Eimir McSwiggan hoping to bring ice climbing in from the cold

How many Irish athletes, outside of Katie Taylor, have ever had a direct hand in influencing their sport’s direction globally or campaigned to get it included in the Olympics? That’s one of the things that makes Eimir McSwiggan, from Gortin, near Omagh, pretty noteworthy, but what makes her unique is the sport in which she is such a groundbreaker.

The 44-year-old Co Tyrone woman has competed on the UIAA World Ice Climbing circuit for over a decade.

She was part of the Irish diaspora when she first discovered it, and in 2016 won her first World Cup medal. Three years later she won overall bronze in the World Cup series which culminated in Denver, Colorado – not bad for someone whose main sport as a child was Gaelic football.

“But I grew up on a farm so I was always outdoors and loved it,” explains the qualified architect of her immersion in climbing after moving to South Korea in 2010, initially to take a year out to travel and teach English during that recession.

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South Korea (population: 50 million+) is only one and a half times the size of Ireland but 70 per cent of its land mass is mountainous and afforested. Seoul city itself features four separate mountains, topped by Bukhansan (2,750 feet), with eight more in its vast metropolis (estimated population: 25 million) so camping, hiking and climbing are intrinsic local pursuits. Winter temperatures that can plummet to minus-20 mean ice climbing is another indigenous sport.

McSwiggan joined a climbing club within six months of her move. She loves all aspects of the sport now, and confesses that sports climbing on limestone is actually her favourite – “because it’s the most physically challenging for me” – but was particularly smitten by the ephemeral aspect of scaling natural ice. “There is something special about climbing something that is only there for a few months of the year and then becomes a waterfall.”

She didn’t actually tackle ice until her second season, and will never forget her debut on the towering frozen face of Towangseong Falls, 320m high and one of Asia’s tallest waterfalls. “That was my first big climb. I trained for three months for it and it took us almost 21 hours to finish.”

Fate decreed that Kim Jong Heon, her club coach in Anyang (a satellite of Seoul), was not just one of the main ice route-setters in Korea but also a national coach, which led her to competitive ice climbing, a very different discipline than doing it in the wild.

Ice walls can be natural or artificial constructs. Athletes only get a brief chance to view the course before plotting their route and don’t get to watch their opponents. The aim to get as high as possible (ideally the top) within a set time and what you risk sacrificing for speed is accuracy. Fields can be 40-plus climbers, with the top 16 to semi-finals and top eight to the final. In the case of a tie athletes are separated by their exit point in the previous round.

Strength to weight ratio, wingspan, agility and composure are key. Training involves a combination of running, cycling, core and strength work plus lots of climbing practice, and McSwiggan has even co-designed an ice axe which some of her international colleagues are also now using.

Climbers come in all shapes and sizes (she is 5′6″) and being a late bloomer has proven no impediment, largely, she believes, because she didn’t take it up until her 30s and remains so dedicated and passionate about it.

She had progressed from TEFAL in local schools to teaching English in a university before Covid disrupted her life and sport, but got back on the international circuit last year. Her most recent major success was third in a World Cup in Champagny-en-Vanoise (La Plagne) in January, which also secured silver in the incorporated biennial European Championships.

Currently based in Ireland, working for Stryker in Cork as a project manager in regulatory affairs, she hopes to continue competing at the elite level but is also now the athletes’ representative on the UIAA’s four-person working group which is helping to shape ice climbing’s future.

Anxious to give back to a sport she found so welcoming, she was previously a member of its athletes’ commission and reckons that proactive involvement and her unique independence (she represents no national ice climbing federation or vested interest) prompted her selection to this lobby group.

It includes the head of the British Mountain Federation, the head of the American Alpine Federation and a specialist in Olympic sport from Argentina, and McSwiggan has already taken part in one of their regular meetings with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

“I was always just interested in the training but when you’ve been in a sport so long you see where there could be improvements for the athletes, especially the next generation. We’re trying to see how to get competitions more professionally run and grow the sport internationally, and the big goal is to get to the (winter) Olympics.

“Ice climbing was a demonstration sport in 2016 but some things have held us back. It’s a slow path but it feels like we’re on the right track,” she says, stressing that global warming and the environment are important concerns in these discussions.

The Olympic door is already ajar because climbing (an amalgamated format that blended speed, lead and bouldering) made its debut in the summer games in Tokyo. Equality, one of the IOC’s cornerstones, is already inherent.

“Our prize money is the same. Women used to only have one qualification route when the men had two, especially at smaller venues, and we campaigned for two routes. So they said the women are going to have to go on the same route as the men and it was great because women did just as well. That kind of surprised a lot of route-setters.”

Cross-over stars are rare but do exist like Switzerland’s former bouldering world champion Petra Klingler who is also a world class ice climber.

For McSwiggan climbing is not just a sport but a way of life. She has observed the growth of climbing gyms in Ireland and, given the country’s new post-Covid appreciation of green space and outdoor activities, sees no reason why climbing should be in any way esoteric. She has already received support from Mountaineering Ireland, particularly from Jane Carney, and legendary alpine climber Claire Sheridan is one of her heroes.

“It’s only now we’re seeing more sport climbing in Ireland. Traditional climbing, which is Claire’s speciality, is heading up to a rock face with your cams [spring-loaded devices that stick in crevices as anchors]. You have to have real belief in your placement, to know that what you’re going to put in a rock is going to hold you. That’s the purest form of the sport and I’d like to do more of that.

“But there’s so many different disciplines, that’s what’s so great about it. Ice climbing is probably only 50 per cent of the climbing I do now. It’s just amazing to be out in nature. I’m always trying to get other people to give it a go and can’t understand why they don’t love it as much as me,” she laughs. “I genuinely believe climbing is for everyone.”