[Muenchener]

Anybody else watch/watching the US bouldering nationals? Found the semis pretty entertaining yesterday: Megan Mascarenas clearly & impressively in the same league as The Pooch, and a complete unknown the only other person to get > 1 top. 

Didn't watch the live stream of the finals because I didn't want to stay up all night, so I won't check this thread again for a while in case of spoilers



(Action starts at around 30:00)

[jwi]

Wow, they really are not very good at competition climbing over there

Spoiler:

NSFW  :

The winner was this guy

http://www.digitalrock.de/egroupware/ranking/sitemgr/digitalrock/pstambl.html#person=5599&cat=1

[Muenchener]

Quite. At least in the semis it looked like The Pooch might be under serious pressure. Until she engaged second gear in the finals and flashed three out of four.

[Sasquatch]

Wow, they really are not very good at competition setting climbing over there

fixed. 

Although there's definitely truth to the original statement. 

[Muenchener]

Setting anything that's going to visibly slow Alex Puccio down without completely stopping the rest of the field dead in their tracks must be quite the setting challenge though.

[jwi]

Wow, they really are not very good at competition setting climbing over there

fixed. 

Although there's definitely truth to the original statement.

One goes with the other, doesn't it?

[Sasquatch]

I thought the women's was very good for the first two problems, but the third and fourth had everyone at the same highpoints. 

The men's was moderately crap.  two slabs, two thugs fests. nothing in between...

[jwi]

Setting aside, I don't think any of the men (Mr. Mahmodabadi included) could have passed a world-cup semi on the form they displayed yesterday. I would love to be wrong though.

Among the learned people here, is there anyone who has enough farsi/arabic-skills to be able to trawl abjadī-space? I know from experience that if you try to google Japanese people without using kanji, you get no results.

[Sasquatch]

agreed.  woods is the only one likely to come close and itd be a crapshoot on problem style.  if he got a set of problems that suited him, he'd be fine.  but he's not well rounded enough to manage it consistently.

[Durbs]

Found the Semi's more interesting than the finals - but overall entertaining...

It must be tricky setting for the women - with Pooch so far out in front (Megan looked solid in semi's but didn't really seem to hit form in the finals - youth/inexperience/stamina?), they wanted tops, but only three women topped more than 1 problem in the semis.

For the men - yeah, looked more like a local climbing wall comp. No mega-wads really, Daniel by his own admission wasn't really prepared for a comp. I was actually impressed with Mo' - his static start on problem three where all the others run-and-jumped was great to watch and he did seem to be out-climbing (rather than out-lanking) the other competitors. Whether this reflects well on him, or poorly on the others I'm not sure. If he knew how to hand-jam, he would've got all 4 tops I think?

Not sure if Daniel had a valid concern with the judges or just a touch of sour-grapes. I didn't understand the scoring system...

Some other general thoughts:
The last two years, a "foreign national" has won one of the rounds - so you then get the odd "you won, but not overall" situation. Either call it an Open comp, or call it a national and don't let in other countries. It's just weird.

There's always been chatter about the lack of US representation in IFSC World Cup. The US has some big name climbers, who all previously (or currently) climb in competitions; Paul Robinson, Dave Graham,Sean McColl (Canadian but still...), Sharma even... No interest in comps, this particular comp, or ineligible for some reason? Sasha DG also noticeably absent too.

SBC came 10th overall - not too bad and actually set the highpoint on W2 in the semi (Until MM and AP topped)

Production overall was pretty good. LT11 do put on a good broadcast, maybe need to sort which camera to show when, but pretty smooth overall.

Pete Ward is a really good commentator, Brian 'Climbing Narc' Runnels not so much... Not quite sure how he landed the job. Even when they were interviewing people, he was staring off into space not listening. Don't think he contributed anything interesting through all 7 hours that I watched. And his voice is annoying. I'd be happy for Pete to step into the IFSC commentary seat.

Adverts! If a couple of adverts every 30 minutes helps pay for that level of production, I'd be happy to see it elsewhere.

"Updates from the competitors" - Was this meant to be a comedy section? Some roaming reporter feeding back "They're super psyched" about everyone they spoke to, except when they didn't finish a problem, when "they're not really super psyched". Thanks...

Asynchronous climbing. Really hard to keep track of times without on-screen clocks for each competitor. Also meant if the person climbing before you flashed it, you didn't get much of a rest. With IFSC rules, even if the person before you flashes, you'd only miss this rest if the other climber (male/female) also wraps up quickly.

I can kind of see the appeal of removing the concept of a bonus hold and scoring for each hold you get to - but very confusing to work out.

[jwi]

The scoring system sucked. The IFSC one works well.

They really should have let Puccio compete in the men's division, that way they would have gotten an american winner in both divisions.

[Stubbs]

Durbs I think you are somewhat underestimating the field. The majority of the top 20 men there were 8B or 8B+ climbers. If this is the standard of your 'local wall' comps then fair enough!  A lot of these guys are comp specialists too so don't make the news too much.

All of the big names you mention, besides McColl, who is definitely Canadian, and therefore would be another foreign competitor should he enter, are interested in outdoor climbing. Competition climbing is a very different skill set, and they'd have to put a lot of time into getting the necessary fitness to compete.

As far as I know all 'National' comps are open, and the same thing has happened at the British champs a few times. I'm not sure the US women losing to Jule Wurm is such a big deal either.

[turnipturned]

Among the learned people here, is there anyone who has enough farsi/arabic-skills to be able to trawl abjadī-space? I know from experience that if you try to google Japanese people without using kanji, you get no results.

http://psyched2climb.com/2015/02/08/who-is-mohammad-jafari-mahmodabadi/

[Durbs]

@Stubbs Sorry - to clarify, I'm not saying they aren't incredible climbers, just that the level of climbing at the comp didn't seem dazzling to me.

Somehow IFSC comps look "harder", whereas this one - whether through setting or atmosphere - didn't convey to me that level of top-level competition.

[Stubbs]

@Turnip that bio they linked has him at 5 foot 4 adn 54 kilos, he looked a little bigger than that!

Didn't watch the interviews afterwards, it does sound like the scoring was a bit odd. Everyone knows where they are with tops and bonuses!

[turnipturned]

@Turnip that bio they linked has him at 5 foot 4 adn 54 kilos, he looked a little bigger than that

That was from 8a.nu.

 

[jwi]

@Turnip, that what I meant. Googling with latin letters give no answers. I looked up Iran's climbing federation on the interweb and (judging from google-translate) they have written nothing. I guess that you'd have to google with the name written using abjadī-script to find any relevant material.

From just skipping through the vid without counting, Jafari got most tops in fewest attempts, so would have won with real rules as well? No?

[Stubbs]

Yeah sorry, I just meant that Woods wouldn't have had anything to moan about!

They said that Mohammad goes to uni in Colorado, so it could be that he has improved by being surrounded by a better cohort of climbers with good training facilities.

[Durbs]

The interviews were quite interesting (Except for Megan, not the chattiest 16 year-old!) - Daniel was obviously disappointed/aggrieved with his result and there's a bit of discussion on twitter about whether he should've won. The 'A team' were full of beans and obviously enjoyed the event and the result.

No attempt to interview Jafari - though as you mention, he goes to uni in Colorado so presumably speaks English?

[turnipturned]

They said that Mohammad goes to uni in Colorado, so it could be that he has improved by being surrounded by a better cohort of climbers with good training facilities.

I swear the other day I was looking at some pretty cool boulders from Iran on Instagram, maybe under #iranclimbing I am also pretty sure there was a picture of a chap on an 8b+, but I could be dreaming!

I think its bloody amazing, total unheard of, turns up at one of the biggest talked about indoor bouldering comps and Wins, now that pretty cool. I think it a real shame there wasn't an interview with him. Way more interesting than, blah blah blah North Face, Blah, I have stopped eating, blah "I could feel and smell the energy of the rock" Blah I have stupid dog!

[turnipturned]

WTF

http://crankchronicles.blogspot.com/2015/02/what-hell-are-points-explanation-and.html

[Durbs]

Read that twice, still not sure I understand the technicalities.

I do like the sentiment, in particular these two sentences:

• It also takes the sting out of problems where either everyone tops, or everyone gets stuck at the same stopper move.
  The new system bumps the reward up for someone who can actually do a move nobody else can.

But at the expense of you being essentially penalised by someone else taking more attempts, which sucks. Your score should only be effected by your climbing, not other peoples IMHO.

[Oldmanmatt]

That last paragraph is the downfall of the entire system

If there are three climbers and three problems.

Climber One  tops problem one. Climbers Two and Three do not.

Climbers Two and Three top problems two and three, climber One fails two and three.

Climber One wins.

Because he was the only one to do problem one, making it worth more than problem two and three combined (just because two climbers managed them).
That's nuts.

[r-man]

I swear the other day I was looking at some pretty cool boulders from Iran on Instagram, maybe under #iranclimbing I am also pretty sure there was a picture of a chap on an 8b+, but I could be dreaming!

Haven't seen those, but it does look like there are some impressive rocks in Iran...

[Stubbs]

@Matt it says the first differentiator is tops, so in your case it would be between those with 2 tops who came highest on problem 1