[Ru]

And the difficulty is infinite but in the uk our limit of rock Will mean that there isn’t anything to really challenge the future wads.

Apart from climate change.

[Doylo]

Well, it begs the question - is Mutation actually 9b then?

I’m guessing Will thinks it’s harder than La Capella since he totally pissed that 

[gme]

And the difficulty is infinite but in the uk our limit of rock Will mean that there isn’t anything to really challenge the future wads.

Apart from climate change.

Unimportant trivia. The fact that there will be no 9cs to do and only one 9b to onsight is a far bigger issue.

[gme]

That isn’t true. He did his hardest route in three days and has walked away from projects before.
If mutation was a priority he would have done it by now. Most sessions on it are a few days between comp training.
As far as I understand All his outdoor stuff fits round His comp training.

I think this is downplaying the amount of time and effort Will has put in to mutation. It's by no means a shark/oak siege, but Im pretty sure he's had 10+ of sessions on it and has definitely done periods of specific small edge training in prep for it.

You will know more than me but all his attempts seem to be snatched between comps. My question is would he miss comps to do a hard route and at this time i dont think he would.

I still think the future stars will come from the comp scene. They will grow up in the walls, follow the olympic dream until they either win, get sick of it or realise they cant get to the top and then some of them,not all, will move outside and due to the level of training they have done will not find things that hard.

Those that follow the more traditional route to the top that us old folks remember will be left in their wake.

[abarro81]

Well, it begs the question - is Mutation actually 9b then?

Think Will didn't manage a 9a in Misja Pec (not sure how many sessions), a 9a+ in Santa Linya (got rained off, not sure how many sessions), and a 9a+? proj in Margalef (not sure how many sessions) on the same trip, so it may also be a question of things "fitting" or not, although obvs you'd expect Mutation to be his style, given he likes bouldery crimping...

[Wil]

You will know more than me but all his attempts seem to be snatched between comps. My question is would he miss comps to do a hard route and at this time i dont think he would.

I think we were talking at cross purposes here. I wasn't arguing that Will is prioritising outdoor climbing, I think you're right. My point was that if he's not sticking religiously to his training cycle then he's also not totally prioritising comp climbing. I'm not aware of the top end comp climbers nipping out to try 9a+ routes mid training cycle? I may well be wrong about that.

I still think the future stars will come from the comp scene.

Definitely.

[gme]

You will know more than me but all his attempts seem to be snatched between comps. My question is would he miss comps to do a hard route and at this time i dont think he would.

 I'm not aware of the top end comp climbers nipping out to try 9a+ routes mid training cycle? I may well be wrong about that.

I think a lot of them do, seem to treat a trip to spain as a "light week" and tick a few 9a+s whilst there. I dont believe anything they do isnt planned.

[Doylo]

Quote from Kieran on Ray Woods Insta saying ‘enjoyed the process but doesn’t feel as good as doing well in a comp’. Incomprehensible and mind blowing quote to me but guess sums up the above discussion.

[Footwork]

Quote from Kieran on Ray Woods Insta saying ‘enjoyed the process but doesn’t feel as good as doing well in a comp’. Incomprehensible and mind blowing quote to me but guess sums up the above discussion.

I used to do a bit of running during college and doing well in a race always felt better than getting a PB round the park. This was regardless of what time I ran, but just being better than the competition that day gave you a proper buzz.

Climbing and running aren't that comparable though (and this was before strava so not like I could 'beat' any segments) but I see where he's coming from. There are probably loads of runners saying races are missing the point (medals are nice though).

I came into climbing the old trad way, sport and bouldering followed much later. I remember Vdiffs and Severes at Almscliff being the best thing ever. These wads will never know the feeling (and neither will I know 9a, 8c+, 8c....)

[AMorris]

Well, it begs the question - is Mutation actually 9b then?

Think Will didn't manage a 9a in Misja Pec (not sure how many sessions), a 9a+ in Santa Linya (got rained off, not sure how many sessions), and a 9a+? proj in Margalef (not sure how many sessions) on the same trip, so it may also be a question of things "fitting" or not, although obvs you'd expect Mutation to be his style, given he likes bouldery crimping...

Although I don't think any of us would be too surprised to find out that Mutation is "a bit stiff for the grade"!

[Doylo]

Its pretty apparent from everyone who’s ever been near Mutation that it’s extremely fuckin nails rock hard.

[36chambers]

Its pretty apparent from everyone who’s ever been near Mutation that it’s extremely fuckin nails rock hard.

Does anyone know if it's change since it was first done, or was Steve just that ahead of the curve?

[spidermonkey09]

Also I thought it was basically already considered 9a+ despite never having had a repeat. Certainly thats what it was in my head regardless of it saying 9a on UKC.

[Doylo]

Its pretty apparent from everyone who’s ever been near Mutation that it’s extremely fuckin nails rock hard.

Does anyone know if it's change since it was first done, or was Steve just that ahead of the curve?

Just obscene at that style I think. His first grade 9 way back in 1998 too. Speculation but could It have been the worlds hardest at time?? Need Ondra for that one.  Was only Open Air at 9a+ I think -also 9a then . (Seems Akira’s not turned out to be a proper route, more hybrid type thing ).

[wasbeen]

One thing that is sometimes not appreciated, is the time and costs of competing.

For climbers in the GB youth team, typically this is around £5k per year and upwards of 15 weekends of competing (or Team training). Costs and time commitments are much higher for older catergories who compete in Europe. Pretty much all of this is self (parent) funded,  UK competitions and training are scattered to all corners, so typically require at least one or two nights’ accommodation for each event.

Competitions in themselves are certainly not the most efficient method of training (the body) e.g. often only 2-3 routes or 8-12 boulders in a weekend.

New style bouldering (and increasingly route climbing) is diverging from outdoor climbing. To train for this at a top level needs an exposure to a wide variety of holds and setting. This means, even when not attending comps, spending a lot of time travelling to different walls - you don't get strong sitting in the car. Much of this training will not be directly transferable to outdoor climbing.

So in summary, I think it is quite possible that the best climbing will come from a competition background. However, I am pretty sure it is not the most efficient way of excelling outdoors. I guess the question is whether young climbers have the motivation to train at the levels required to excel outdoors without the motivation of compettions?

[shark]

I DM’ed Will to get his thoughts

Discussion on UKB currently about Comp climbers being the future of outdoor climbing in the UK and some of the discussion has focussed on you as to where your main interests/priorities lie at the moment, how you balance it, whether one discipline compromises or complements the other and bearing in mind your quick success on La Capella how hard you think Mutation is.

hope this answers it all!
For sure to be the best in competition it does mean just about giving up outdoors as I know many of other competitors don’t climb outside at all as they don’t care/like it. So if you want a shot at winning you really have to focus all your time indoor.

Currently for me the Olympics is by far my biggest focus and has been for the last couple years. This meant Last year I had only a handful of days out, as with training 3 three disciplines there just isn’t time.

I love rock climbing and many different long term goals but currently the Olympics is the only one with time pressure added to it, it only happens every 4 years and currently it’s going to change between Tokyo and Paris which means the competition I want to compete in being Tokyo will never happen again. World Cups happen every year and the rock as long as people respect it will always be there.

La Capella was my dream route, perfect in terms of style, length and hold type so it suited me perfectly. This meant that it went down really fast, sticking the last crux moves was right at my limit. Whereas the 9a I tried in Slovenia was the opposite(which is why I tried it) so I found it really hard, got close but not close enough I guess.

Mutation... for sure 9a+ no question there I don’t think, it’s actually my style. the difference between la Capella and Mutation is hold size, so I prefer much hard moves on decent sized crimps.

While Mutation is not so hard moves wise but on tiny crimps, my skin is really bad I think the holds on mutation become unusable when I try from the start and I’m sweating so much by the time I get there, over the time I’ve been trying it

I’ve got a lot stronger so I can now just about fix this problem by chalking up on some holds now but still I hit the top smallest crimps with wet hands(need to get stronger).

[teestub]

Does Will still have a chance to qualify for Tokyo? I kind of lost track as to whether there was meant to have been another qualification event that was cancelled due to Covid.

[shark]

From UKC With the European Championships due to be held in November, it is likely that the rest of Will's year will be based around peaking for the competition in Moscow. It's also the final competition for Olympic hopefuls to qualify, with just one stop available for Europeans. To successfully qualify, Will has to win or be the highest placed eligible non-qualified climber.

[Paul B]

Even the best climbers of my generation ‘came up through the comps’. We had comps in the early ‘90s dontcha know. I seem to remember Bransby being quite good. Also remember watching a teenage Ian Vickers pissing up E5s in Pembroke. Pretty sure he was quite good at comps too.

I'd say the same for mine, especially considering the junior women; Twyford, Findlay etc. (although Gemma Powell dominated from memory; this could be wildly incorrect).

Perhaps less so in the men's but in the junior events Smitton was one to beat (and he's hardly sh*t outside).

[teestub]

Thanks Shark, seems like a tough ask but be great if he gets the spot.

[shark]

Thanks Shark, seems like a tough ask but be great if he gets the spot.

Do you know which non-qualified climbers are likely to be the ones for him to beat?

[RobK]

Thanks Shark, seems like a tough ask but be great if he gets the spot.

Do you know which non-qualified climbers are likely to be the ones for him to beat?

Was looking at this the other day. Stefano Ghisolfi, Jernej Kruder, Sascha Lehmann, Yannick Flohe, Manuel Cornu and Jan Kriz all beat him in the combined at the last World Champs and don't have places yet.

[teestub]

https://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/olympic-games/tokyo-2020

I think this list is up to date for those who have places although I’m not 100%. Jongwon and Jernej notable missing names at the mo but not sure how they will do in combined.

[abarro81]

Stefano Ghisolfi, Jernej Kruder, Sascha Lehmann, Yannick Flohe, Manuel Cornu and Jan Kriz all beat him in the combined at the last World Champs and don't have places yet.

I crossed out the ones that I think can't qualify by virtue of full country quotas. If Will has a good comp it's certainly possible. One hard-to-predict aspect is how many people compete who have already qualified, since this affects the scoring too - so Ondra might compete, and by competing mean that Will does/doesn't qualify if the maths works out right vs other competitors who can still get a place

[RobK]

I crossed out the ones that I think can't qualify by virtue of full country quotas.

Had forgotten about this, thanks!