Aims

Mountaineering Ireland aims to offer appropriate, positive and rewarding experiences to every climber in every club and training environment so they may reach their full potential. We aim to get more climbers to major championships and to improve the quality of coaching at every level. Success at international level is vital in attracting more participants into the sport and more members for Mountaineering Ireland. We believe that Performance drives Participation and Participation drives Performance. We believe in the importance of nurturing and promoting our Irish male and female athletes as sporting role models (Kelly, E., Liston, K., Lane, A., 2024) and that ‘thousands of people practising sport at the base lead to a few Olympic champions and, at the same time the existence of champion role models encourages thousands of people to take up some form of sport’ (van Bottenburg, 2002) p. 2; (Hanstad & Skille, 2010).

Mountaineering Ireland wishes its best climbers to maximise their potential, be that by
  • Becoming a high profile and successful climber who, as a sporting ambassador, will inspire others on the pathway to performance
  • Representing Ireland, achieving their full potential and later contributing to the development of the next generation as a coach, manager, route setter, judge or official.

Raising Skill and Fitness Levels through Performance Standards

Mountaineering Ireland aim to raise the abilities of every climber year on year in the following areas:
  • Technical and Tactical Expertise
  • Physical Preparedness
  • Mental strength and resilience
  • Performance analysis and reflection
Every climber will be equipped technically, physically and mentally to achieve their full potential. Their ability will be measured against a set of transparent standards.

Increasing Coaching Skill, Knowledge and Behaviour

Access to formal, informal and non-formal education will develop a stronger, more skilful coaching work force to inspire and guide the climbers along their pathway.
We aim to increase the levels of knowledge and expertise and improve coaching behaviour within club, regional and national climber development programmes and are working with the BMC, in the UK, to provide more structure to our Coach Education programmes. Additionally, we will deliver an annual Coaching Conference that focusses on Performance Coaching.

Programmes

Entry to the pathway is from ~8 years old through the following environments focusing on appropriate levels of development:

From Regional Academies through to Performance, we aim to directly support more than 100 climbers in nationally managed programmes.

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