[iwasmexican]

so watching the world cup final today i realised that for at least more than half of the competitors i ve never heard of any of their exploits on actual rock, i mean surely they should be all operating at a top level worthy of media attention but i just havent heard much at all of most of them...

or is that just me?

[mendis]

Have a look on 8a.nu If they're crushing outdoors then they might have an account on there

[mr__j5]

There are a whole bunch of factors.

Dan Woods was 13th this weekend, but he has had a 2nd place this year. Much of that comes down to whether the style of the problems suit him. Because he is still fairly new to world cup comps, even though he has won some already.

Now the top comp climbers have done enough comps to have a better idea of thier weaknesses and trained to improve on them.

One of the other things is that the point of comps is to be able to flash stuff. So just because you have ticked a bunch of 8C's doesn't mean that you have the skills to flash 8A.

Finally, if you do really want to be a top comp climber then it is hard to do this as well as spending weeks on end sat about in the forest working hard stuff. Generally, you need to be on the plastic training. Although, that doesn't mean they don't go out at all.

[Ethan]

I think it might just be you mate, all those guys and gals have all climbed some pretty hard shit outside. Rustam Gelmanov has climbed up to 8c+, Alexy Rubtsov has done numerous hard boulders, check the video out below, Mina Markovic onsighted 8b not so long ago, and the Russian girl Yana climbed two 8c's in the Gorge du Loup a couple weeks ago.

How strong are those Russian guys though! Jeez! They crushed yesterday.

[nodder]

Hes too busy on his campus board to go outside.
From the ARCO write up:

[quoteA small anecdote: Dima (whose nickname is scarf) trains on a tiny campus board, 2 by 3 metres, on his own at home since there are no other boulderers as strong as he is close to home. This helps us comprehend the determination and passion of this 24-year-old…

][/quote]

[iwasmexican]

Finally, if you do really want to be a top comp climber then it is hard to do this as well as spending weeks on end sat about in the forest working hard stuff. Generally, you need to be on the plastic training. Although, that doesn't mean they don't go out at all.

that would be what i thought, that most of the top competitors just simply dont have that much time to go on big trips or whatever either, and also that the top competition problems do require a somewhat different set of skills or experiences to crushing outdoors really.

I think it might just be you mate, all those guys and gals have all climbed some pretty hard shit outside...

...How strong are those Russian guys though! Jeez! They crushed yesterday.

ah right fair enough then, but my god yeah especially sharafutdinov on the last move of problem 1 in the finals that was bloody brutal compared to how hard everyone else made it seem... it seemed a bit of a shame that gelmanov threw it away on that funny mantel/ dyno one, it seemed like it should have been pretty straight forward  for him at least

[Muenchener]

Dude, you totally missed the chance to put your question directly to a world cup semifinalist while you were over here. I was surprised when I looked at the results to see three quite familiar names from the Bavarian junior team, one of whom I see pretty regularly training at Thalkirchen. I checked her blog and 8a profile, and she has climbed 7C+ in Magic Wood and 7C in the Frankenjura and is a DFB.

So there you go: if you are a woman, bouldering around 7C - and, presumably, being good at onsighting - will get you into a world cup semifinal.