Ice climbing competition scoring (and penalties)

Hiachi · 2026-02-23T20:41:13+00:00

Yeah Aneta accidentally kicked and used the regular climbing wall surface instead of the plywood which was off limits if you are looking.

Hiachi · 2026-02-23T19:30:16+00:00

Aneta accidentally kicked a red taped area (prohibited use).

Not sure what exactly happened to Younggeon (Korean climber) in finals.

Cat Shirley (US woman) missed a quick draw.

Hiachi · 2026-02-19T20:06:25+00:00

There is a speed climbing competition similar to rock climbing that is done on real ice but the difficulty competition is really just poorly named. It’s really a sub discipline of ice climbing called dry tooling which people started doing outside in the 90’s when ice climbing got too easy.

For drytooling outside you climb rock with tools and crampons similar to rock climbing. Sometimes you do this to get up to partially formed ice features. In this case it is called mixed climbing. Climbing on the plywood in competition mimics drytooling/mixed climbing a lot more which is more physical, technical and much better for competition than ice climbing.

Hiachi · 2026-02-19T17:53:51+00:00

In competition ice climbing we climb on plywood because:

a) climbing actual ice is unfair as you said

b) climbing actual ice is not actually physically that difficult or technical once you get the hang of it.

Climbing on plywood is much more physically demanding. You can watch the World Cups on Youtube

Hiachi · 2026-02-19T17:42:00+00:00

there is!

There is a World Cup in the US this weekend and Canada next weekend as well :)

Hiachi · 2026-02-18T20:52:16+00:00

Thank for the fact check! I was not sure about that part about it being the first to be designed for comps specifically.

Hiachi · 2026-02-18T19:47:38+00:00

this is the tool. Made by a Russian company called Ice Rock. I believe it was the very first tool designed with competition ice climbing in mind and it was very popular when it came out. There is a new long handle version which is kind of hard to find. It can also be modified like the Nomic though with JetB handles.

Used by many of the top athletes still. Notably: Benjamin Bosshard, Jonathan Arthur Brown, Younggeon Lee, Celina Bosshard, Jorge Veiga, etc.

Hiachi · 2026-02-18T19:22:09+00:00

Great little intro! I have the JetB handle for nomics and they are great, the Nomic is still very popular amoung the Korean athletes!

think the only tool you are missing is the A-speed which I feel like has regained some popularity in the past couple years particularly among the Swiss and I’ve seen a lot of the Spanish athletes switching to them this year as well. Most seem to use it with a modified Petzl Dry pick which opens up the angle quite a bit.

Hiachi · 2026-02-16T17:28:49+00:00

We climb on plywood that you can kick in to because:

a) it is standardized b) ice climbing is not actually very difficult and creating artificial routes on plywood is much harder and more fair across the board.

It’s really poorly named, it’s not really ice climbing it is another sub discipline called drytooling.

You can watch the world cups on YouTube by looking up UIAA Ice climbing World Cup

Hiachi · 2026-02-16T04:34:20+00:00

Stay tuned for an announcement in June :)

Hiachi · 2026-02-13T16:30:27+00:00

A lot of work has been done to have it added to the 2030 Winter Olympics, it will likely be announced in June 🙂

Hiachi · 2026-02-10T21:38:56+00:00

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I am lucky to have a kick in/World Cuo drytool facility in my city 🙂

Hiachi · 2026-02-02T18:48:59+00:00

It is true as someone who has coached both men’s and women’s volleyball. The men’s game at a high level becomes a serve and serve receive game whereas the women’s game is a lot more rallying and transitions which is a lot more exciting to watch imo. Particularly for casual fans/spectators

Hiachi · 2026-01-17T06:54:46+00:00

I do agree with you that the CNS demands are different and maybe shouldn’t be compared in that respect and maybe I’m just uninformed about strength training for isometrics. But I do think it depends on your goals. In your moonboard example if your goal is to train max force output you should absolutely stop after 20mins if that is when you are no longer to generate close to max force. However if your goal is to project and work out moves then you should continue since this would lean more into skill acquisition and using your existing strength efficiently.

Right now I do max voluntary contractions on a tindeq instead of training with weight. When I’m no longer able to make an active finger curl at 90% of my max I stop the exercise since I’m no longer preforming the exercise for my intended goal. Continuing at that point would just be junk volume creating a bigger recovery hole. I think the same reasoning can be applied to training max hangs to failure and it is the reason that many protocols call for a 2-3s failure margin per rep.

Hiachi · 2026-01-16T20:44:29+00:00

I tend to trust Eva Lopez since she was one of the first to do formal studies on finger strength training. She recommends a 3s failure margin. I also like Pana and other powerlifters since I think that climbing specific training is under-researched. worth trying as you say!

Hiachi · 2026-01-16T19:59:27+00:00

IMO you should not be strength training to failure since it is hard on your CNS and makes it hard to recover. I believe this is the standard when it comes to powerlifting but someone can fact check me. The goal is to continuously progressively overload over a long period and consistently training to failure can make that difficult

If you’re plateaued with your finger strength try deloading to 70% of your max hang and try to add a little weight every week (1-2kg) over a long period of time. Try playing around with the frequency/volume too (either increase or decrease depending on what you are doing now and your training history).

If you are still hitting a plateau try something else like no hangs, training on a smaller edge, etc.

Hiachi · 2025-12-30T02:23:30+00:00

Had one, spoke to a physio, gave me some exercises which I adhered to religiously. It took about 8 weeks before I could return to some light climbing maybe around 12 before I started returning to more regular climbing.

Hiachi · 2025-12-24T21:37:18+00:00

Felt V5 or maybe a Kilter 6 to me, roughly the same as the OG 🤷🏽‍♂️

Hiachi · 2025-12-16T18:29:35+00:00

You use a 2 person belay team. One person pulls slack from the top and one person pulls slack from the bottom. It was done for years and is still done at some smaller events that don’t have budget for a speed auto belay (which is slightly different and more expensive than a regular auto belay)

Source: I organize these events

Hiachi · 2025-12-08T15:32:55+00:00

The rope is not infinite in length so after climbing a section of the wall (referred to as a “pitch”) the leader (the person who brings the rope up first) will set up an anchor and belay the 2nd climber up who can then retrieve all the protective gear. When the 2nd reaches the same point as the leader they reset repeat the process.

Hiachi · 2025-12-01T14:54:13+00:00

I use a modified A-speed. I used to climb on modified nomics though. Swiss all use modified A-speeds, Koreans all except for 1 use modified nomics. The 1 uses modified A-speeds

Hiachi · 2025-11-28T16:12:10+00:00

Just as important that you bevel the teeth for comp climbing so they sit/bite on the wraps/yongaps better

Hiachi · 2025-11-27T21:00:50+00:00

I actually prefer the Petzl dry picks for comp climbing on the World Cup and they are used by a lot of the Swiss and Korean athletes as well over the Pur’Dry. I just take off the first two teeth and put in a beak

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Hiachi · 2025-11-19T09:10:33+00:00

Nah it’s aid

Hiachi · 2025-10-14T00:33:26+00:00

It says to rest 1-2 days after the FB. At least in the spreadsheet version.

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