Dec 16, 2010 – Rich Simpson’s Climbing Accomplishments Questioned

Today, the website ukclimbing.com published an article suggesting that the UK-based climber Rich Simpson may have lied about many of his climbing accomplishments as well as his impressive results in other sports, like running. Simpson has claimed ascents of difficult sport routes like Action Directe 5.14d, Liquid Ambar 5.14c, Hubble 5.14c and A Muerte 5.14c/d as well as massive big walls like Pan Aroma 5.14b in the Dolomites and Fish 5.12 in the Marmolada. Simpson also claims to have run a sub-4-minute mile (last year only 17 Americans broke four minutes for the mile) and a 2.5-hour marathon. In all cases, Simpson has refused to discuss who belayed him on the routes and where and when he achieved the running results. More details here.

Reports are suggesting that Simpson claimed to have run a 2:27 marathon in New York in 2008. During that year, there were only two runners that finished with that time: Chris Graff and Michael Cassidy. Graff is an elite runner shown in this photo from the marathon with his name visible on his race bib. Cassidy is also an elite sponsored runner shown in this picture during the race.