Editorial of issue #316 

Elite 

At long last, the debate on the Piolet d'Or is open! Thanks to Marko Prezelj's provocative statements, our mountaineering community has started to exchange points of view and to ask itself questions about the award's meaning. From the organizers' point of view, certain statements could seem a little bit unfair or even out of place. But to understand the passionate stances, one must understand the issues at the heart of the debate, which is far from being simplistic: whilst everybody agrees on the dangers of an excessively competitive spirit, there is also a broad consensus on the importance of providing a space where great mountaineers can meet together and with the public. It's now only a question of finding the right formula, the right balance. 

Far from fostering a spirit of healthy emulation, the logic of pure competition is not only bad for mountaineering as a whole, it is also dangerous for mountaineers individually. Distracted by financial objectives, mountaineers are encouraged to over-stretch their capacity, to make use of performance boosting substances and to take inconsiderate risk. An excessive competitive spirit fosters a feeling of superiority, which in turn develops into arrogance and creates a hierarchical vision of the community. 

Within the mountaineering community, the race for celebrity didn't wait for the Piolet d'Or. The media hierarchies set up in the seventies and eighties were mostly determined by the talent of the various press agents. By becoming international, by attempting to formulate objective criteria — however imperfect — and by taking an ethical stance, the juries of the Piolet d'Or have over the years managed to defend a certain style of mountaineering. None of those who were awarded the Piolet d'Or over the last 16 years were undeserving, even if their exploits had sometimes very little in common. The juries' decisions were coherent with the defense of a certain style of mountaineering which has had a lasting influence on the evolution of mentalities in many countries. If the staging of the award ceremony probably needs to be revisited, the show of the past few years has at least had the merit of showing that mountaineering needs spokes-persons more than it needs champions.

The real challenge for the members of the elite of mountaineering is to open up to the world, to meet each other and to share their experiences with the public. Since the fall of the Berlin wall, we know that the greatest arsenals are of no use if their only purpose is to protect those who despise the values that they pretend they are defending. We know since Vilfredo Pareto that History is a "cemetery of aristocracies". Clubs are for fossilized elite who have lost all contact with reality. 

The experience of these last years has proven that if they stay within the boundaries of their professional objectives and don't try to overstep their competence, specialized journalists have an important part to play in the evolution of mountaineering. Their job is to check on the information at its source, to cross reference the information, if possible, with information from other sources, and to make the information understandable, by putting it into perspective. It's not about objectivity - there is no such thing - but about a subjective point of view trying to embrace the largest number of objective facts possible. That is the art of critique. It has nothing to do with the art of communication, which is all about passing things off for what they are not. 

If the question today is whether we should rethink the Piolet d'Or or scrap it, one has to start from what it is today: a prize which is known throughout the world and which helps promote mountaineering and its universal values. Whom does it profit? Mountaineers and mountaineering as a whole. All ideas are welcome. The discussion is open. We will make selection criteria more explicit and give mountaineers a bigger say in the outcome, by giving the competing teams an opportunity to vote for their favorite climb (their own excluded). We also intend to break away from a French event by taking a more international approach, in order to better promote the specificity and the meaning of the different nations' approach to mountaineering. The competition is open again for mountaineers and for all men of good-will. 

1) the organization of the Piolet d'Or represents a budget of approximately €25 000 per annum, 30% of which is financed by sponsors and the remaining 70% by Montagnes Magazine.