DEEP-THINKING Hamish McArthur has got the ABC to joy in life – and winning climbing Olympics gold isn’t the answer.
Because it is elsewhere in arts, books and cooking that he finds true meaning and purpose.
The Team GB star, 23, heads to his first Games naturally wanting to do well but with a healthy and refreshing perspective on competing and life that belies his age.
McArthur told SunSport: “Performance vs pressure is a dance, it’s a very dynamic relationship. You don’t want to put too much pressure on yourself to do well, but you also don’t want to limit yourself.
“It’s possible in Paris for me to win a gold medal, that is an option and it’s also possible for me to bomb and do absolutely terribly.
“I’m still very much on that journey because I want to understand myself and my life more. I read a lot about those kinds of questions, it just fascinates me.
“I was very single-minded about climbing but over time I started to look more objectively and not worship climbing and competing so much. It’s a cool part of life, but it’s not life itself.
“Upon qualifying I didn’t feel the joy of qualifying in the same way I thought I would because it was attached to the goal.
“Winning or qualifying for the Olympics brings satisfaction and relief but I wouldn’t call it joy necessarily.
“They are very goal-orientated, whereas relationships, friendships and art don’t have specific goals and those bring me genuine joy.
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“Hanging out with my friends, cooking a really nice dinner with people, and having a good conversation is what I really strive towards.
“There’s a lot of fake stuff in competition and ranking yourself whereas to cook or chat or paint or read feels very natural and satisfies something a little deeper in me than winning does.”
McArthur will pack his journal in his suitcase on the Eurostar for Paris – as well as his current book, American writer Susan Sontag’s memoir As Consciousness Is Harnessed To Flesh.
This is the next stop on the Yorkshireman’s journey that started 18 years ago when his parents lied about his age just to get him into the local climbing gym.
Along the way, he has been crowned a double junior world champion and won bronze at the senior World Championships three weeks later in September 2021.
McArthur added: “I got into climbing when I was really young, I just had an obsession with climbing up stuff, some kind of innate property.
“I was five and you had to be six or seven to book on the course but out of desperation my parents wanted me to channel my energy into a safer environment where I wasn’t going to break any limbs from falling out of trees.
“At the Youth World Championships, I just started feeling invincible, which is quite a cool feeling, it was just like a meditation for the whole competition, all I had to do really to get those medals was stay on top of my mind.”
At Paris 2024, there are four separate sport climbing medals up for grabs, two for men and two for women.
Speed climbing, now a standalone discipline, sees spectacular one-on-one races up a 15m wall in as little as six seconds.
But McArthur – as well as Team GB team-mates Toby Roberts, Erin McNeice and Molly Thompson-Smith – will compete in the bouldering and lead combined event.
Athletes climb 4.5m walls without ropes for bouldering and scale 15m walls with ropes for lead – with their scores based objectively on how high they get on each format and combined for a maximum 200 points.
And McArthur knows he can expect plenty of vocal – and visual – support from his loved ones making the trip out to France.
He said: “Just shy of 15 friends and family are coming out for it, just to see them in that environment is going to be so funny.
“They’re all staying in one big house together so I think it’s going to be carnage.
“I’ve got Scottish heritage so they’re all coming in their full kilt outfit.
“Wherever they go, I just feel like they’ll cause some mayhem, which is going to be good entertainment.”
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