UKC

In Sean's defense, a single foot slip on the second boulder was his downfall, literally. If he'd flashed there he'd have won the bouldering and had a great chance for the overall title as he clearly could have climbed a lot faster on lead if he'd been in contention. To add insult to injury, Sean was short-roped by his belayer at the top of the lead wall and had to wait nearly 10 seconds for an official to tell the belayer to give him slack. I felt awful for him.

The comments about Sean's training seem unwarranted, unless you mean that he should have done more to improve his speed climbing. How would training have helped with the boulder foot slip? He topped the final lead wall just fine and did well through qualification. 

I definitely agree with your comment that the boulders were not hard enough. The setters need to separate the top climbers on more than attempts on boulders or on time in the lead. They're still learning the combined format. I just hope they get it figured out by the Olympics.

I agree that Sean was unlucky on Sunday, my point was that if he'd applied himself earlier he could/should have qualified in Hachioji or Toulouse and wouldn't have needed to rely on luck in LA.

Fair enough.

Keep up the great job announcing and writing up reports. We appreciate both of them very much. Any word on who will be doing broadcast coverage during the Olympics?

I won't be doing the Olympic commentary but I'll be at the Games reporting for UKC.

I think luck may have played a part, but its worth remembering that his speed performance wasn't great. I think that's a bigger factor than the foot slip? It's pretty hard to come back from an 8th place in speed I think!

Charlie: I just wondered what your thoughts are about the head to head format of the speed round? I sometimes think it would be fairer to have a sort of time trial system. Although in this case it wouldn't have made any difference as Bailey clocked the slowest time.

Thanks for the write up and great work commentating!

I personally like the head to head element - I think that if you look at sports which are most popular in the Olympics (running, swimming cycling etc.) then they all have head-to-head, direct competition. I go-you go sports like the throwing events just aren't as engaging to watch because that element of direct competition is missing. It's something I sometimes feel we're missing in climbing too, but I'm not sure how to make it work in our sport unless you have neighbouring identical routes/boulders, which would be impossible logistically on so many levels.

The current format means that the "best" Speed climber might not always get the result they deserve, but dealing with an opponent is part and parcel of elite sport. The 100m final might yield a different result if everyone got to run on their own against the clock and then have the times compared, but it wouldn't be 1% of the spectacle that it currently is.

They used to have lead comps exactly like that. IIRC the discipline was called Duel Difficulty. Was actually quite interesting to watch but, as you say, logistically it was never going to be easy to hold them except for the most major of events.

In the 100m there definitely seems to be an impact from this, but in speed climbing it seems less obvious that dealing with an opponent actually has any significance. I don't think the comparison is very helpful given that the are more athletes, more rounds, no multiplicative effect to worry about and potential for fastest 4th places to go through as well.

I think the key flaw of the knockout event is that a mistake from one climber could benefit one other climber more than the rest. E.g. The favourite for the speed event false starts in round one, their opponent will be the slowest from the qualifying round, but is now automatically in the top 4. Alannah Yip benefitted from a false start in her third race (it wouldn't have affected the overall result in this case) and the 4th place in the women's event was the slowest climber by nearly 2 seconds, who benefitted from Emma Hunt apparently not touching the finishing point. That pushed her from potential 8th to 5th overall.

I really enjoy the lead format and added technology showing us previous highpoints on the feed is great. With bouldering I guess it's a little harder to know who is really in the lead at any point until the final boulder. As a standalone knockout event I wouldn't have a problem with speed, but I think as part of a multiplicative scoring format it's potentially embarrassing. I've been looking a bit more closely at this, there are a few interesting scenarios that are possible, but they seem unlikely. One thing in its favour is that the climbers are remarkably consistent in their times.

Thanks. I agree that the spectacle would be lost - this is probably more important for a non climbing audience than climbing audience though. I guess the ultimate solution would be an 8 lane speed wall!

I am pro the head to head because it puts more pressure on the climbers. And a test of the resilience of the climbers against pressure is a good thing.

The current system also favours consistency in speed as opposed to getting one lucky time.