GB Team Climber Thea Cameron

Lancashire Post

GB Team Climber Thea Cameron shares her passion for the sport at the Boulder UK rock climbing gym in Walton Summit, Preston.

Transcript

00:00music

00:26When I was a kid I just climbed everything

00:28I just loved sports as a kid and I loved being involved with sport

00:37I'd done dance with my sister and my sister was really good at dance

00:40She went to loads of competitions and I was awful at it

00:43and I was very jealous of her being so good at it

00:46and going to comps and getting medals and stuff

00:48so my granddad got me into climbing

00:51and I think I did my first competition at like 9 or 10

00:55and I won it so then I was like

00:59oh this is something I'm good at

01:01and then I think it just grew from there

01:04I've been addicted ever since I think

01:07I definitely had to work for climbing

01:10I went through a stage probably as a teenager

01:13like most teenagers do where I wasn't doing as well

01:16but it just motivated me more

01:19and made me want to try harder

01:21and yeah I just love the training side of climbing

01:27Winters can be pretty tough

01:29Winters are hard

01:30that's kind of the off season for competition climbing

01:33so that's where we do most of our base phase

01:36so it can be pretty tough, pretty cold

01:39but worth it in the end

01:41it is long days

01:47so I train probably six days a week doing something

01:51and then having one rest day a week

01:53so I spend a lot of time in here

01:55between working and training at the same time

02:02Climbing is such a complex sport

02:05so there's so much that you have to be good at

02:08so there's fingers, shoulders, endurance, power endurance

02:14strength

02:15and then there's a technical side of it as well

02:17so you could be the strongest person

02:19but if you've got no technique

02:21then it's not going to help you

02:23so you really need to drill in the technique side of climbing as well

02:26so we break it all down

02:28and then try and put different bits in

02:30Historically, climbing is a very male dominated sport

02:37but it is changing

02:39and it's really nice to see that

02:41because I've grown up in the community

02:43seeing that change

02:44and more women coming into the sport

02:46and yeah, it's really cool to see so many women crushing hard

02:51When I was definitely younger, like a child

02:54I'd come in and it would be predominantly men in the climbing walls

02:57because it's definitely changing

02:59and there are some nights in here now

03:01where it's just like mainly women

03:02which is pretty cool

03:03but yeah, it's nice to see that change definitely

03:06I think for me

03:07the British bouldering championships last year were pretty special

03:11I got quite a bad injury at the start of the year

03:14and then it was a long road back

03:16and then that was really rewarding

03:18because I felt like I went out and climbed really well

03:21so that was really special for me

03:23Here we go, the Australian class

03:25The Australian class

03:26The Australian class

03:27The Australian class

03:28The Australian class

03:29The Australian class

03:30Just get involved, just get stuck in

03:36and don't be afraid of

03:39trying to get into it

03:41and yeah, I think just give it a go

03:44Thank you very much.

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