Climber Alannah Yip is this week’s guest on #OTP where she shares what it was like to realize her Olympic dream. Alannah has been climbing since she was young and won her first national championship when she was just 12 years old. In just a few week’s time she’ll compete at the Tokyo Olympics in the Sport Climbing event (new this year), and is Canada’s only female athlete doing so.

Alannah has dreamed of going to the Olympics since she watched the Vancouver 2010 Games take place right in her own backyard. In 2016 it was announced sport climbing would be an Olympic event and Alannah, an avid cliff climber, switched her training to indoor. She even picked up speed climbing, which was new to her.

In this week’s episode, Alannah talks about what it means to her to be an Asian-Canadian athlete, and what’s she’s doing to help evolve the sport from the old-school “bro” culture.

Episode topics:

• Sport climbing at the Olympics
• Being the only female representing Canada at the event in Tokyo
• The fear of saying your goals out loud
• What being an Asian-Canadian means to her
• What she’s doing to make the climbing culture more inclusive

Quote:

“It’s hard to make big goals so public. My thought was that if you fail at it, that’s a lot, emotionally, mentally, to have to talk about that to everyone you know. I think that’s part of it – part of my nerves – to talk about wanting to go to the Olympics was because I would have to learn – it’s almost an entirely different sport and start from scratch – which I did – and I sucked for a long time.”

-Alannah Yip

Resources:

Guest Info – Alannah Yip

Instagram: @alannah_yip

Facebook: Alannah Yip

Host Info – Christina Heydanus

Instagram: @tinaheydanus

Twitter: @tinaheydanus

Show Info – Opening the Playbook

Instagram: @openingtheplaybook

Facebook: Opening the Playbook