Martina Demmel addresses eating disorder

Martina Demmel, who started climbing in 2017 and within 15 months had onsighted her first 7c onsight, made her first VL/8a in 2020 when she at age 18 had made it to #2 in the onsight ranking game. Focusing on onsight, she became the first female to be ranked above all male in the onsight disciplin. In total, she has onsighted 14 routes 8b and beyond as well as having done two 9a’s beside having made the finals in the World Cup.

Little did the climbing community know that she had been silently battling an eating disorder for four years before she even began climbing. In a long Instagram post she explains her situation. ”~addiction is giving up ONE thing for everything - recovery is giving up one thing for EVERYTHING~”(c) Jan Novak (2021)

How have climbing and the community impacted positively and negatively for your situation?
I was already deep in the eating disorder when I first started climbing but it quickly was very connected to my climbing performance. I guess overally it definitely helped me because climbing at a high level made me reflect my own behaviours more frequently, gave me access to a sports-psychologist including a whole support-system and finally made it possible to escape this cycle by talking to a teammate with the same history. But I also have to highlight what a toxic enviroment it can be by noticing lots of other climbers struggling with sth similar what almost made it feel "normal" to me and as sth necessary to achieve success. Climbing obviously is dependent on the weight but not only!!!! Over the last half year, I ONLY experienced positive effects after stopping my bulimic actions, mostly that I have endless of energy, not only for climbing but also for life!

What are your plans for 2025?
Since my recovery is already on a very good way, I've recently decided (with my therapist, my coaches & doctors) to try to qualify for the WC's and hopefully, I'm allowed to do the whole lead season. Besides that definitely some rockclimbing every now and then💃☀️!