[Doug]

Apparently if she makes the final in two more rounds then she is guaranteed to be world champ. Which is nice.

Not quite true, it would be true if there was only 6 in the final but as we saw in Innsbruck you can always get ties 

By my suspect calculations, if Shauna gets two 6th places and Miho wins the remaining two rounds then Miho will take the overall by 1 point.

However, if Shauna gets at least 3rd place in Vail then she can't be caught. If Miho gets 2nd next time then Shauna needs 8th for the overall (or Miho 3rd, Shauna 14th; Miho 4th, Shauna 19th and so on).

If Shauna finishes in at least 15th in Vail then Mel can't catch her.

[GraemeA]

Having the strong Americans (Pooch and Megan) in Vail could help Shauna as they can take points from Miho and Melissa. With no Canada this year the traveling athletes will have jet lag and altitude to deal with. Pooch lives in Boulder and Megan in Colorado Springs so both have altitude sorted.

[a dense loner]

What are people talking about? "help shauna"? She's won 4 world cups this year the last thing she needs is help

[GraemeA]

What are people talking about? "help shauna"? She's won 4 world cups this year the last thing she needs is help

No Dense, the last things she needs is a broken leg like in 2012 or a knackered finger like last year 

[Fiend]

Graeme what happened with the Japanese team appeal against Shaun's start on the "foothold slot of doom" problem?? I was curious about that and what exactly the rules specific for starting hand/foot placements?

[GraemeA]

I missed it, what boulder was it and I will have a look.

[standard]

I missed it, what boulder was it and I will have a look.

https://youtu.be/u7ki5XKtYTU?t=5660

[jwi]

Having the strong Americans (Pooch and Megan) in Vail could help Shauna as they can take points from Miho and Melissa. With no Canada this year the traveling athletes will have jet lag and altitude to deal with. Pooch lives in Boulder and Megan in Colorado Springs so both have altitude sorted.

Is altitude really a problem? I'm genuinely curious about this. Just going on my own feelings of climbing at altitude, stamina plods are harder at moderate altitude (2500m) and they get a little easier with time. The few times I've done hard moves on routes or bouldering at altitude I haven't noticed any difference at all.

Of course, anaerobic power does not decrease with altitude as you can guess by the name of the metabolism, or by pursuing Coudert's article “Anaerobic performance at altitude” (1992). Again, just going by the name of the metabolism, aerobic power does decrease with altitude, and more so for athletes who are not acclimatised. According to Bassett ("Comparing cycling world hour records", 1999) the acclimatised athlete should have around 89% and the un-acclimatised athlete should have around 84% of maximal available power at 8000 feet a.s.l.

According “expert opinion” bouldering is mostly an anaerobic activity, where aerobic metabolisms are mostly used during the rest phase. (Of course, no published data exist on this, afaik... yes, there is one study on the systematic use of oxygen but that is of no interest whatsoever.)

If aerobic power is rather unimportant for bouldering, say that it supplies 20% of the energy and that 80% of the energy is supplied by the anaerobic pathways then a back-of-the-envelope computation say that an acclimatised competitor should be at 98% of max, while an un-acclimatised should be at 97% of max. Given the importance of route-reading and other factors, I very much doubt altitude (apart from altitude sickness of course) is a factor.

[danm]

I think you're underestimating the stamina aspect of a comp. The semi-finals followed by the finals in the same day is pretty brutal. If you recover less between rounds at altitude* being un-acclimatised compared to an acclimatised athlete, then you may struggle in the final with fatigue.

* I don't know if this is true, I'm speculating

[bendavison]

Having the strong Americans (Pooch and Megan) in Vail could help Shauna as they can take points from Miho and Melissa. With no Canada this year the traveling athletes will have jet lag and altitude to deal with. Pooch lives in Boulder and Megan in Colorado Springs so both have altitude sorted.

Given the importance of route-reading and other factors, I very much doubt altitude (apart from altitude sickness of course) is a factor.

I agree. Vail is only at 2445 m a.s.l according to google, too. Hardly 'high' altitude. Interesting looking site for assessing effect of altitude of oxygen availability: http://www.altitude.org/oxygen_levels.php. Apparently 75% of oxygen available at sea level is available at 2445 m.

I tried looking at wc results to see if the 'acclimatised athletes' tended to do better at the high altitude events, but quickly gave up on the ifsc website.

[SA Chris]

quickly gave up on the ifsc website.

I've done that. As easy to navigate around as Swindon.

Would have thought altitude would male little difference.

[Coops_13]

Having the strong Americans (Pooch and Megan) in Vail could help Shauna as they can take points from Miho and Melissa. With no Canada this year the traveling athletes will have jet lag and altitude to deal with. Pooch lives in Boulder and Megan in Colorado Springs so both have altitude sorted.

Given the importance of route-reading and other factors, I very much doubt altitude (apart from altitude sickness of course) is a factor.

I agree. Vail is only at 2445 m a.s.l according to google, too. Hardly 'high' altitude. Interesting looking site for assessing effect of altitude of oxygen availability: http://www.altitude.org/oxygen_levels.php. Apparently 75% of oxygen available at sea level is available at 2445 m.

I tried looking at wc results to see if the 'acclimatised athletes' tended to do better at the high altitude events, but quickly gave up on the ifsc website.

It might make a small amount of difference, but given these athletes are performing at their max, the difference may be impactful?

[jwi]

If you recover less between rounds at altitude* being un-acclimatised compared to an acclimatised athlete, then you may struggle in the final with fatigue.

* I don't know if this is true, I'm speculating

Aerobic power and capacity is certainly important for recovery. There's a ton of stuff that happens inside the muscles when resting between the moves, between the attempts, between the boulders and between the heats. A better anaerobic metabolism improves recovery between the moves and between the attempts, that we can say with very high confidence. But if it is so important that it will have great impact on the outcome even at just 2500 m (where aerobic power is just 6% lower for un-acclimatised climbers than for fully acclimatised) then I think this indicates that aerobic power is more important than we might think for the outcome of boulder world cups.

[GraemeA]

I missed it, what boulder was it and I will have a look.

From what I heard, from Dave Mason (who was there) via Bri, the Japanese appealed because Sean apparently did not touch the left hand hold with his right hand hold - you can't see this from the live stream as his body is in the way.

This would be consistent with the rule which allows you to pull on like Sean did ie right hand and right foot on right hand volume and then touch the correct start holds before using any other holds.

So I was not there, don't know exactly what happened, or when it happened (did the Japanese check their own video and conclude it was worth an appeal) so sorry I can't be more definite.

[GraemeA]

I tried looking at wc results to see if the 'acclimatised athletes' tended to do better at the high altitude events, but quickly gave up on the ifsc website.

Anecdotally, yes they do, Pooch and Megan have won golds in Vail but never anywhere else. Of course Megan hasn't done many comps so it might be less valid than for Pooch.

Also Alex Johnson, Margo Hayes and Angie Payne have all been in finals in Vail but no where else. They all live in Boulder.

Ps this is from memory so AJ might have been in a final elsewhere but i don't think so, she was the perennial 7th which is why she did lots of commentating in finals when she did the tour

Of course it might just be home crowd advantage rather than altitude but who knows.

[Fiend]

Okay cool, I was just interested. I assumed it was because Sean started with two limbs touching the single taped foothold before moving his hand to match the starting handholds (which I assumed he did). Then I thought "no, competitors often pull on into position with a foot against the wall before moving it to tap a requisite taped foothold"....and then I thought "but maybe that's okay as long as the spare limb is just against the wall, but not okay if the spare limb is exceeding the number of tapes put on a hold". But then as you say if the only rule is "Must have all limbs on correct starting holds before touching a non-starting hold" then what he did is legit (I'm sure he would have scraped a fingernail against the edge of the handholds before moving).

[a dense loner]

Altitude difference would be massive to some people, speaking from my own experience and I'm sure not cheesy will agree with me, we flew into salt lake and were out of our minds for 3 days! This time it was due to the altitude. No concentration, all looked like jack Nicholson at the end of one flew over the cuckoos nest.

[jwi]

Maybe US competitors have done better because of a) home-crowd advantage and b) a less competitive field?

[Duma]

I missed it, what boulder was it and I will have a look.

From what I heard, from Dave Mason (who was there) via Bri, the Japanese appealed because Sean apparently did not touch the left hand hold with his right hand hold - you can't see this from the live stream as his body is in the way.

This would be consistent with the rule which allows you to pull on like Sean did ie right hand and right foot on right hand volume and then touch the correct start holds before using any other holds.

So I was not there, don't know exactly what happened, or when it happened (did the Japanese check their own video and conclude it was worth an appeal) so sorry I can't be more definite.

But the appeal was dismissed, so I assume that either there was other footage showing him touching it, or when lacking footage they go with the original judges decision? Seems unlikely he'd reach back to touch the starting hold, then decide not to bother when almost there (notwithstanding rodma's experience...)

[Oldmanmatt]

Speaking with my Diver hat on, a 25% reduction in PPO2 would be crippling ; if suddenly introduced. Similar to reducing O2 at sea level to 15%. Since PPO2 is critical to gas exchange it's going to have a detrimental effect in overall feeling of health and energy.

I've seen people blackout finning on the surface breathing 13% O2 travel gas.

Don't underestimate PPO2. If you tried breathing pure O2 below 6mtsw you twitch out of O2 toxicity and drown. 6 mtrs being fuckall.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[GraemeA]

But the appeal was dismissed, so I assume that either there was other footage showing him touching it, or when lacking footage they go with the original judges decision? Seems unlikely he'd reach back to touch the starting hold, then decide not to bother when almost there (notwithstanding rodma's experience...)

I didn't know that  But it doesn't actually alter what I said, he would only have been illegal if he hadn't touched with his right hand. The Japanese got it wrong, either not knowing the rule or trying it on.

In the finals there are so many pairs of eyes (boulder judge x 2 + either the JP or the other IFSC Judge plus 50% of the Delegate) that you hopefully don't need to check the video. A classic example of this was Ondra last year in Innsbruck, the boulder judges were already telling Ondra to step off as me and the JP were scrambling onto the mats. No video was needed

[standard]

Here you go
https://www.facebook.com/seanmccoll1987/videos/965024826947334/

[Muenchener]

So he just about brushed it with his fingertip, but if the judge was happy then it's good.. I wonder if the Japanese appeal was about the whole method, or if they though he didn't actually touch the hold.

[finbarrr]

i can imagine they thought he didn't touch/use the left hand hold

[dave]

Maybe they were just appealing against that haircut.