Whether you've been competing in a sport for a year or your entire life, often the difference between the elite and the average is bravery and the will to win.
Despite being only 17 years old, Ava Hamilton has both in abundance.
Having started climbing aged just seven, the former Kelvinside Academy pupil is now 10 years into her journey within the sport and is already at the pinnacle of speed climbing, breaking the UK record for a speed climber at the European Championships earlier this year with a time. of 8.64 seconds, almost a second faster than the previous best time.
But the path was not always fast climbing. Hamilton actually started as a seven-year-old in bouldering, the most systematic version of climbing before transitioning to speed climbing, which made its Olympic debut in Tokyo in 2021, just two years ago.
Already at the pinnacle of speed climbing, where athletes aim to ascend 15 meters as quickly as possible, on these shores, Hamilton already has his sights set on the next Olympic Games, in Los Angeles in 2028. However, he knows that The road there will be long. be far from simple.
Currently working two jobs to help fund her training, as well as receiving £2,000 from Gordon Brown's memorial fund, the Renfrewshire teenager will travel to Salt Lake City, Utah, to work with renowned coach Albert Ok, who trains Olympic athletes Sam Watson and Piper. Kelly, later this month for a three-month training camp.
Hamilton broke the old British speed climb record earlier this year.
Despite being only 17 years old, leaving his friends and family behind to travel to the other side of the world is the natural step for Hamilton.
“The main goal there is to use the facilities, train a lot on the wall and improve my technique and things like that,” he says. 'My coach is Albert Ok. The entire American team is based there.
'I'm going for three months, just to train.
'It is not a training camp, but rather an independent decision. I'm not going with the team, it's just me, I'm going there.
“I don't have the training or the facilities here, so I'll go to the United States.” You simply have to do it.
“I'm in Glasgow and the wall is at Ratho Climbing Wall, just outside Edinburgh, so I'll only be able to get there twice a week if I'm lucky. So I spend a lot of time in the gym, building a really good base for transfer power to the wall.
'I'm a little scared to go to Salt Lake City. But to be honest, I'm more excited than anything else.
“We are still waiting to find out the qualification pathways for the next Olympic Games, which will make a big difference in how realistic they will be.” We are optimistic, I have high hopes of being at the highest level, but this year there were only 14 places for women and men in speed climbing for everyone. It was a quota of two per country. I hope they bring it up next time, that seems logical.
“It's going to be very difficult, but I like to think I have the ability to do it if I put in four years of training.”
Hamilton spends most of his time training at the International Climbing Arena, just outside Edinburgh.
While the teen may be simultaneously excited and scared to travel to the United States to receive the best training on offer, he has never been afraid when it comes to facing the wall.
Although the chances of physical injury are low in climbing due to safety equipment, Hamilton admits the scars are more mental than anything else.
“I've never had physical fears,” he admits. 'I've been climbing for so long that I don't think any of the athletes are afraid of heights or anything like that. In bouldering, the fall is a little more important, but in speed climbing it is more of the competitive aspect.
'If you slip or fall, it's the consequences that are scary, not the action of falling.
'It's also quite difficult to get hurt on a speed wall, compared to other disciplines.
You're really safe up there, so the only thing that matters is the consequences.
'If you fall, you're finished.
'If you start wrong, you're finished. It's the fear of getting here, of doing all the training and that it can all end so quickly. That's the scary part.'
A competitor in both disciplines, Hamilton is in a perfect position when it comes to weighing in on the debate over which style requires more skill.
The teenager has experience in both bouldering and speed climbing, but is making waves in the latter.
Having spent most of his life on the climbing walls of Glasgow and Ratho, Hamilton reveals that he feels there is no real comparison.
“There's a lot of debate among climbers about which style is the hardest,” he says. 'Speed climbing and bouldering are very technical in different ways.
'In bouldering you have to think on the spot.
'You've never seen that rock before, that route, and you need to figure it out as you go.
“You use all your experience to do other things, but in speed climbing it's the opposite: you've done the route a million times before, the only thing is to try to do it as fast as possible.”
'Speed is practicing the same thing every time and it's technical because you try to reduce it to the exact millimeter, body position and things like that.
'When I started speed climbing, transitioning from bouldering to speed competitions, I trained a lot on the wall and was able to transfer the power and strength directly to the speed wall.
“I actively tried to learn the sequences and things like that, and it wasn't something completely new to me.
“But when I really focused on it, I improved pretty quickly and then I plateaued for a long time.” I never broke my first PB for over a year.'