A quick thread on climbing's first appearance in the Olympics at Tokyo 2020/1 with apols to regular followers.
It's climbing's first appearance in the Olympics!
The format is: 3 sub competitions. Bouldering. Lead. Speed climbing. Competitors have to do all three, and the single medal awarded is to the person with the lowest b*l*s where b=rank in bouldering, l= etc.
This has generated some controversy in the climbing fraternity. Mainly because speed climbing is not really a thing or viewed as proper climbing by most climbers.
Bouldering is climbing short routes up a climbing wall with no rope, falling onto a mat. The more routes ['problems'] you top, in the fewest attempts, the better your score.
Lead is climbing longer routes, about 15m, with a rope and harness. The further up the wall you get before falling [after which you are out], the better your score. There is a time limit to prevent you trying to rest too much a factor that sometimes bites.
Speed is climbing up a long since agreed internationally identical route of 15m as fast as you can. With bouldering and lead, competitors have not seen the route before the competition. Speed routes have been fixed on for a few years now.
Bouldering and lead are sufficiently similar [and mind blowingly hard at that level] that if you are brilliant at one, you can maybe also dominate the other. Andam Ondra and Janja Garnbret are the best male and female climbers in the world and manage this feat.
Speed climbing routes could be climbed by a beginner climber who is reasonably fit, though obvs not as quick as a specialist. The specialist speed climbers are typically very poor at the other two disciplines, and vice versa.
In the real climbing world, ie the world of climbing on rock, there are some speed traditions, eg the history of attempts at the world speed record for sending 'The Nose' on El Cap, currently held by Honnald/Caldwell.
In the real world of rock, speed climbing is dangerous, as the faster you climb, the more compromises on safety you have to take. In the Olympics, it's totally safe.
A hope for climbing making the Olympics is that it attracts attention, more participants, money for grass roots facilities, and better sponsorship and livelihoods for the elite atheletes, many of whom currently have to live very modestly.
Concerns are - climbing on artificial holds is not 'real climbing'. Conceding the speed format has introduced a sport that wasn't really part of climbing. [Think 100m running in wellies]. It's warped the climbing and training of elite climbers to climbing walls and speed.
Another concern is that actual rock routes get polished/holds get broken with climbing traffic. More climbers entering the sport means more rock and route erosion.
If you want a taster, you can browse the IFSC [international federation of sport climbing] you tube channel to get an idea what it will look like. youtube.com/channel/UC2MGu…
We don't have serious medal contenders now. Shauna Coxsey was for a few years the dominant female boulderer, but she has struggled in recent years due to a few serious climbing injuries. She qualified but is not expected to be a threat at Tokyo.
Although it would be a shock if she gets a medal, it's fitting that Shauna will be there, as its partly through her amazing feats in the sport [on wall competitions and on real rock] that climbing made the Olympics.
There are a surprisingly large number of climbers in econ and finance and politics twitter. I won't 'out' them here, but they will probably out themselves when the climbing events start.
I'll add a few more tweets later on to give some colour to the bouldering and lead competitions. The speed compoment leaves me cold so I am going to ignore it.
Right. Bouldering first. The real sport of bouldering looks like this. Here are contenders for the two hardest boulder problems in the world. First 'Burden of Dreams' graded v17 only sent so far by Nalle Hukkataival.
It took 4 years for him to climb this small, funny piece of rock.
A new contender - consensus on how hard boulder problems are is always shifting - for hardest problem in the world is Daniel Woods' Return of The Sleepwalker:
These two climbers won't be going to Tokyo. Daniel Woods was top of the indoor competition circuit 10 years ago, but moved on to focus on climbing actual rock. Climbing indoors has become more and more a different skill.
Indoors is more about coordination, jumping, balance. Less about finger strength, power. Like actual climbing with some parkour thrown in. Also, you only have 4 mins to send a previously unseen problem. Outdoors you spend, well, perhaps years.
Some argue Adam Ondra - contender for Gold in Tokyo - is the best rock climber ever. This is based on: him sending the equal hardest sport [=lead] route ever, Silence
... repeating Caldwell/Jorgenson's hardest long [trad] route in the world The Dawn Wall
And regularly winning World Cup events in lead and boulder when he decides to turn up in a break from outdoor climbing.
On the day, many things can go wrong. You can fail to see the sequence, the conditions can throw you off, or minor injuries, or if your skin starts to bleed [yes, ugh, happens a lot] you have to stop too.
Ondra faces stiff competition from many others, including 3 or 4 from Japan, which has the deepest pool of talent in male climbing.
On the women's side, Janja Garnbret is highly likely to take Gold, recently dominating in bouldering and leading. She may get pushed by Laura Rogora [It] on lead [recorded hardest female outdoor lead ever] or by Brooke Raboutou [US] in bouldering.
This thread has got a bit tangled. I started out intending to do bouldering and then leading, but got excited by writing aobut the protagonists. To finish with a few remarks about leading....
Leading is more about endurance. Many more moves involved; 35-40 rather than 4 or 5. Route reading. Finding rests. Recovery speed. And not forgetting your chalk bag [eg Janje].
It's the discipline where the gap between men and women is smallest, and maybe the smallest compared to most competitive sports. eg Laura Rogora has sent a 9b a feat surpassed by only 1 UK male climber so far, Will Bosi and maybe only 20 or so anywhere.
The other titan of male outdoor leading is Alex Megos. He has made a claim for the only other climb at the same grade as Ondra's Slience, Bibliographie:
He's not expected to win in Tokyo as he finds it harder to translate this outdoor power and endurance into the indoor discipline, which demands more flexibility and coordination.

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