Supersport climbing to close down

After 11.5 years online this site will be closing its doors to readers on October 31 2010. Join us on a tour on the life and times for Superclimb’s last month.

It was way back in 1999 that Ray Moore of MWeb first contacted me to develop a news website on climbing. In those times desk tops with floppy drives were still in, and the internet was strictly dial-up through the landlines (56k a minute was where it was at…) and cell phones had just been invented. To be honest I knew nothing about the web, interfaces, journalism or even world climbing news.

But I did know how to climb, and like most young people new to the sport, I was obsessed. My degree in psych and eco’s took a back seat to climbing anything and everything I could cling to. From the Magaliesberg to the high Drakensberg, from Blouberg to Mount Kenya, I was inspired.

To make by I worked at a local climbing store in Sandton City, where ‘bad Brad’ sorted me out with my first pair of climbing slippers (bright purple things size 7 – I normally wear a 9-10!). Soon after I was running the climbing gym in Kya-Sands, the first indoor rock climbing facility in the country. Climbing had become my life.

So it made sense to think I could build an SA climbing news website for uncle Ray. It felt like the ultimate job: go round climbing and then write about it!

Ray hooked me up in my student accommodation with CUTE FTP, gave me some pointers on what to write and how to source articles – my first introduction to search engines- and I was off.

The first article published took a dig at whether Cathy O’Dowd and Ian Woodhall actually summited Everest from the North side. I naively published it without any second thoughts, until later I met Cathy at a promo gig and excitedly told her about my site. Enthused she went off the following morning and had a look, only to be livered by the very same article.

So started my career as a sports journalist. In the end we sorted out our differences and even became friends. I wrote reviews for her books and exploits and she eventually wrote the forward to the first book I published years on.

Our story demonstrates the power and value a site like Superclimb has for people and their lives. Writing brings people together, and the internet is a wonderful medium for this.

Superclimb may not have been the biggest site on the Supersport webpage, but it held a space for more than a decade where like-minded obsessed climbing lovers and outdoor enthusiasts could share in the adventure of the beautiful wild world we call home.

Now as they say, nothing can last forever, Supersport moves on to other things, and Superclimb makes way for new growth in the DSTV family.

Allow me to celebrate our last days with articles that stand out over the last 11 years, stories and news that defined the site.

And please, if this site has made a difference to you in the past 11.5 years, write something and post it to us @ lunge@iafrica.com. We would love to hear from you.

Best

Duncan Souchon, Superclimb Webmaster

Images: Title – the circa 2002 Superclimb logo; Insert – the original tag in 1999