Four Olympians made their way to Portland Rock Gym on Saturday, July 6 out in Beaverton in preparation for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. The group is also practicing on July 7 at the facility.
Colin Duffy, Brook Raboutou, Jesse Grupper and Natalia Grossman took to the Titan Boulder at the Beaverton gym, an exact replica of the wall they will compete on in Paris. The wall is one of 22 in the world and the only one in the United States.
That’s par for the course for the Portland Rock Gym, which became only the second modular climbing gym in the country back in 1988.
For head route setter Nick Gagliardi, seeing climbers who are at the top of the sport come and train in Portland is a welcomed sight to see.
“I moved up here knowing what PRG was looking to build and had some knowledge based on my experience in Denver,” Gagliardi said. “I think back to the countless conversations about wall design, spacing, what we could do, how we should hire, how we should structure, what holds we should order. Getting to see these athletes and their team and coach come in here and utilize the space that we imagined has been really, really satisfying.”
Denver and Salt Lake City have been the hubs of the sport over the years thanks in part to their proximity to the mountains and facilities in each city.
However, with Salt Lake City being occupied by a national youth competition this week, the Olympians needed a space to train and Gagliardi’s previous experience route setting for the crew allowed for the connection to be made.
With the Olympics only a couple weeks out, the Portland Rock Gym landed as of their last spots to train before heading overseas.
“We’re stoked to have them, it’s a really cool reflection of what we’ve been trying to build here,” PRG vice president Brendan Rall said. “We’ve been making something really special and we’re excited to share it with the local community. Our industry recognizes that and it's cool to see that validation.”
The sport of rock climbing/bouldering has been growing with gyms similar to PRG popping up around the country.
There’s many different disciplines in the sport, but the three featured in the Olympics are lead, bouldering and speed climbing. Lead and bouldering will be combined scores competing for gold in the 2024 Olympics and speed will have its own medal after all three were combined for the 2020 Tokyo games.
Duffy and Raboutou were a part of the first-ever USA climbing team at the 2020 games where Duffy finished seventh on the men’s side and Raboutou took home fifth.
Having climbing on the international stage is something Gagliardi thinks has contributed to the growing exposure.
“It took this dirtbag sport that was kind of these esoteric adventures and made it viable for you to now get your kids into it with a future,” Gagliardi said. “Before, when I would coach kids, it would be like, ‘Oh I can’t climb this season because of track or because of football,’ … The Olympics are a huge stepping stone for the sport as a whole for everyone who makes a career out of it, whether it be as an athlete or a coach, route setter, team manager, whatever it might be.”
Rall, who’s father Gary started the PRG, hopes to be at the forefront of that growth, and especially in the Pacific Northwest where he’s spent his whole life.
The PRG Beaverton location opened partially last year with 28,000 square feet for climbing walls, two yoga studios, training and fitness space and more. And that’s only phase one.
Phase two, which Rall said they hope to complete in fall of this year, is another 36,000 square feet that includes a covered outdoor bouldering area for year-round training, plus 55-foot tall rope climbing, an IFSC certified speed wall and plenty more.
In total, the 64,000 square foot gym is poised to be the largest of its kind in the U.S. and can help the effort to grow the sport in the PNW and beyond.
“We’re really excited to share our vision with everybody, it’s in my head, I know what it looks like and it’s gonna be awesome,” Rall said. “The best part of my job is coming out of the office and the gym is filled with happy people.”
The four Olympians spoke on their experience in the sport from their own personal journeys to make the Paris games and some misconceptions about the sport.
Most of all, the four, along with four more to complete the eight-person team, hope to land Team USA’s first medal in the sport.
No matter the final result though, Portland and the surrounding area can now say they helped contribute to the road to Paris for the growing sport.
“Just knowing that we were able to do this, that our plans paid off and we got to bring this very new climbing attraction to the Pacific Northwest is really fun,” Gagliardi said. “It just feels a little bit surreal now, to be on the other side of things, like, it worked.”
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