UKC

With Janja not going to China it looks like it could be Miho's year for the overall.

What's the word on the street as to why Shauna isn't going to China?

China would require being on the road away from home for a while with her injury.  Given that she looks like she’s operating at 60% and still making finals, I would imagine Shauna will most likely prioritise training for a peak in performance for the World Championships at Innsbruck in September.

Seriously impressive how Janja has moved so seamlessly from dominating in Lead, to apparently dominating in Boulder.

I wonder if the physical requirements for both IFSC disciplines are really all that different these days.

In some ways the repeated 4/5 minute efforts of bouldering look to have a bigger endurance requirement than the single 6 minute lead efforts. Hence the same competitors can climb at similarly high levels in both competitions.

There's certainly crossover, but it's hard to see how to differentiate them more.

Given that *actual* cutting edge bouldering these days involves falling off the same five moves over & over again in a dank forest in Finland over a period of multiple years, I struggle to see how it could be made into a thrilling spectator sport.

Yeah well, there is obviously pressure to make the events more spectator friendly with the runny jumpy stuff  in boulders and the increasing use of bouldery volumes in lead. Personally I'd prefer to see the lead stick with PE crimp fests and increase the time allowed so that improvised rests on sh!t holds were rewarded but I get it that not everyone finds "shaking out" an exciting tension builder.

Surely the argument against crimp ladders - apart from them being visually boring - is that the climbers these days are so strong, it's next to impossible to make the crimps small enough. So you have to start adding in actual tricky moves as well.

Agree on the time limit though.

Good to see Tomoa win again finally. I think the final round really suited his style though. The crux of every problem involved a dynamic coordination move.

The consistency of the top male competitors is truly impressive: Tomoa, Jongwon Chon and Alexey Rubstov rarely seem to miss finals now. I wonder if Jernej Kruder will continue his good form to join this elite group.

The women's boulders were a too easy in the final so a shame the final had to be decided by countback.

I think the pure PE crimp ladders also favour lighter climbers too. I remember Adam Ondra saying it's really hard for him to compete on the pure resistance comp routes because he's towards the upper weight for competiton lead climbers.

I think the reduced time limits seem to stop climbers shaking out for too long in lead these days.