With just days to go before she makes her Olympic debut, sports climber Molly Thompson-Smith is understandably excited.
“I’m feeling so good,” the 26-year-old Londoner said at the Olympic Qualifier Series in Budapest in June. “This is more than just a three year journey, it’s been so much longer than that. It’s been since climbing first became an Olympic sport, and it’s been since I was a little girl watching the Olympics on TV at home and dreaming about one day being there. So it’s crazy to have achieved the dream, I don’t feel like people achieve real dreams that often, and so yeah, I’m just feeling so grateful, so happy and motivated… to be in that [Olympic] Village, and really feel the spirit of the Olympics will be such a once in a lifetime kind of feeling, I’m sure.”
But the path to her Olympics moment hasn’t been easy for Thompson-Smith, who was the first British woman to win a medal in a Lead World Cup event in Slovenia in 2017. She narrowly missed out on qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics and has dedicated much of her career so far to talking about the importance of better diversifying her sport as one of the few black climbers on the circuit. A 2021 study found that just 7% of people that take part in climbing are from non-white backgrounds.
“I hope that people kind of understand climbing a little bit more from the Olympics, because it can be quite complicated if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking at,” said Thompson-Smith. “I hope that the Olympics can bring it to a much wider audience, because climbing needs that as well. Diversity and inclusion is definitely something that could be worked on within climbing. So I’m really grateful that climbing has the opportunity to be on the Olympic stage, because hopefully it will then get it out there to more people, and it can change people’s lives.”
Thompson-Smith made headlines in when she wore a Black Lives Matter mask at the 2020 European Championships, and has spoken about racism she has faced at competitions in the past. She says that speaking up about the importance of inclusion within sport “is massive to me”.
“I didn’t really have anyone within climbing to look up to who I really felt that I connected with.”
She said: “As a young girl who felt different throughout her whole life within climbing, even though the community is super lovely and mostly accepting, I was always different, and never really connected to climbing in the same way that my teammates or peers have. I didn’t really have anyone within climbing to look up to who I really felt that I connected with. So I’m really excited for climbing to be in Paris, and to be there myself and to hopefully be that person that a little boy or girl, or even an adult, needs to see to be ‘Oh, maybe climbing could be a sport for me, and there are people like me who can enjoy climbing’.
“I think visibility of the few of us who are operating in the climbing world is really important, just because I’ve always said you can’t be what you can’t see. And that’s been something I’ve been battling against for my whole climbing career. You know, just being the person who was different and ignoring the stares or the looks or the comments. So I think just having more visibility and representation and celebrating all of our differences, basically. It’s almost becoming normal within climbing, [which] is the main thing for now.”
Speaking about what she’s faced throughout her career, Thompson-Smith said it was only last year that she struggled with an incident concerning the lack of diversity in her sport.
“It’s more than just your hair, it fuels my personality, my identity, especially with it being different from everyone else in the circuit.”
“There’s one other girl, another teammate, we’re both mixed race basically, but we look nothing alike because our genetic backgrounds are completely different,” she says. “I came out to climb on the stage, was introduced as myself, and then she came out 20 minutes later and was introduced as me again, and it’s like, you know, you can’t make mistakes like that. Zoe has worked so hard to earn her spot to represent GB at one of the highest levels and for her to be introduced as her teammate because we have the same skin tone, I think it’s pretty disgraceful. I’d hope you wouldn’t get that in other sports, people didn’t really do anything about it and I hope that climbing will grow and actually get better with things like that and not just have it happen and accept it and just ignore it.”
Speaking about the importance, for her, of her hair in making her feel good during competitions, she adds: “My hair is such an important part of my climbing. It’s more than just your hair, it fuels my personality, my identity, especially with it being different from everyone else in the circuit. My curls, the way I have my hair is usually representative of how I’m feeling and how I want to go out onto the stage. So when it’s important and an important competition moment, I usually have my hair back and the curls out in full force, or I have my power braids, and they make me feel confident and sassy, and that’s really important to me.
“Looking good, feeling good is definitely a thing. And for me, my hair is probably the biggest thing, because it’s always symbolised difference to me. But over the last few years, I’ve learned to love my difference in my hair and that is the way I flaunt my difference in the climbing world. I love having my braids, or my curls and just wearing – I love leopard print – so a leopard print sash or scrunchie or something and just really feeling fiery and sassy.”
More than ever this year, mental health has become a real talking point for the Olympics and Thompson-Smith says being able to access the outdoors where she trains in Sheffield is “definitely essential to my mental health”. And she is thankful that conversations about mental health in sport are now more prevalent than ever. “I feel as an athlete we have more power to listen to mental health, which is amazing, because sport is beautiful, it’s incredible, people achieve dreams and do amazing things, but it’s also the complete opposite at the same time,” she says. “There’s only one winner, and everyone else it’s a different story. But I do feel like mental health has become more of a priority and people are realising that there is more to life than sport, and I think that it’s a good time to be an athlete for that, to be able to prioritise that.”
For those coming to climbing new, Thompson-Smith says she’s “grateful” it’s one of the more equal sports when it comes to gender. “All of our competitions run at the same time, the prize money is the same, the coverage is pretty much equal,” she says. “And outside of rock, women are pushing the barriers pretty much at the same level and rate as men are as well. So it’s quite an amazing sport to be part of like that.”
And maybe get used to seeing Thompson-Smith’s face on your TV. Once the craziness of the Paris Olympics is over, she’s got plans…
“I have plans to apply for the Great British Bake Off at some point in the next few years,” she says. “I absolutely love cooking and baking, and my partner and I are really into growing vegetables in our garden and then using that in the kitchen as well. So that’s probably the thing I’m obsessed with next after climbing. [I do] so much baking. I’m lucky to have the time to put into my cooking, and what I eat and everything, and then obviously nutrition is super important as an athlete. So I love to find ways of making it more fun and then also just treating the people around me. I think the athlete in me who wants to be good at whatever I’m doing and likes routine and structure, loves how scientific baking can be and how there’s steps, and being a perfectionist, basically. I think it’s quite a good match.”
An Olympic medal and a Hollywood handshake within a few years? If anyone can achieve it, it’s Thompson-Smith.
Rhiannon Evans is the interim content director at PS UK. Rhiannon has been a journalist for 17 years, starting at local newspapers before moving to work for Heat magazine and Grazia. As a senior editor at Grazia, she helped launch parenting brand The Juggle, worked across brand partnerships, and launched the “Grazia Life Advice” podcast. An NCE-qualified journalist (yes, with a 120-words-per-minute shorthand), she has written for The Guardian, Vice and Refinery29.
