Is Canyoneering a Competitive Sport?

Fist descent ethics & timed speed runs

Is canyoneering a competitive sport?

Mainstream culture tends to have this reverse-midas-touch: Everything touched by it, turns to s***. And some sports, that at their core are not competitive, when embraced by people that only understand activities through the lens of mainstream culture, or have a vested interest in turning them into it, they tend to imagine ways to turn non-competitive activities into competitions: Enter "first descent ethics" or doing timed speed-runs through canyons. Are these things good for the sport?

First descent ethics

During a discussion about the role of bolts in canyoneering, a breakthrough came to the fore. Finally some admitted that their objection to bolts has very little to do with Leave No Trace ethics, and a lot to do with just personal taste. But since it is unreasonable to impose personal taste on the rest of the sport, they need to dress their personal taste with notions of wilderness, and/or first descent ethics. First descent ethics borrows from 'climbing ethics' where all the climbers following a climbing line established by the first sender, and they must keep that line exactly with the same anchors initially placed. This only makes sense from the purpose of comparing your climbing skills to the skills of the first sender. That mentality of climbing aims to make the sport a competitive sport. And while not all climbers subscribe to these notions, it has become the 'culture' of that sport. People who come from climbing, like to use this notion to defend no bolting personal views.

Speed runs

The practice of publishing your times through a canyon route straddles the line between a 'trip report' and bragging about how fast you did the route. But if you do not want to leave any doubt that all you are after is a 'timed event', race through a canyon, or multiple linked routes, give the 'event' a name, publish the times and compare them to previous attempts. Just like anti-bolting stances, this is purely a personal taste matter, and fans of this practice should be free and happy to pursue it. Yet....is it good for the canyons and the sport?

Human nature

Borrowing from one of the previous posts that talks about 'spectrums', competition and doing things 'just for fun" are both human nature, and both are at each end of a spectrum. We all do some things for fun and some we find ways to make it a competition with others, or ourselves (self-improvement).

The sport has been around for a while now, but it seems that it is maturing slowly, which may be a good thing. Especially when you consider that it is an activity that provides access to the last slivers of unexplored (read unspoiled) terrain in areas surrounded by heavily populated zones. So, should canyoneering turn into a mainstream competitive sport? Like a yearly race through popular canyons with mass media coverage, sponsors and entry fees?

Competitive Events are already here

In some countries around the world, such canyoning competitive events are already here. Hard to say if this area of the sport will catapult it into mainstream, or not.

2025 Event: Club canyoning Cali is in Valle del Cauca, Colombia.

Or enforced descending practices established by self-appointed rules makers of the sport? Oh...wait, are we already there ?