UKC

Ahead of our on-the-ground coverage of the Sport Climbing events starting tomorrow, we've set up a LIVE updates page where Tweets with insight, observations and quotes from athletes at the event and our editor Natalie Berry will gather. It'll complement your TV viewing of the competition, we hope, and add some behind-the-scenes interest. Check back each day for a new page of updates!

• Day 1, 3rd August - Men's Qualification
• Day 2, 4th August - Women's Qualification
• Day 3, 5th August - Men's Finals
• Day 4, 6th August - Women's Finals

• Women's: on Eurosport
• Mens: on Eurosport
• Patchy Coverage on iPlayer but it's hard to find on Catch-up

What’s the best way to watch this? Does a Eurosport subscription guarantee it or is it like the BBC with limited streams? Also is it possible to rewatch as I might have to miss most of it as I am working

Eurosport gives you everything as does Discovery (although the app is a mess to navigate).

There is some discussion of the options for paid viewing here - https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/ukc/tokyo_diaries_day_1_arrival_in_japan_...

Alan

Jason Muhammed said today that the BBC1 3.00 p.m. programme tomorrow will have a feature on it. 

Discovery Channel have been advertising a 3 day free trial which might be ok if you can live with missing tomorrow’s first day.

Not sure if it's just me but the photos are partly overlapping the text just above them in the feed, which makes the text difficult to read. Not sure if this is something the IT guys can quickly fix?

Edit - it's the startlist photo overlapping things actually, but not photo below

Android 10

Thanks

I’m watching on Eurosport 

who is commentating?

Which Eurosport channel is it on?

I accessed it through the app on a smart tv. 

Cheers. Stumped up for a month of Discovery+....

No idea but gutted it's not the BBC team!

It’s a bit frustrating.

Alan Partridge. Sue Cook pulled out.

If you watch on Eurosport you can turn the commentary off and just have the ambient sound from the stadium which is a HUGE improvement.

I guess they’ll settle in. 
they just stayed on some lower ranking Spanish competitor missing Ondra’s top. The director is all over the place 

agreed, they seem to prefer showing people brushing holds than focussing on people actually climbing ?!

I shouted at my screen a lot when this was happening 😭

Same with Megos on prob1

Live standings here https://www.eurosport.co.uk/olympics/sport/sport-climbing/event/sport-climb...

Micka Mawem is walking up them like it's his birthday!

BBC have it in the 2nd stream now, on iPlayer

Well they did have, speed session just finished

How is the camera SO bad? Showing people chalk up or brushing holds while other competitors are getting zones and tops on boulders that nobody was able to climb before...

And the commentary on Eurosport is attrocious. You'd think they'd be able to get actual climbers to comment on climbing in the Olympics, but no, "volcano hold" and "meeegos"

But a camera-person today is not just someone doing a job, they are all now artists - trying to captures that deep hidden meaning behind the events rather than just simply what's going on. Slow-mos of completely inconsequential activities, close-up of an angst-filled floor (with no one on it), some sort of multi-angle pseudo-panning eye-wobblers - it's all part of the art of film-making and it's what makes Olympic coverage so special. And crap. I'm surprised they have resorted to grainy black-and-white yet.

It’s the director not the individual camera operator. 
they seemed to not know the format of qualifying or something. 
its a shame because there was a bit of the same problem with commentating at the same time. The commentators were ‘filling’ over moments which could have been high drama without seeming to understand what was going on. 

Yeah pretty shocking on Eurosport.

I must admit the bouldering and speed events were pretty hard to watch - even as someone who’s interested in it. The lead thats just started looks much easier for the lay person to understand.

What we’re they thinking having speed climbing in the Olympics. It’s like making the 100m sprinters play a game of hop scotch as well.

It's this guy:

https://jonnybryan.co.uk/climbing/

Jonny Bryan, he used to do the IFSC many moons ago.....

Anyone know the lead route grade?

Looks significantly easier than the average world cup route. Setters probably sweating after Duffy‘s performance 

I like how everyone moans about normal IFSC commentary and then for the olympics we get these idiots who are 10 times worse!

Maybe a little less after Ondra....

Is it normal to almost hit the floor after falling off in a comp? Seems the belayer is being very generous with the slack! 

Yes it's looking like it's set about right.

If they almost hit the floor but don't, then the belayer has given out the precisely correct amount of slack

That is very true, but seems the margin is a bit tight! Also some more commentary obscurity... 'Vertical Yoga' ?!

They deliberately give soft catches to avoid them slamming into the wall. So the falls look far but are totally controlled.

Yeah, clearly much harder than Colin Duffy made it look

In reply to ericinbristol:

Normally I'd tend to agree with you, but given Bassa Mawem, a specialist speed climber, has qualified but blown out his bicep (and therefore probably won't be able to compete), its pretty harsh to be satisfied that he won't be competing.

I didn't know about that. I wouldn't wish that on him and wasn't referring to him: I mean qualifying on merit

Despite atrocious camera work in the bouldering, and generally awful commentating, I found that thoroughly enjoyable. I've usually got no interest in competition climbing, either.

Thought the setting was excellent - the bouldering round was really exciting with big names fluffing early problems (Schubert), but Megos and Ondra coming through and showing their class, but Narasaki and Mawem untouchable. The lead wall looked perfectly pitched - and that can't be easy given how fine the margins must be at this level.

The only thing that worries me is that if Narasaki comes first in speed and boulder on Thursday (likely after the injury to the other Mawem) then it's effectively a done deal before the lead even starts. Which would be a shame. 

Actually now really excited about the women's qualifiers tomorrow. Come on Shauna!

On bbc1 now

In the final it is a race-off rather than just getting a decent time. This can lead to some upsets but it does look like Narasaki and Micka Mawem will be taking a 1 and 2 into the bouldering and Ondra (and Megos if he gets the place) a 7 and 8.

That said, we are hearing that Bassa Mawem might make it which would be great since he certainly deserves it.

Alan

Completely agree about the director for the bouldering, no idea what they were doing.

Surely it cant be that difficult to have a wide shot of all 4 problems as a default, then zoom in on any relevant action when it occurs? They seemed obsessed with the first problem for the first half of the show, ignoring everything else that was going on.

As you would expect as they have all just done a Boulder WC semi final!

Likewise if Mikka Mawem wins speed and boulder then he gets a guaranteed gold through his brother withdrawing.

Having seen the "multiply the rankings" scoring system in action, it seems like it can throw up some rather weird stuff? For instance, climbers A and B being 1 and 2 in the lead can leave A ahead of B but if a few more people do better than either so A and B drop down to 3 and 4 respectively then B can be ahead of A instead, despite their relative performances not having changed?

Even as a massive nerd I find it a bit difficult to visualize what needs to happen in order to see a particular result...

Seem to remember reading Colin Duffy redpointed  X2 8c+ and an 8b+ OS all in one day at the Red River Gorge when he was 15 I think.So pretty handy...

Could you explain the “race-off” aspect, please?

I don’t quite get how the finals are scored...

It is a little weird, but it happens in every scoring system that prioritises higher positions. E.g. MTB World Cup, Formula 1, Eurovision...

The multiplying makes it a little harder on your brain, and the fact that it's tempting to see the scores after 2 rounds as a sort of provisional table, like you might in those sports, makes it less intuitive. I think it feels unsatisfying, even though it's not functionally much different.

Climbers are seeded from their qualifying times. 1st faces 8th, 2nd against 7th and so on. So you're in the quarter finals, winners go into semis and repeat, then final. Losers do the same but face the other losers. Everyone races 3 times.

What's important is beating the person you're up against, not the time. If you win the first race you're in the top 4, lose it and you're 5th to 8th. Your final ranking position is what is carried forward.

Thanks - that makes a lot of sense. 

I've managed to find the speed climbing replay at the end of the morning red button replay on BBC iPlayer, but couldn't find the bouldering or lead sessions. Anybody know if they are on iPlayer yet (or if they will be)? Thanks

Have you come across Arrow's Theorem? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem

It's usually stated in terms of individuals voting for different preferences, and it says that you can't combine preferences from different voters in such a way that a handful of desirable properties all hold.

Combining results from different events is equivalent, and in this case, it's the "independence of irrelevant alternatives" property that doesn't hold.

In fact, we can see an example from today.  If the eight qualifiers are scored according to how well they did against each of the other seven qualifiers, then Bassa jumps from 7th to 5th, while Adam and Alberto each drop a place.

It's not ideal, but Arrow's Theorem demonstrates that no ideal ranking exists.

You me both!

I don't think they will be. In the highlights this afternoon on BBC they focussed almost entirely on the Speed, had about 10 seconds on bouldering and a couple of minutes on lead. I don't think they do different edits for iPlayer so that will be it.

I know it is not what we are used to but it is only £4.99 to see all the events through Discovery. Coverage isn't great but you can watch it all from start to finish.

Alan

I don't think the scoring is really a big problem. It used to be before the climbers levelled up a bit across the events when you could get a speed climber in the last eight who wouldn't get off the ground on the bouldering. Now they are all pretty decent to an acceptable level.

I find it interesting that the two true clibming all-rounders - Ondra and Megos - are still a bit crap at speed climbing, while the young kids on the block - Duffy and Gines Lopez - have put the groundwork in on that skill.

All a bit irrelevant in the long run since this will almost certainly be the last triple-discipline event ever since speed and lead/bouldering are being split for Paris 2024.

Alan

Be interesting to know to what extent they really trained this aspect - Ondra has invested so much in this cycle that I was surprised how poorly he did on Speed. If the plan is to go for gold failure to train speed effectively is going to be a huge barrier.  Could he just not adapt or was it viewed as an annoyance and hence deprioritised?

But I think there's a weaker version of the second property that could be satisfied and which this system doesn't - namely, that at least the change in position of a third climber shouldn't change the orderings of another two unless they come in between them. A simple "add the ranks and take the lowest score based on that" system would satisfy that, and be intuitively easier to understand. Presumably there's some worry that that'd make it easier to get away with completely ignoring speed and just focusing on bouldering and lead, though?

Alan - no, I agree, it's not that big of a deal and it won't be relevant in three years time anyway!

I guess it’s just so unique.

It’s a 15m wall and they’re climbing it in 5-7 second. It’s at least climbing your height in a second. It’s nothing like bouldering or sport I.e. no finger strength element.

Cr@p sport in my opinion. Why not compete to set the biggest dyno or see who can p%as the highest? Both more relevant to climbing than “speed climbing”.

I thought that it was speed that was to be split and lead/bouldering remain combined?

That's right, and I think that's also what he said.

Full replay of the lead on iPlayer (well, BBC1 on Sky, hit red button and select Sport >> Olympics, assume that's just accessing iPlayer) now - haven't looked for the speed / boulder yet.

To you maybe, but it's been an international competition for 30yrs and I would say the first winner of the International Speed Comp* transferred those skills to rock (or vice versa)  pretty well?

I think it's a shame they standardised the wall but hey ho, they need to be able to have a world/olympic record.

*FYI, it was Hans Florine.

FYI, womens boulder qualifications on now here:

http://www.hesgoal.com/news/83366/Olympic_Games_Tokyo_----_CH_2.html

Garnbret looking pretty unstoppable.

Akiyo b4 - not retired just yet. OMG.

Really enjoyed that. Great to see Shauna doing ok (looks like the back is still an issue though), loving Miho and Akiyo doing well on home turf, Brooke's general enthusiasm and Janja, well........

Roll on the lead....

Womans lead quals currently on this link....

Commentators are awful!

Got to watch out for those sloppy holds.

Down a shot every time the Eurosport commentator uses the word "masterclass".

Better than yesterday. Still not very insightful though to say the least. 
Good commentary can really add to the experience can’t it?
There were a lot of mistakes in the coverage which, given that there are no live audiences is pretty shabby.

It sounds like we have a bonus living in France - via the France TV website we get the full livestream, 'sans commentary' just with the ambient sound from the arena...

Good! You could perhaps combine that with EpicTV live commentary playing in another window 

If you fiddle with the audio channel settings on your remote you might be able to get the OBS comms?  They're not that bad...

Now there’s an idea - might see if I can get that to sync up for the Men tomorrow...

Anyone know if you can watch the women's qualifier on bbc iplayer, I've searched but can't find anything. 

I found myself in the 'lucky' position to be able to watch the Eurosport feed for free this morning, but then for some reason all sound completely disappeared. I watched on for a while, but then when the sound didn't return I switched to the Francetv feed, complete with ambient sound from the stadium. What a relief not to have to endure the commentators' repetitive drivel!

I know which one I'll be watching tomorrow!

It's in the middle of one of the timed recording, maybe 6 to 9am. Have to fast fwd to it and it wasn't billed in the description

Thanks, this link just appeared

Olympics, Day 12: Red Button - Sport Climbing: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000ym0r via @bbciplayer

I'll try it myself tomorrow, since the TV where I am now was equally hopeless at the commentary as most of them. Now just to find a speedy VPN that allows one to set France as a destination, since I'd like to hear Ondra's screams in the ambient track

Yes, I couldn't immediately see this, so I set out to work it out - I like teasers like that. (Apologies to all those for whom what follows is obvious - I know we have some pretty astute mathematicians on UKC!)

For a simple example take a combined event with just two component parts - Boulder and Lead. Boulder takes place first. Climber A finishes 3rd in Boulder and climber B finishes 2nd.

Next, in the Lead part of the competition, after A and B, but no-one else, has climbed, A finds himself in 1st place and B in 2nd. So their combined scores at this point are A: 3x1=3, and B: 2x2=4. So A is currently ahead of B in the medal rankings.

Then along come climbers C and D who both climb further than either A or B on the Lead wall. So A drops to 3rd in Lead and B drops to 4th. Their combined scores are now A: 3x3=9 and B: 2x4=8. This now puts B ahead of A in the medal rankings. They've changed places without either of them climbing again. 

The multiplication system is weighted in favour of whichever climber, A or B, has the superior best result. Before C and D climb this is A who is in 1st place in Lead. After C and D climb this is B who finished 2nd in Boulder. 

Martin

Thanks! Beebs don't make it easy to find the coverage. 

Felt a bit sorry for Rogora. The route was pretty reachy.  Perhaps not helped with a 7/8 male setting team? Wasn't that impressed with the lead route. It lacked interest.

I agree it wasn't the most interesting, think that separation was prioritised, and to be fair to the routesetters, they did at least achieve that quite well. Looking forward to more interesting setting for the two finals - hopefully they saved something special!

Laura gave an incredible performance, proper battle, really hard done by not to get a better rank in lead than she did.

I thought the route was good. It was obviously hard but that's better than 3 or 4 people topping it and not being split (or loads of people falling on the same move, which sometimes happens). Doesn't Janja sometimes say she wants harder routes?

I kind of had Laura Rogora in the same mental bucket as Seo - relative to others in the competition, poor at speed, middling-to-mediocre bouldering but really good at lead and might get a finals place if they could really pull something out the bag in that event. Given her high profile achievements outdoors and recent world cup success I thought Rogora would be the better of the two (while I've heard nothing of Seo since 2019.) But yesterday Seo was better than her at everything. She has obviously been training hard and got better since we last saw her, while it seemed to me yesterday that Rogora was feeling the pressure. She climbed really badly in the lead, it wasn't just a height thing (several other climbers are also short.) It was scrappy throughout. For someone who has climbed multiple routes in the 9s and won a recent world cup, I can't really see any other reason for it apart from cracking under stress.

Will be interested to see how hard the bouldering is tomorrow. It feels like Janja is further ahead of the rest than ever there...

Laura said afterwards that she felt some pressure and that the route was hard. It was a shame as it seems from her latest instagram post that this spoiled the enjoyment of the whole experience for her. 

OK I'm not fan of speed but the Mawem v. Coleman race just then was quite something!

Anyone know why some of the holds on the speed route are black? I thought the standard was they were all dark red.

Oooof that was good! Narasaki not getting 1 in speed and Ondra being pumped as hell and surely in a perfect mental place for the next two rounds makes it wide open! This is good!!!! Anyone who doubted climbing should be in the Olympics: eat your hat!

He did the Tomoa slip instead of the Tomoa skip.

They are pressure sensitive and record the split time.

Brill, thank you galpinos

Interesting (or possibly not...) that on Instagram this morning I've seen Alex Megos writing that at some point he'll write about his `doubts' about the Olympics and the format (noting that's the last time he'll ever do a speed route), and then Laura Rogora writing about having waited two years and then it finishing with a sour taste.

Undoubtedly many lead/boulderers have hated training for speed, and it'll be split out in Paris in 3 years, but I wonder how many climbers whose dominant focus is outdoors (e.g. Ondra/Megos/Rogora) will be in Paris, given the time needed to devote to indoors to perform to the level they'd be happy with.

And you can see the splits (and reaction time) by looking at Race Analysis

https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/olympic-games/en/results/sport-climbing/res...

Isn't that a bit like going to attempt an 8000m peak and then saying the hard work and lack of oxygen spoilt the enjoyment. I would have thought that competition at this level was all about doing hard stuff under pressure.

Is Rogora's focus outdoors? She did the Youth circuit and has been doing the adult WC circuit since 2017?

Lovely to see Parkour making an appearance in the Olympics.

In the words of Homer Simpson: in case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic.

Yes, what we really need is some competitive ledge shuffling very slowly.

Preferably above a huge runout, above microwires, on culm.

Trad 4 Paris 2024!

How tall is Ondra? Wondering if his height made it harder to do the more dynamic problems - he must have a lot of momentum to control.

6ft 1 according to Wikipedia. Definitely looked disadvantaged by that run and jump Gaston parkour thing

Thought I guess he would have found the top move easier, had he made it.

Playing "Always look on the bright side of life" in the interval. Brilliant.

As with the huge majority of top comp climbers she is handy on the real stuff as well - check out some of her outdoor achievement and bear in mind she's only 20

Dear Eurosport, a Gaston is not an "upside down undercling". Points for enthusiastic use of the lingo, though.

Loving Narasaki's Mission Impossible style one handed hang.

Agreed, I was challenging the implication that she's an "outside" climber who happens to do comps, in the same way Megos and Ondra have dipped in and out of competition but "outdoors" has mostly been their primary focus. In contrast, she appears, to me, to have been a fixture of the comp scene for a long time.

What an ending to the mens!

That was very entertaining I thought. The point scoring makes no sense at all though.

Gines Lopez ranks 1st, 7th, 4th and wins the gold.

Ondra ranks 4th, 6th, 2nd and comes in sixth place.

Great to see Schubert top out, though an interesting comment on the scoring system that doing so sent Adam Ondra from overall 1st to 6th.

Fantastic comp.

All the medalists won an event which is fitting.

Having said that, Narasaki would have won without that slip.

Jakob made light work of those last few moves!

In some ways totally irrelevant, but had this been done on average score instead of multiplying, the first two positions would be the same but Schubert would have been last. Every other competitor would have taken joint third so as I say it's utterly irrelevant and I don't want to take anything away from Schubert as he absolutely smashed that last round, but interesting to think how much the scoring method has affected the results...

I thought that a weird quirk as well.

But wasn’t Ondra 4th in speed because the other guy was injured, rather than on actual timing?

I think biasing scoring for 1st placements in events is better than someone potentially placing middle of the pack all three events and coasting to overall gold on average. Does last place for winning the lead round sound like a good system?

Congratz to Gines Lopez, but Coleman's top of boulder 2 to win that event was more impressive than the speed win, so I feel he was more worthy winner. 

Other side of the coin, does gold for losing the bouldering sound like a good idea?

Absolutely correct there, I'm not saying that average scores would be the right way to do things, just pointing out how much the system they used has affected things. I have no idea how they could have scored things better to give a result that everyone would agree on; I suspect the answer is that they could never please everyone. I'm relieved to hear that this is the end of the combined event though - speed is just such an anomaly in the whole thing. Hopefully it will all work better in Paris!

Coleman in the bouldering and Schubert in the lead were the two stand-out performances I think. Ginez Lopez took his chance but he did get a bit lucky in the speed, then last in bouldering and mid-table in the lead. Not quite the way it was meant to pan out I think but you have to take your hat off to him for taking his chance.

Alan

Not so great though, when “taking your chance” is dependent on minute differences being magnified by the multiplication…

Am I right that if the guy hadn’t been injured, and win the speed Ondra would have had double his points?

Well, a lot of things happened because Bassa Marwem had to withdraw. Yes, Ondra would probably have come 7 or 8 in the speed, and Ginez Lopez would probably have come 4th at best in the speed although, as Narasaki's slip showed, things don't always go by form.

If I plug the figures into my calculating thing we were using to predict the winner (which we called pretty early TBF - 12:38 on the live feed) assuming Bassa won the speed then the overall winner would have been Coleman with Ginez Lopez in 8th strangely.

Alan

Yeah, this sort of thing sets off my huff with the multiplicative scoring thing again - as I read it, if Bassa had literally just bumped everyone in the speed down a place then Gines Lopez would have gone from first into equal fifth - in other words, three other climbers would have gone from "not as good as Gines Lopez" to "better than Gines Lopez" despite neither them nor him doing anything different relative to each other.

Speed climbing, and its head-to-head nature have completely fouled up the awards.

The gold medal has gone (out of 7 contestants) to the 5th fastest speed climber, the worst boulderer, and the 4th best lead climber. Dismal. Gines-Lopez's speed contestants either had a false start, a slip, or were Ondra (who could probably be beaten by a mollusc). I bet he can't believe his luck.

Fortunately, we never have to think about speed "climbing" ever again, but the IFSC ought to fix this high-jeopardy, low-percentage event so that maybe you have three runs and are ranked according to your best, or perhaps an addition of your two best.

Agreed, I also hope that Alberto doesn't get a hard time from salty individuals in future. The format was weird, but that's not his fault, he did the best he could (and I hope it doesn't feel unearned from a man whose higher redpoint is 8c+ next to 9b+ and 9c legends who didn't take the win). A gold medal is a big thing to have on those young shoulders, good on him and good on the others for being supportive of his success. 

Crazy but true!

The scoring only makes sense once you realise that, to give speed climbers a chance of getting anywhere at all, first place results need to be prioritised more than usual. The traditional points system used for World Cup points (100 for 1st, 80, 65, 55, 51, ...) would have been the obvious system to use, but because bouldering and leading share so much in terms of skill-set, the pure speed climbers under that system simply wouldn't get a look-in.

So instead we inevitably ended up with a much more volatile points system, which to be fair made things very exciting, but in many ways may not have produced placings we would have expected given the performances.

All irrelevant after tomorrow anyway, thankfully. Then we can start arguing over whatever system is proposed for Paris!

A really good lead route but sadly the boulders weren't up to par today and didn't provide the spectacle I'm sure they were hoping for.  Also we have a normal speed comp, normal lead comp but a reduced boulder set. Slightly disadvantageous for the bouldering specialists? Probably. 

Just wondering if anyone has seen if it's possible somewhere to view the athlete interviews that Natalie referred to in her tweets? The Eurosport feed stopped after the podium.

I thought the boulders were great except for the need for one hold to be just a teeny bit more positive on B3...

The traditional points system was for fields in excess of 30 (and was based on FIS rules), it has now changed to ranking points for the top 40 (keep up at the back ). If IFSC was to use a similar system for Combined then I guess it would need tweaking to reflect the field size.

It would be an interesting challenge to try to come up with a Heptathlon-style points system in which points are based on absolute metrics rather than relative positions.

So you would have somthing like

Total = W_speed * seconds + W_boulder * (num_tops + num_zones) + W_lead * (highest_hold).

The advantage being that no competitor's results can affect another's, the problem being of course how to calculate the weights in order to be fair across disciplines. With enough data you could come up with something, maybe by trawling through world cup statistics...

I like your thinking, but with climbing it almost certainly isn't possible.

With heptathlon/decathlon, there is no change in the disciplines from comp to comp so the scores can be compared over time. In climbing, it is completely affected by how hard the setting is, and even how many holds there are on the lead wall.  I think there would be a risk with this idea that people would want a way of having a world record points haul, who got the most points this season, etc.

For example:

- One week you could get 2T2Z 4 3, get 100 points for bouldering, and come 6th in that field (easy set)

- Then next week get 1T1Z 3 3, and win the bouldering, but only get 50 points, because you got fewer tops and zones (hard set)

The second performance is better, but the first one would give you a better score, and more likely give you a 'record' points haul.

At least the current system gives a number that only matters in that comp, without trying to create an absolute scale of performance, as is done with decathlon and heptathlon.

(I also don't like the current system, it often doesn't reward what most people are considering the best climbers, but I'm struggling to come up with any viable alternatives!)

Yes, it was really just an example. The actual points allocated were crap even at the time because they didn't graph to a smooth curve, meaning some positions were proportionally better rewarded than others, but it did at least give a good flavour of the kind of weighting for higher positions that's needed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000ym40

BBC coverage from today's men's finals. Sent on from a friend cos i couldn't find on Iplayer! Iplayer search function doesn't seem to work for me. Starts 37 mins in. 

They all came last in a round too. (Except Coleman, who came second-last in Speed.) I think the scoring needs to be easy to understand, which this wasn't. It was utterly baffling, and counter-intuitive. 

The scoring open to abuse and conflicts of interest too. If the Americans were in Schubert's and Ondra's position, would you bother topping out with your compatriot having already secured gold?

This is a huge point - it could be worse than formula 1 for team instructions when it is clear one athlete can't get a medal but can strongly influence things in favour of another athlete from the same country who has a chance of a medal.

If there had been three separate medals the whole thing would have worked far better.  The runners would have kittens if someone said OK we are going to have 50m hurdles, 400m and marathon events and we'll take the places in order and multiply them to figure out who gets the gold medal in running.

But with the climbers being in isolation it might be difficult to get the information across that climber B has to fall at hold 32 to keep climber A in gold.

Just watching the women’s bouldering and heard this classic as they discussed the attractions of the climbing for the general public- “It’s visually appealing. Especially for the eye.” Sigh…

The bouldering sets haven't been overly exciting yet

In reply to Strontium Dog:

No it shows respect for local cultures

Is there a Jam in womens P3 do we think?

Is there any other Olympic sport where you can get a new world record and still not win a medal?

Well yes, any event where people take turns; high jump etc. Has it ever happened? Probably. Cycle pursuit almost certainly.

Well sort of, high jump for example you get the WR but then lose the WR too, as apposed to get the WR and retain the WR but not get a medal.

It could be possible if a say a javelin specialist entered the decathlon - but that would be rather silly. In a similar way that coming 4th in olympic sport climbing (with the same score as the bronze) despite 0 zones on the boulders and reaching hold 7 on the lead is a bit silly!

Easy. Set a world record in the heat's; finish 4th in the final.

More duff performance from the scoring system.

All that complexity, and it still manages to create not one but two ties - half of the finalists! 3rd/ 4th tied on 64 and 5th/ 6th on 84.

Solved fairly IMHO by head-to-head performance, but it takes some doing to produce a scoring system that stupid. 

If anyone spots the Iplayer day 14 coverage when it comes on Iplayer would be great to share a link here as so hard to find! I'll do the same if i find it, normally is red button 12.00-15.00...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000ykb4/olympics-day-14-red-button-s...

How was countback applied for Bronze?

finishing order in the quali round.

All the boffin talk about scoring systems and such aside, who has had the most "mini heart attacks" watching the Lead today? Apart from the coaches, obviously

Brooke falling early on

Seo "vs." Akiyo due to the scoring

Everybody when they almost fell, but managed to recover

Akiyo in the "hair-tangle" situation and at 28 afterwards

Miho at 21

Janja all the way up, especially with the extended rests and after Brooke's fall (unexpected) plus Janja's "wow, she's human after all" moment earlier on

etc...

Overall, great finish of the Olympic debut, even if the scoring system was what it was. Looking forward to Paris...

Despite what the title and description say, that seems to just be 90mins of basketball...

Yes you need the previous session which is titled women's football, then fast forward to the climbing.

Obviously.  

So, this one: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000ykb2/olympics-day-14-red-button-f...

(Which doesn't appear to have any football in it 😂 )

Apparently it's actually head to head to break up ties. Akiyo beat Aleksandra on two disciplines (B+L) so she goes ahead.

Edit: I'm now finding conflicting information on this, so you might well be right! I'm not sure anymore, will try to find out from the IFSC page 

Edit 2: From the IFSC rules 2021, article 11.11

"each relevant competitor will be ranked in ascending order of the Ranking Point Total (i.e. lower values are better), provided that where any competitors have the same Ranking Point Total, the relative ranking of the tied competitors shall be determined for any round:

1. by comparing the head-to-head performance of such competitors within the round; and
2. where following (1) any competitors remain tied, by comparing:
   1. where applicable, the Combined Ranking following the Qualification round; and/or
   2. if necessary, the Seeding of the relevant competitors."

https://cdn.ifsc-climbing.org/images/World_Competitions/2021_IFSC_Rules_v17...

So it is head to head in the scenario, Akiyo winning more disciplines.