Hi guys,
Don't know if I'm right in saying this but do you think there is also a cultural aspect to this too?
We live on a pretty dismal grey island where a lot of the time the weather is inclement and recession has hit our industry pretty hard in recent years. After slogging out 5 long days of climbing in the rain for very minute lolly, the last thing I ever wanted to do was to get my harness on and climb of a weekend to practice for a competition. Mostly I needed to eat and rest and work out how to pay the bills or do a weekend job to subsidise the climbing.
I can see the appeal of hanging out in a lovely landscaped amenity parkland in NZ practicing my throwline technique with all my likeminded tree climbing buckos who I share digs with having a few beers. It's just a little different here. Your most likely to get a load of hassle from local idiots and have a partner who has come to the end of her tether hearing about trees and climbing .
Through a lack of investment and cuts in sport education, interest in sport as a whole has declined- which is of course a crying shame.
Most guys I've met in the industry are dog tired and skint. They love the climbing but would take a superhuman effort to get out and do it without some financial incentive. Which is a shame as they are great at what they do and would put in a fine performance but I can understand why competing is pretty low on the priorities list compared to providing for family etc. Work is work- recreation is recreation, having heard the amount of hours some guys have to put in to make ends meet, it's a pretty difficult balancing act at the best of times!
a turn out of 17 sounds pretty good.