Day | Date | Venue | Country |
Friday | 14 Apr 2018 | Meiringen | Switzerland |
Saturday | 22 Apr 2018 | Moscow | Russia |
Saturday | 06 May 2018 | Chongqing | China |
Saturday | 13 May 2018 | Tai'an | China |
Saturday | 03 Jun 2018 | Hachioji, Tokyo | Japan |
Friday | 09 Jun 2018 | Vail | USA! USA! USA! |
Friday | 18 Aug 2018 | Munich | Germany |
Day | Date | Event | Venue | Country |
Saturday | 11 Mar 2018 | CWIF | Sheffield | UK |
Saturday | 11 Mar 2018 | Asia Cup | Hong Kong | Hong Kong |
Saturday | 18 Mar 2018 | Studio Bloc Masters 202018 | Pfungstadt | Germany |
Saturday | 08 Apr 2018 | FISE World Series | Hiroshima | Japan |
Saturday | 20 May 2018 | Rock Ljubljana 202018 | Ljubljana | Slovenia |
Saturday | 16 Sep 2018 | IFSC World Championships | Innsbruck | Austria |
Friday | 22 Sep 2018 | Adidas Rockstars | Stuttgart | Germany |
2018 IFSC Bouldering World Cup provisional calendar:
Day Date Venue Country Friday 14 Apr 2018 Meiringen Switzerland Saturday 22 Apr 2018 Moscow Russia Saturday 06 May 2018 Chongqing China Saturday 13 May 2018 Tai'an China Saturday 03 Jun 2018 Hachioji, Tokyo Japan Friday 09 Jun 2018 Vail USA! USA! USA! Friday 18 Aug 2018 Munich Germany
In addition there's:
Day Date Event Venue Country Saturday 11 Mar 2018 CWIF Sheffield UK Saturday 11 Mar 2018 Asia Cup Hong Kong Hong Kong Saturday 18 Mar 2018 Studio Bloc Masters 202018 Pfungstadt Germany Saturday 08 Apr 2018 FISE World Series Hiroshima Japan Saturday 20 May 2018 Rock Ljubljana 202018 Ljubljana Slovenia Saturday 16 Sep 2018 IFSC World Championships Innsbruck Austria Friday 22 Sep 2018 Adidas Rockstars Stuttgart Germany
Also zone/bonus total is worth more than top attempts.
Which I can kind of understand; Climnber A with 3T 4B beats Climber B with 3T 3B even though B flashed all theirs where A seiged.
Makes the bonus/zone worth more - though will need some more thoughtful route-setting, as often the bonus and the top get done together.
Still want 4+ back though...
What is all this "zone" bollocks? What was wrong with "bonus"?
Meiringen Starter List up (though not finalised yet).Have we got a large British contingent planned for this year's world cups do you know?
http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition/calendar#!type=starters&comp=7128
Great to see Pooch entering.
Megos and Jan which is cool. No Rustam though.
A stronger/larger US team than normal? Olympics momentum building do you think?
Thought the split format for the finals was rubbish. Three hours long, lots of glitches on the stream, still a bunch of camera blunders, and it really drags out the boulders on which the climbers aren't making much progress.
What happened in the mens qualifier? 17 athletes topped all boulders in the first group, while 2 tops and 4 zones was enough to qualify from the second. Weird.
I much prefer one climber at the time.
Interested to see that all the best Japanese climbers (male & female) are doubling in bouldering and speed.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
Is this a deliberate (but unlikely to be admitted to) ploy to get more non-climbers hooked before Olympics??
Going back a page, I see there was some bitching about the speed climbing in the Olympics. I was at Harrogate Wall recently and noticed that they had an accredited set of the speed climbing route. It has a little engraved plaque at the bottom of it.
I clipped in and apprehensively started to climb, unsure of whether I was getting ideas above my station by attempting a route specifically designed to test the ability of Olympic level athletes. I had heard it said somewhere that the speed route was graded French 6c. It's a 5+. Maximum. It might actually be a 5. I would actually expect most able bodied and reasonably active non-climbers to be able to get up it clean on their first climbing session. Literally a ladder. In fact, a ladder might be harder going, especially if it was wobbly or had some missing rungs.
Oh - Graeme, as you're here, a question...
Is there anything in the rules which cover what would happen should a member of the audience shout beta?
I've always wondered, especially if a climber was in front of their home crowd (or as they usually have teammates in the audience), if they'd completely missed some beta, or preceding climbers had figured out easier beta, what would happen should someone in the audience give advice...?
Are their penalties in place or suchlike?
Going back a page, I see there was some bitching about the speed climbing in the Olympics. I was at Harrogate Wall recently and noticed that they had an accredited set of the speed climbing route. It has a little engraved plaque at the bottom of it.... etc
Oh - Graeme, as you're here, a question...
Is there anything in the rules which cover what would happen should a member of the audience shout beta?
I've always wondered, especially if a climber was in front of their home crowd (or as they usually have teammates in the audience), if they'd completely missed some beta, or preceding climbers had figured out easier beta, what would happen should someone in the audience give advice...?
Are their penalties in place or suchlike?
Difficult one, need to prove intent etc. Ideally need coaches etc plus the audience behind a sound curtain. We did it at the Sheffield BWC in 2011, he was called Dustin the Shouty Canadian. Maybe he is the future.
"YOU'VE GOT TWO ATTEMPTS TO WIN" making a significant difference.
It is a massively physical, weirdly dynamic 6a+/6b. If you think that it is a 5 then you are demented.And probably quite a good climber.
Going back a page, I see there was some bitching about the speed climbing in the Olympics. I was at Harrogate Wall recently and noticed that they had an accredited set of the speed climbing route. It has a little engraved plaque at the bottom of it.... etc
This is like walking the 100m on the track and wondering what the fuss is about, you're missing the defining factor of the route.
They’re all games Will, there’s some stairs round the back you know.
Oh - Graeme, as you're here, a question...
Is there anything in the rules which cover what would happen should a member of the audience shout beta?
I've always wondered, especially if a climber was in front of their home crowd (or as they usually have teammates in the audience), if they'd completely missed some beta, or preceding climbers had figured out easier beta, what would happen should someone in the audience give advice...?
Are their penalties in place or suchlike?
Difficult one, need to prove intent etc. Ideally need coaches etc plus the audience behind a sound curtain. We did it at the Sheffield BWC in 2011, he was called Dustin the Shouty Canadian. Maybe he is the future.
And presumably you'd need multi-lingual judges to capture it... I guess it shows how respectful the crowd are that it's not cropped up, but I can certainly imagine a sneaky " TOE HOOK THE ARETE", or even "YOU'VE GOT TWO ATTEMPTS TO WIN" making a significant difference.
The split finals thing is really bad, makes watching a bit of an ordeal. Especially when you have nearly half an hour of everyone failing on the first move of a problem!
Jesus. Noguchi was strong today.
I may be in the minority, but I'm a fan of the split format, but that may be because I'm rarely watching live so can skip past any rubbish bits!
Question about M2: Has it always been legit to pull off the ground with any combination of limbs vs. taped holds, as long as you make the requisite number of limb-tape matches before moving to the next hold?? Gregor and a couple of others started with 3 limbs on a 2 tape hold and 1 limb on the other 2 tape hold, before moving up and tapping 1 limb back onto the other 2 tape.
Cheers. I think later on on that problem, one climber pulled on and then just tapped the right hand 2 tape hold with his hand and got called down, and another climber did the same but firmly pressed the same hold with his hand, obviously that was the "hands must be in control" rule in effect. I never knew about the pulling leeway in general though.
Michaela was on good form wasn't she? One matched hold away from the finals.....so close!
some adroitly delivered Boscoe nonsense slap downs.
Mens comp was fantastic. Great finish on the last problem.
Wait a minute the season is over :'( Lead soonish tho....
Also have the camera man and wayne's world cable dude been beaten with sticks yet??
Cricket commentators do a pretty good job and that lasts even longer.
(Could you tell Charlie that the final operation when calculating the geometric mean of two numbers (as you do to get the score for the qualification) is called the square root (or colloquially the root), not the square.)
...
...
I'm pretty sure that's rope drag, not tight belaying.
Disappointed at the outcome being decided on time. I’d have preferred either a super final or simply joint winners.
The six best male and the six best female competitors in the overall ranking for Lead, Speed and Bouldering will then move on to the Combined Finals on Sunday, September 16th. For this ranking the athlete’s results in each discipline will be multiplied with each other and the six athletes with the lowest score qualify for finals.
The sequence of disciplines in the final round will be 1 – Speed, 2 – Boulder, 3 – Lead.
We've had a bit of discussion (between judges, climbing comp organisers) about the scoring/who won. Schubert and Ondra both scored 36+ but we thought it debatable whether Schuberts throw with his hand for the next hold was 'proper' upward movement. His hand was moving towards the hold in the same moment his body/center of gravity was moving downwards. He did touch the hold and so did Ondra. But Ondra moved his entire body upwards from hold 36 and almost managed to hold his body in a position above hold 36.
We'd give Ondra the 36+ but Schubert 36...
:popcorn:
Deliberately used? Cropped up before? Shouldn't the athletes know better?
We've had a bit of discussion (between judges, climbing comp organisers) about the scoring/who won. Schubert and Ondra both scored 36+ but we thought it debatable whether Schuberts throw with his hand for the next hold was 'proper' upward movement. His hand was moving towards the hold in the same moment his body/center of gravity was moving downwards. He did touch the hold and so did Ondra. But Ondra moved his entire body upwards from hold 36 and almost managed to hold his body in a position above hold 36.
We'd give Ondra the 36+ but Schubert 36...
:popcorn:
Deliberately used? Cropped up before? Shouldn't the athletes know better?
1. It is not a question of using deliberately, it is about using. If you have accidentally used a bolt hanger as a foothold you are marked down. If you accidentally use a banned substance then you are guilty of doping (although you may escape further sanction).
2. I don't think it has cropped up before in Lead but the rule was introduced after a certain tall German boulderer blatantly pulled on a banner and consequently got a Top (maybe leading to getting through to the next round, my memory isn't as good as I remember it was!). Toronto (Hamilton) 2014 or maybe 2015. Plus Rustam used a Boulder Number sign as an undercut (matched it the cheeky little bugger) at a WC in Innsbruck, again around 2014/2015.
3. Yes, the athletes should know better.
Any comment on the fact it appears all three had their feet above the logo and only two were penalised? Would anything about the formal judgement be published?
To quote someone, "If only BDs shoes were as sticky as their logos......"
That three of the most experienced competitors in difficulty stands (inadvertently, I'm sure) on the banner shows how difficult it is to avoid an unusual obstacle. I'm pretty sure none of them would ever inadvertently stand on a bolt, at least not one with a draw in it, everyone who ever climb on bolts train themselves to avoid standing on them.
There's a non-skipping catch-up stream here : https://www.olympicchannel.com/en/playback/finals-ifsc-world-cup-boulder-vail/
Graeme, my usual technical question this week is: W2, the swing into the dyno, it looked like Fanny was bumping against the left arete of that alcove, which seemed to be taped off. Did I see that right, and if so is that legit??
Speed climbing finals live on the BBC website right now.
Really enjoyed the men's comp. Semi probably a bit too easy but made it pretty tense waiting too see whether Phillips made it in to the top six. Great achievement, when was the last time a British man got in to a world cup or champs final? Don't think i can remember it happening often.
Really enjoyed the men's comp. Semi probably a bit too easy but made it pretty tense waiting too see whether Phillips made it in to the top six. Great achievement, when was the last time a British man got in to a world cup or champs final? Don't think i can remember it happening often.
Very good entertainment that combined final. What a mensch Jacob is!
Speed not such a spanner in the works as I imagined it would be. Over quickly, and essentially a consequential warm-up for the bouldering and lead, which work well back-to-back.
From the climber in me point of view it’s daft and not that interesting (is parkour boulder problems either??)
Haven't watched the men's yet but quite enjoyed the women's combined. Not sure why they couldn't just use the ranks for the individual events though? Will they have to do all three events on the same day in the olympics?
I found the speed element a bit bollocks, what with the false starts. Not really sure why it has to be head to head rather than timing between leaving the pad and hitting the top. That way you would have a more accurate measure of climbing performance rather than timing the start perfectly. Maybe its just an attempt to add some entertainment in to an astonishingly boring event.
What you saw yesterday was a Combined Final, that is why you only saw head to head. In a full Combined comp you get 20 athletes racing the clock during Qualification, rather than each other, just like in a normal Speed WC.
How are the initial 20 selected Graeme? It would seem that there won't actually be any "speed" climbers getting through to the Olympics (if the selection process at Innsbruck is any indication)?
Despite there being a speed element, I really enjoyed the combined competition. Looked pretty brutal on the competitors though.
In 2020 the men's and women's finals will be on different days so the rest periods will be longer.
Cheers Graeme. Nice and simple then......In 2020 the men's and women's finals will be on different days so the rest periods will be longer.
I guess it won't be on the back of the rest of the world championships either which will help.
Speed not such a spanner in the works as I imagined it would be. Over quickly, and essentially a consequential warm-up for the bouldering and lead, which work well back-to-back.
On the contrary, a shit speed result is basically going to take you out of contention in the full scale comp with 20 climbers.
The issue is less with people doing badly, and more with their rival profiting more than the rest of the field from their mistake.
In the speed comp, Bob expects to do badly as he has the slowest personal record. But his rival (the fastest on paper) is disqualified with a false start. Bob gets through to the semis. His next opponent also messes up and Bob is through to the finals. Bob loses by a mile, but even though he records the slowest time of the day, he now has a ranking of 2. So two competitors fluffed it, but Bob benefited more than anyone else (unlike in bouldering or lead where everyone else would benefit equally).
Whatever ranking he now achieves in bouldering and lead will be multiplied by only 2. Which effectively means the false starts have disadvantaged everyone except Bob (and the winner of the speed round of course, who was delighted to face the slowest competitor in the finals!). Everyone else is now playing catch up to someone who did nothing to deserve having such a low score.
I watched the speed bit of the combined finals on youtube last night. And having watched a couple of actual speed climbing events recently, slow motion speed climbing was quite amusing.
Meiringen 2018. Boulder 2 in the final. Jakob Schubert.