Every other Thursday, in its "off-field" section,
20 Minutes
explores new spaces for expressing sport, unexpected, unusual, clever or in full swing.
This week, we are devoting ourselves to the practice of indoor climbing, a sport that has been absolutely popular in France for the past ten years.
Between the presence of 200 gyms throughout France, for approximately 2 million practitioners, and the arrival of the discipline at the last Olympic Games, has climbing definitely become an indoor sport?
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his disappearance, Patrick Edlinger will be devoted to a photographic exhibition at the climbing fair next week in Grenoble.
This emblematic French pioneer of high-level free climbing, in the 1980s, would probably not have imagined the lightning evolution that his discipline has just experienced.
Artificial climbing structures (SAE) grew well in our gymnasiums from the end of the 1970s, especially for schoolchildren.
But an enthusiast of the discipline like Ghislain Brillet still felt alone in the world, in 1998, when he opened his Roc en Stock climbing gym in Strasbourg “7 days a week, with a large opening hours”.
Six years after the European Climbing Center, now renamed Roc et Résine, in Thiais (Val-de-Marne), the very first dedicated indoor structure in France, his entrepreneurial bet was almost a stroke of madness.
“I was 25 years old and I tried to create a clientele, assuming that we were the country of climbing, says Ghislain Brillet.
But many pure climbers, whose rather confidential way of life was necessarily outside, threw stones at me.
For them, it was inconceivable to want to democratize climbing by putting it indoors and making it pay.
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“There was never any opposition”
It now has 800 subscribers and more than 2,000 young visitors a year thanks to school outings, while the Strasbourg conurbation now has an offer of six climbing gyms.
Also president of the Union of Climbing Halls (UDSE), Ghislain Brillet assures him: "The hatchet is buried" between the different actors.
So, is there a real quasi-philosophical opposition between two apparently very distinct practices?
Fifth in combined at the Beijing Olympics, for the great premiere of climbing at the Olympic Games, Mickaël Mawem is sure of the opposite: “There has never been the slightest opposition between the hall and the mountain.
Basically, the first climbing halls were launched for those who climbed outside, to allow them to continue training when it was too cold.
Mountaineers still have this possibility, with even more facilities today.
The possibilities offered by all these rooms accessible at any time are beneficial to both worlds.
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Catering, coworking and yoga
Founder of the fourth oldest indoor climbing structure, Ghislain Brillet observes that there are now around 200 rooms throughout France: "Which says a lot about the importance of climbing in France, it is to note that some of its structures are located in intramural Paris.
When you know the rents, it's impressive.
From ten rooms when Covid-19 arrived in 2020, the Paris region now has around twenty, including a structure with a floor area of 6,000 m2 in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), inaugurated in June 2021 by ClimbUp.
Which makes it the largest indoor climbing gym in Europe.
“We have 23,000 subscribers in total and sometimes we reach 2,000 people a day in some of our 29 structures in France, reveals François Petit,
1997 climbing world champion in difficulty and founding president of Climb Up in 2011. We had 12 rooms in 2018, then it accelerated with a fundraiser, to reach 29 today.
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Ghislain Brillet rightly notes “a general explosion” of gym openings over the last ten years: “We have the most structured climbing gym market in the world.
“For an estimated total of 2 million practitioners in France, clearly above the outdoor version of climbing, since the French Federation of Mountains and Climbing (FFME) announces 102,000 licensees.
Thanks to a now well-established model: franchise structures such as Climb Up, Arkose, Block'Out and Vertical'Art are increasing their openings by offering bouldering and/or climbing, while focusing on restaurant-bar and coworking spaces. , even Pilates and yoga classes.
All with varied and thoughtful offers for families, such as the "fun climbing" formula at Climb Up.
“Climbing remains a nature sport”
A high school student in the Strasbourg region, June (15) explains what drives her to practice indoor climbing for 8 hours a week: “I like being alone with my route.
It really disconnects me from the outside world and my worries.
The atmosphere is also great in the room: there are all ages and everyone talks with everyone.
“Urban” teenagers like June have always lived in France with a climbing gym nearby, and they don't necessarily feel the urge to go on an adventure, in search of cliffs.
This evolution of the discipline, totally unexpected at the end of the 20th century, leads us to a question: has climbing become an indoor sport?
The Lyonnais Jean (41 years old), who leaves almost every weekend to climb in nature, whether in the Vercors, the Drôme or the Vaucluse,
I understand that some are afraid of the idea of taking this step of leaving the room.
It involves a lot more logistics, having your vehicle, and spending the day there.
But in my opinion, climbing remains a nature sport.
It's a pretext for escape that has a regenerating effect on my city life.
I need to discover different rocks, and not be satisfied with these same resin holds that we have in the room.
It is certain that the sport in vogue is above all indoor climbing, but I note that the practice is also growing on the cliff.
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The fear of "hordes of climbers" on the cliff
François Petit estimates that 85% of his customers at Climb Up do not share his passion between indoor and mountain: “We organize cliff outings for our subscribers but we have not yet managed to create a real springboard towards this practice.
Ghislain Brillet confirms: “5 to 10% of our practitioners at Roc en Stock will also climb outside, no more.
Afterwards, it's probably good this way because there wouldn't be enough natural sites for our 2 million regular indoor practitioners.
This is one of the reproaches that the purists made to us with the democratization of climbing: hordes of climbers trained in gyms were going to invade cliffs that were difficult to access.
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It is partly to avoid organizational and environmental abuses that the major climbing competitions quickly migrated from the cliffs to the halls, after a fiasco in 1986 in Biot (Haute-Savoie).
"With my brother Bassa, we also took advantage of the cliff in our leisure practice," says Mickaël Mawem.
But when we decided to really get into competition, things were simple: all the competitions are indoors, so we train indoors.
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What effect does the Olympics have on practice?
Apart from rare examples such as the Czech Adam Ondra, a pure and hard "cliff climber" who became indoor world champion, the very high level of competition is almost exclusively made up of indoor climbers.
And if the XXL resonance of the Summer Olympics, which will present for the second time 100% of the climbing events (speed, bouldering and difficulty) indoors, in Paris in 2024, definitely tilt the practice towards indoors?
No, this will not yet be the case in my opinion, replies Mickaël Mawem.
The Olympic Games are still too young for there to be this evolution.
There are two very different worlds in climbing, but thanks to the gyms, the discipline also continues outdoors.
Because even in town, out of ten people who begin to practice, there are one or two who will try one day outside, and perhaps even become adepts.
The practice remains closely linked to our environment.
Around Paris, there are no cliffs, so people will find it less easy to discover the discipline outdoors than in the region of Grenoble, where they were born in the mountains.
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Organizer of the third climbing fair, from November 18 to 20 in Grenoble (after Lyon in 2019 and 2021), Eric Hatesse (42) attracted around a hundred additional exhibitors compared to last year.
He hopes to attract around 5,000 visitors to Alpexpo.
He too believes in an atypical diversity of audiences: "There is a very wide range of climbers, with a plurality of profiles ranging from ice climbers to virgin rock climbers, including those who boulder to death or on the contrary than speed.
This sport is evolving and it is still looking for itself.
In any case, he has never been talked about as much as he is today.
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