that will be competing. Ranging from V0 to V8 rated bouldering routes, this competition will count towards the next stage in the competition, Heartland Regionals.

Male Competitors:
– Jp Clark
– Luke Hadley
– Drew Hauber
– Peter Larson
– Austin Ware
– Eric White

Female Competitors:
– Jory Dattilo
– Sarah Frischmeyer

It’s official!

The Climbing Club is taking its first club sponsored trip outdoors. With the support of the Club Sports Council, we were able to purchase crash pads and safety training for our Safety Officers to protect our climbers in the wild.

After 3 years of climbing, we are finally able to take our members outdoors. With 12 members registered for the trip, we have about a third of the club partaking in this event. We hope that with its success, we will encourage more climbers to join us outside and enjoy where climbing started!

Pictures to come.

We are hosting our official 2019-20 meeting on August 30th from 4-5 in the HRC conference room!

If you have any interest in joining the club and would like to get more information about competitions, membership dues, outdoor trips and more, come by and learn about what Climbing Club is all about!

As spring semester came to a close, our climbers scattered the States to go home for the summer. Brooklyn Boulders, Earth Treks and First Ascent are among just some of the gyms that will see our climbers’ talents grow over the next few months. Some climbers have even found their way outdoors to climb at Red River Gorge, a beautiful climber’s paradise in Kentucky.

In the fall, we expect to be back climbing competitively and stronger than ever with new climbing recruits!

Enjoy the summer,

Peter Larson – Climbing Club President, Junior

5 members of the club made their way out to USA Bouldering Regionals on March 30.

The gracious hosts at Brooklyn Boulders opened up their facility to over 50 competitors.

39 male competitors and 13 female competitors made for tough competition but all members scored in the top 50%. Sarah Frischmeyer, the sole female competitor on the team this year, placed 7th in bouldering, just 2 places behind Nationals qualifying.

We are very proud of all members of our competitive team and can’t wait to see what kind of successes we will see next year as we plan to take competitions more seriously.