UKC

Six World class climbers set one problem each, work them for an hour or so, and then compete on them two days later - that's the Sisu Masters in Helsinki, Finland.

This year's edition featured three Americans;

Jimmy Webb

Daniel Woods

Dave Graham

and three local heroes;

Nalle...

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In reply to UKC News:

In the pic it says: Jimmy Webb on Nalle Hukkataival's problem. I thought that was Dave Graham's problem at the end. It was also the only problem that Graham almost managed to complete, so it would be surprising if it was Nalle's problem rather than his own?

Interesting comp format. Do the Finns challenge a different country each year? I felt a bit sorry for Dave Graham. The other guys just seemed a lot stronger.

And how long before the Lappnor Project goes down I wonder?

Look forward to the interviews though.

In reply to stp:


Dave Graham's was the black one starting to the right of the orange one jimmy Webb is pictured on. The black problem traversed left through nalle's though.

Looks like a few months bolt clipping with Daniel woods has weakened the pair of them a bit!

In reply to stp:



I'm not 100% certain but I don't think it has been done every year. There was one when I still lived in Helsinki, 2013, but not sure if they have done them since. Anyway, that was by invite and I think the idea was it was Nalle's hard friends. I guess a lot will ride on who they can afford to invite.

In reply to stp:

This was the second edition of the Sisu Masters. In 2013 the athletes were:
Nalle Hukkataival, Kilian Fischhuber, Andy Gullsten, Dave Graham
Anna Stöhr, Anna Laitinen, Melissa Le Nevé, Eevi Jaakkola

The format is not 100% set in stone as it's mostly about creating a nice "bouldering jam" and the US vs. Finland happened more or less by coincidence.

In reply to Tomtom:

Dave Graham is just weaker than the others. His over-reliance on knee pads and lack of systematic training/effort is the main culprit not climbing 9a's and 9a+'s. For Alex Megos Thor's Hammer is the hardest 9a+ he's done. Dave Graham climbed it fairly quickly (for him) but the has struggled for weeks with the low-end Papichulo which has no knee bar rests. I don't want to rag on the guy but there is no need for made-up excuses and sugarcoating the truth.

In reply to DanGreb:

That's a bit harsh, maybe he's just getting older and it's becoming increasingly hard for him to maintain the level of difficulty that he'd achieved. The guy has put up a lot of FAs including several 8Cs.

In reply to Adrien:

My impression is that DanGreb is right. In a recent interview Graham was laughing off how useless Daniel Woods' beta was for him because he's just that much stronger.

This is not to say he's not a brilliant climber and compared to most he's still very strong. But when amongst some of the strongest boulderers in the world he's just not in the same league.

I thought Nalle looked like the strongest in this comp. Where Graham used a bunch of tricky looking sequences and knee bars I was astonished to watch Nalle drop down on to the sloper and basically campus that section. That really highlights the difference I think.