It doesn’t matter how you do it. It just matters if you do it - Kyra Condie
With the debut of Sport Climbing to the Olympics coming in the Summer of 2021, there is a lot of anticipation about what may come of the sport. It seems very likely that Competitive Climbing will explode as a sport after the Tokyo Games.
For the first time ever, the world’s greatest climbers will be meeting in one city to go head to head in a series of intense competitions.
In an ultra-elite group of athletes, one climber shines especially bright, with her grit, determination, and strong character - Shoreview, Minnesota’s Kyra Condie.
Condie seems destined to inspire the world with her spirit, her integrity, and her awe inspiring climbing skills… Let’s see why.
The Mountains In Life That Kyra Has Already Conquered
All Olympians are impressive by nature and have to overcome many personal obstacles to get to where they are.
With that being said, at 23 years old, Kyra Condie has had some really big hurdles to climb though both literally and figuratively. Let’s say that again… really big hurdles.
At the age of twelve after being diagnosed with Idiopathic Scoliosis, Condie went through a spinal surgery that fused 10 of her vertebrae together. This very easily could have stopped her from climbing ever again, but she insisted that her parents find a surgeon who would promise to do everything he could to prevent that from happening.
This is how dedicated she was to the art of climbing by the age of twelve.
The fact that Condie is able to climb at all is extraordinary, let alone at an Olympic Level, given that there are parts of her spine that will never bend and twist in a typical manner.
As one may surmise, it has taken an unspeakable amount of determination for her to get where she is in the climbing world. As a climber, she is known for her cool head, her problem solving abilities, and incredible versatility.
An Epic Friendship With Allison Vest
In February of 2021, Vogue Magazine published an article about the friendship forged between Kyra Condie and Canadian Olympic Climber Allison Vest.
The two met in 2016 at the IFSC World Climbing Cup and discovered that they were kindred spirits. This makes sense in some ways, in that Condie often speaks about how she sees the friendships forged in climbing as one of the greatest aspects of the sport.
It turns out that Condie and Vest are not only training together, but they also are currently living together in Salt Lake City.
The two ladies are creating some pretty incredible content together, from videos to photographs, and appearing on podcasts together. This friendship is pretty darn heartwarming and it is hard to imagine a duo of athletes that are more inspiring together.
It also turns out that they now have matching wrist tattoos!
The “Climbing Roommates” as the duo are sometimes referred, are motivating each other to be more creative, work harder, and use new strategies in climbing. Their friendship is a perfect example of how surrounding yourself with people who bring out the best in you can lead to remarkable accomplishments.
Reaching For Higher Principles
Aside from her incredible spirit and athleticism, Kyra Condie has proven to be a woman of high principles.
She is a vocal supporter of animal rights, having been a vegetarian since she was eight years old. In this same spirit, she plans on going to school to become a veterinarian. In a world where people are still learning that a vegetarian diet can be an advantage rather than a hindrance to the health and strength of an athlete, this sometimes means she is subject to unwarranted judgement for her personal choices.
Condie and Allison Vest have also been putting in work to combat bullying and body shaming.
After each of the athletes received countless trolling messages on Instragram, they started a joint Instragram account where they posted screenshots of some of the disgusting messages they were receiving daily. Unfortunately, the account was deleted by Instagram, but both of the Climbing Roommates continue to speak out against the way that people speak about women’s bodies in particular, and female athletes specifically.
What Climbing In The Olympics Is Going To Look Like
As the 2020 Summer Olympics (taking place in 2021) will be the first Olympic Contests including climbing, there are some kinks that have needed to be worked out.
With limited medals being given out for climbing, the results of the first Olympic Climbing Contests will be based on the combined scores of three different rounds, all testing skills in different disciplines.
The Three Disciplines Tested In The Olympics:
- Lead: Each competitor climbs with a rope as high as they can in 6 minutes, clipping the rope to carabiners along the route.
- Speed: Two competitors race to the top of a wall head to head with climbing ropes.
- Bouldering: Each climber has 4 minutes to attempt to climb to complete a climbing course without ropes, using strength and problem solving skills.
Kyra Condie is especially well known for her skills in bouldering, but also shows incredible versatility. This has been credited to the fact that she has focused on all types of climbing since she started at a young age, rather than ever focusing exclusively on one discipline.
Since most competitive climbers stick to one discipline, there has been substantial controversy around the scoring criteria for the Olympic Games Climbing Event. In fact, the controversy has been so significant that in the 2024 Olympics will break down climbing into two separate competitions. Speed will be its own distinct competition, independent of the speed & bouldering competition.
With Condie being skilled in all three disciplines, she is uniquely qualified to compete in the one off beta version of the Olympic Climbing Games. She has an opportunity to become the only woman to ever earn a gold medal in the competition combining all three disciplines.
Where To Learn More
With all of this hype around Kyra Condie, you may be wanting to learn more about her. Her official website, KyraCondie.com/ is pretty cool and a sort of obvious place to start out. You can go there, and find videos, press releases, and photos. Of course, she can also be found on Instagram and TikTok.
