Higher, faster, stronger: Canadian climbers ready for Olympic debut in Tokyo

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When sport climbing makes its Olympic debut this summer in Tokyo, Canada’s two representatives will be a TV ninja warrior and a mechatronics engineer. They are a pair of super-athletic friends who grew up together in Vancouver and share a passion for strategizing one’s way up a wall.

Sean McColl is a professional climber, a four-time world champion in the combined event, and has competed on the gruelling obstacles of the popular show American Ninja Warrior: USA vs The World. Alannah Yip is the first Canadian woman to make the final of a World Cup climbing event. She has balanced the sport while studying mechanical engineering at the University of British Columbia, specializing in mechatronics and eyeing a career in clean energy or the testing of equipment in her sport.

McColl, 33, and Yip, 27, aren’t related, but say they’re like cousins. Yip’s parents are McColl’s godparents, and vice-versa. Their parents all attended UBC together and have been close friends for decades. Over the years, the families went on countless camping trips together, had house boat adventures, parties and shared Christmas dinners.

“I remember when she was born; I knew her when she was tiny,” said McColl by video call from Salt Lake City, where he’s competing in his first World Cup event since before the pandemic this weekend. “So the fact that we’re going to go to the Olympics together is absolutely crazy in my mind, and very special to me.”

In Tokyo, 20 male and 20 female climbers will compete in three disciplines for a combined ranking, scaling artificial rock walls with bare hands and climbing shoes, in one of five new sports added in an attempt to keep the Olympic program fresh. In lead climbing, they attempt to go as high as possible in a specified time. The speed event sees two climbers race up a 15-metre-high wall, a mesmerizing competition that lasts just seconds. In bouldering, athletes work on a shorter wall without a harness, problem-solving their way across boulder-like formations in a specific time.

On Instagram, Yip and McColl each post astonishing visuals of their individual training as climbers, as they try, fail, and try again to complete climbs in Spiderman-like fashion. They cling at crazy angles off the sides of boulders, and strengthen fingers by doing pullups while hanging off narrow boards. They do tricks that show off gymnastic athleticism, such as McColl suspended from a pullup bar in perfect up-facing vertical plank, or Yip putting on layers of clothing while holding a handstand.

During the pandemic, McColl even built his own 3.5-metre climbing wall in his backyard off his woodshop with the help of his girlfriend’s dad, a metalsmith.

McColl took up climbing at a local wall with his parents and brother when he was 10. He says he was the worst in his family because he was too small to get very far up the wall. But once he figured out he could jump to propel his leg or arm to the next hold, he became relentless at it. Within three months he entered his first competition and won it. Before long, he was winning youth world championships.

Yip, six years younger, was captivated by McColl’s growing talent for this fascinating sport. She tried it at six years old, and started to compete by 10. She would eventually win loads of Canadian titles.

“I wanted to do whatever Sean and his older brother did,” said Yip by phone from Vancouver, where she is training. “I loved the problem-solving aspect of it, the combination of physical and mental. People call it physical chess.

“I was also more of an introvert and not keen on team sports, but there was such a strong community feeling in climbing. Everyone supported you there, because it was always you versus the wall.”

Over the years, McColl has earned 34 World Cup medals and planted the Canadian flag in a sport typically dominated by European athletes. Yip has become a constant at World Cups, too, the pair often travelling the world together.

In 2012, McColl was elected president of the athletes’ commission for the International Federation of Sport Climbing, a position he still holds. He made presentations to the International Olympic Committee’s board in Switzerland as it considered new sports. The Canadian climber argued that sport climbing demonstrates the IOC’s “higher, faster, stronger” motto, and pointed to its youthful demographic.

Eventually, Tokyo chose it as one of five new sports to add to the program for these Games, along with surfing, skateboarding, karate, three-on-three basketball, as well as the return of baseball/softball. Sport climbing will stick around for the 2024 Paris Olympics, too.

Yip remembers what it was like to watch from the ground as McColl qualified for the Olympics at the 2019 world championships in Hachioji, Japan. Her heart was in her throat as she watched him rebound from a dramatic mistake in his lead climb – forced to quickly manoeuvre backward down the wall to fix a hazardous clip in his safety rope – and still he managed to win that event.

“He had to be panicking inside, but his mental strength was absolutely incredible,” Yip said. “When he realized that he qualified, he was in tears; then immediately, the rest of the team was crying, too.”

She was fixated on qualifying as well. Ever since she watched live events at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in her hometown when she was a teen, Yip yearned to be an Olympian in one sport or another. Inspired by the gold-medal performance of Vancouver’s own Ashleigh McIvor at those Games, Yip took up ski cross for a while. Her love for climbing eventually won out, and then she got lucky that her sport landed in the Games at just the right time.

Her analytical mind has served her well in the sport. Yip currently works at a climbing gym, designing training programs for the competitive climbers as well as the routes on the walls, resetting the holds to give athletes new problems to solve.

Yip had three chances to qualify for these Olympics and failed in the first two competitions. She asked McColl to travel to Los Angeles to support her at the final opportunity in early 2020 at the Pan American Championships, and he was happy to. He was added as an assistant coach, so he could help her prepare every step of the way.

Yip needed to win the whole event to clinch her spot. She climbed just well enough to make it to the last day of the competition, necessitating a spectacular performance in her final climb. Yip delivered exactly that, fluidly ascending higher than any other woman in the field in her lead climb as her boyfriend, Canadian teammates, and McColl watched anxiously. She, too, burst into tears when she qualified.

Since no foreign fans are allowed during these unprecedented Olympics, the McColl and Yip families won’t get the trip to Tokyo they had imagined to watch their kids.

“I think our families will try to watch it together on TV,” McColl said. “I know we will be able to feel their presence despite the distance.”