UKC

Before all eyes turn towards the 2018 Climbing World Championships in Innsbruck next year, Ben Lepesant spoke to Udo Neumann und Kilian Fischhuber about some interesting aspects of the 2017 season...

Read more

In reply to UKC Articles:
As someone who's interested, but not *that* interested in competition climbing I found this article and the level of analysis very interesting, and dare I say it, inspiring. To a punter like me the bouldering is more engaging and exciting to watch, but I'm aware that I couldn't even pull off the ground on any of the problems, such is the difficulty....but reading the analysis of competitors' different approaches, strengths and techniques has given me food for thought to apply in my own climbing.

In reply to UKC Articles:

I found it interesting that Shauna was effectively written off as a potential winner for the next season (despite having won the last two) as she is so obviously of the 'old school', we might as well crown Janja as next seasons winner right now.

It seemed a little dismissive of her achievements (including coming back from a fairly serious injury), I suspect that if she doesn't achieve the highest level in bouldering next year, it is more likely to be because of diversification into lead and speed for the Olympics.

In reply to GravitySucks:


Agreed. I thought that was odd to be honest. Don't know if it's just my British chauvinism, but at that point I thought he came across as a 'pub bore' know it all..... how dare he! Still, what do I know...?


He actually makes the point early in the article that there are almost no successful lead climbers who also have success in bouldering, so I imagine that was very much the thinking.

In reply to GravitySucks:
I understand your patriotic disappointment, but realistically who would your money have been on if Janja hadn't switched to Lead mid season?

Thought it was an excellent article too btw.

In reply to AlanLittle:

From IFSC rankings pages, the 7 boulder events of the year their rankings were:

Shauna: 1, 2, 1, 4, 1, 1, 2
Janja: 6, 1, 2, 1, 7, missed, 1

When they directly competed they each beat the other 3 times and they were pretty even at the start of the season.

Janja is amazing, and combining lead and bouldering was brilliant, but I'd say that Shauna is also pretty good.

My money would have been on Shauna, at least this season, in the future who knows.

In reply to UKC Articles:

It gets a bit silly to ask what would happen if Janja hadn't gone off to do the lead stuff. She did so Shauna won. I can't remember the standings before she went but it janja had certainly been beaten in some events. I say this being quite a janja fan not out of spite or patriotism for our Shauna. janja's run in Bouldering isn't quite like say Rachel Atherton in Mountain Biking

I haven't really watched the world cups before this year. I have really enjoyed them. I have become a bit of geek looking at results. I'll throw in a couple of things that peeked my interest

At the China open quite alot of the girls did all three disciplines. (This wasn't part of the World Cup)

Janja won the lead and was second in the Bouldering

Miho won the Bouldering. But she did make the lead and speed finals. Looks like she was 3 seconds faster than janja at speed. The format for the olympics may not be ideal but I'm intrested to see how it pans out

http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition/calendar#!comp=726...

Finally I hadn't realised that Michalea Tracy was 8th in the Years Bouldering World Cup. So well done to her. I new that Leah had done the world cup as Shana always gives her a shout out.

http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/component/ifsc/?view=athlete&id=...

In reply to GravitySucks:


Yeah. I'm too sure how 'old school' Shauna really is. I think her ability to generate momentum, often from awkward positions, is one of her major strengths. I recall her saying somewhere that she has been throwing herself up walls from a young age because she couldn't reach the holds.

But in terms of how next season goes presumably a lot will be depend on the setting style. Some setters, like Percy, favour old school techniques and a more static style of climbing.

This provides thoughtful analysis of what we've all witnessed in recent years: bouldering is at the cutting edge of setting innovation (great to watch due to creative movement + strength + time pressure), lead setting styles trail bouldering by a number of years (boring to watch IMHO), and speed is just not even worth mentioning.

I don't read any disrespect into the assessment of Shauna here. She's had great success, works hard, and has a great attitude, but the case is made that she doesn't have the combination of fearlessness and position-centric bouldering that Janja or the younger Japanese climbers do, and because setting is moving to favor those styles she likely won't be as successful in future years as those other climbers. Similar to the Schubert v Narasaki argument.

As a US climber, I worry that our promising your climbers, including Shiraishi, Rabatou, Ruana, Lightner, and the wave behind them, will peak well below the Japanese and other leaders because they're training to pull hard rather than move well a la Narasaki or Garnbret. You brits should have the same concerns. Cheerio!

In reply to ChrisBrooke:

Yep, plus one to that. I'm not much interested and know next to nothing about competition climbing but this article was fascinating. Makes sense, really; in all other professional sport this level of detail is inherent, but as a young discipline competition climbing is probably evolving way quicker than, say, gymnastics.

I also move from the centre and twist round my long axis to get holds - but not in a good way

In reply to UKC Articles:

Fascinating analysis. Udo Neumann is at the Johnny Dawes end of the parkour-to-deadlifting spectrum of climbing training, so "he would (say that), wouldn't he".

Rad makes some good points. Given where indoor climbing is going, it's depresssing watching what passes for junior coaching at some of the London walls.

In reply to Rad:


We do!!

In reply to John Clinch (Ampthill):

I was at the China Open and it was really interesting to see the likes of Miho on the speed route. The Japanese team have had some training from Stanislav Kokorin, one of the speed specialists and you could see they have all learned how to speed climb (eg no matching feet and 2 or 3 double dynos) but are just a bit slow at the moment.

Janja on the other hand has no idea how to speed climb. Yet!

The best none specialists, such as Jan or Meichi, are now faster enough that they can beat one of the specialist if the specialists make a small error, this wasn't the case at the start of the year.

In reply to Rad:


Should visually interesting be the main concern though? Marathon is just a bunch of little skinny people running along a road, and yet noone questions its legitimacy as an olympic sport or suggests they need to introduce running along greasy rollers, dodging spiked swinging balls etc.

In reply to AlanLittle:

True, but the marathon has been in the olympics since greeks ran it naked 2000 years ago.