[SA Chris]

I much prefer one climber at the time.

Me too, watch on phone with tapping screen to jump forward 10 seconds function.

Men's prob 2 was a great piece of setting, so fun to watch.

[Fiend]

Just watched up on catch-up. Really good overall.

W's generally too easy obviously, but still nice climbing. Shauna was so far off the boil she was almost in the fridge.

M's excellent, tense and exciting with some great climbing the whole way. Jakob on M4 was an amazing end. Great selection of problems despite being a bit jump-heavy.

I really liked that almost all problems were demonstratedly solveable by different methods, very entertaining especially out-witting the parkour problems. Kept it interesting the whole way.

Zone is an incredibly stupid name.

4 mins still sucks even if it didn't have much of a role apart from resting on M4 maybe.

Footage was good.

A great start to the season.

[bigironhorse]

GB starters for this weekend:

COXSEY, Shauna                  
WOOD, Jennifer                     
FRUGTNIET, Rhoslyn                  
HORROCKS, Imogen
   
LANDMAN, Tyler                  
COLEY, Orrin                  
BOSI, William
COUSINS, Matthew
ROBERTS, Aidan
PHILLIPS, Nathan   

[jwi]

http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition/calendar#!type=starters&comp=7134

Interested to see that all the best Japanese climbers (male & female) are doubling in bouldering and speed. Jan Hojer, Sean McColl (of course), Jakob Schubert, Dinara Fakritdinova, Julia Chanourdie, and Chloe Caulier as well.

[bigironhorse]

Olympics preparation I guess. I've never tried speed climbing, I wonder if it has much of a detrimental effect on bouldering performance? How tiring is climbing an easy route very fast repeatedly?

[GraemeA]

Interested to see that all the best Japanese climbers (male & female) are doubling in bouldering and speed.

The Japanese started training for speed climbing last year. I saw them all at the China Open in November and they all know how to climb the route, whether they were fast is a different question. Some were quite fast like Miechi, others were slow eg Miho but they all had the correct technique.

[Muenchener]

I eagerly await seeing Jain Kim static-and-graceful her way up it. In about eight seconds.

[Fiend]

I did spend some time meditating on whether the mandatory inclusion of speed-climbing was the stupidest thing in the history of climbing, before realising it was a waste of mental energy on something so self-evident. Hopefully it won't impinge on the quality of the proper climbing too much.

[36chambers]

I did spend some time meditating on whether the mandatory inclusion of speed-climbing was the stupidest thing in the history of climbing, before realising it was a waste of mental energy on something so self-evident. Hopefully it won't impinge on the quality of the proper climbing too much.

Imagine if the olympics were done in knockout stages starting with speed climbing. All the elite "proper" climbers would be out in the first round and we'll be left watching average climbers battle it out in the sport and bouldering for the gold. To then be celebrated as the best rock climber in the world .

[GraemeA]

I did spend some time meditating on whether the mandatory inclusion of speed-climbing was the stupidest thing in the history of climbing, before realising it was a waste of mental energy on something so self-evident. Hopefully it won't impinge on the quality of the proper climbing too much.

Think of it more as the discretionary (on the part of the IOC, you know the people whose party the Olympics are) inclusion of lead and boulder 

[Fiend]

 

^^^ I don't use him very often but it's the only response! I know the reasoning, but I'm never going to like it. Still I suppose one shouldn't overlook that lead and boulder are in the fxxxing Olympics :D

[Muenchener]

Jakob Schubert not qualified. Bugger me, wasn't expecting that.

[jwi]

I don't know if we have had a link to this interview before https://www.innsbruck2018.com/en/detail/artikel/interview-aleksei-rubtsov.html

Aleksei Rubtsov is blunt and plainspoken (apparently characteristically so)

Do you talk to coaches to get advice?

How to say... there are no coaches in which I believe 100%. Almost all the advice I have gotten from coaches was not so smart. I don't believe that we have super good coaches in climbing at the moment.

Why?

Because we don't see great results, except for the Japanese Bouldering team. But they don't share anything with anyone. All I see now in Bouldering in Europe: it is not good. I have been training for 10 years. When I talk with a coach and he tells me something and I know that I trained that way before 2012 and it doesn't work, then I know my system is better. I then can't trust this coach for advice in Lead climbing, because when you have no good plan for Bouldering, why should you have one for Lead?

[remus]

Working for a training company Im biased, but his bit about coaches seems very odd to me. No one coach is ever going to be able to provide you with perfect advice, especially in a multi-faceted, under-studied sport like climbing. To say coaches are shit because they're not perfect seems like a lot of 'throwing the baby out with the bath water'.

[jwi]

It certainly says something about Rubtsov. Some people need to figure out things for themselves, and we should be happy to let them.

It should maybe be posted with this analysis by Udo Neuman as a companion piece https://www.innsbruck2018.com/en/detail/artikel/udo-neumann-moscow-analysis.html

[teestub]

To say coaches are shit because they're not perfect seems like a lot of 'throwing the baby out with the bath water'.

He seems to more be saying that he knows what works for him better than any coach would. Do you think that Lattice would be able to improve a Boulder World Cup finalist’s training? This isn’t someone hoping to climb Mecca before they’re 40.

[tomtom]

Very diplomatically put 😅

[remus]

He seems to more be saying that he knows what works for him better than any coach would.

If that is his position it still seems very strange. Say one of these mythical japanese coaches came over and offered to help with his training, surely he'd take them up on it?

Do you think that Lattice would be able to improve a Boulder World Cup finalist’s training? This isn’t someone hoping to climb Mecca before they’re 40.

Id like to think we'd be able to at least offer an interesting perspective on whatever training he's doing at the moment.

[teestub]

If that is his position it still seems very strange. Say one of these mythical japanese coaches came over and offered to help with his training, surely he'd take them up on it?

In men's Bouldering, the Europeans had a lot of trouble last season. What were their mistakes, you think?

I think they should work more. All I see is old school training. The Japanese are really good because they worked hard to find new ways that no one knew before. They think about other sports, and combine the knowledge from different sports for climbing. They have a lot of coaches that all work together. In Europe, every coach thinks that he's the smartest one and his system is the best. They are authoritarian. But they should understand that they know nothing and start their education from zero. Five or ten years ago, their system worked because there were not a lot of super strong climbers. But the level increased, while their education did not. I can't tell you what I do, because that is my secret. Laughs.

When you see a country go from a few good finalists per year to having 8 guys in the semis in the last comp, you'd be daft to not want to know what they're up to. The movement in European countries has been in the opposite direction.

[remus]

I guess all Im trying to say is that I think he's painting european coaches with too broad of a brush. No doubt there's plenty of poor coaches out there, and plenty of stuff that won't work for a particular athlete, but you'll need to sift through some shit advice to pick out the nuggets of stuff that works for you (whether they come from a european coach or a japanese coach).

[Dexter]

you'll need to sift through some shit advice to pick out the nuggets of stuff that works for you (whether they come from a european coach or a japanese coach).

I feel like that's part of what he is saying. There's so much advice that isn't good that picking the nuggets is challenging. Should climbers be doing this or trying to figure out what's best for them?

[remus]

I feel like that's part of what he is saying. There's so much advice that isn't good that picking the nuggets is challenging.

Maybe it's my misreading of it, then.

Should climbers be doing this or trying to figure out what's best for them?

Both surely? You're going to repeat a lot of mistakes others have already made if you try and figure everything out for yourself.

[Fiend]

Decent comp but W still too easy overall - I started only half-watching at the end because there wasn't so much variation and drama and fighting. Slab was neat. M better balanced but very jump heavy. Is this a deliberate (but unlikely to be admitted to) ploy to get more non-climbers hooked before Olympics??

I still like seeing the ways some competitors outwit the routesetters plans

Commentary was very dry after watching Studio Bloc

[Durbs]

Yeah, echo those thoughts.

I think the zone being worth more than attempts is a slight contra to the 4-minute cap rule, as you do now get desperate last attempts to get the zone, even if the top's not going to happen. Having said that 4+ is still better as Alexei would've got M1 had he not been rushed...

The coordination catch on M3 (?) was great, especially seeing Tamoa just skip it. Some wonderfully heinous matching on the crimp too.

It's early days, but to me it seems a slight reverse of previous years, where there's a core group of Men regularly in the finals (yay Jernej!), but the women's is a bit too open to make it interesting but not for the usual reasons; Shauna's not at 100%, Janja's not doing the full circuit... Fanny really deserves a Gold, and Miho looks set to take the overall.
Still entertaining, but not quite as gripping as previous years? Perhaps it's just me.

Commentary on the whole is better, though at times a little dry. Nice to have informed commentators for the most part, but could do with a little more enthusiasm maybe. More guest commentators too - invest in a third mic :D

[GraemeA]

Is this a deliberate (but unlikely to be admitted to) ploy to get more non-climbers hooked before Olympics??

No of course not, if it was you would have asked the same question after Meiringen.

The setters are different at each comp so different styles. And one thing that probably no one knows is that 1/3rd of the setting team didn't make it to Moscow due to visa problems ie no visa. I don't know why, maybe the scatterbrained Ginger Ninja didn't apply in time or maybe something else but Jacky didn't make it so that probably influenced the setting a fair bit.