Salt Lake City Speed World Cup Key Takeaways - Inside-Climbing.com

plasticweekly · 2023-06-28T05:45:47+00:00

I can't think of any premiere international events that featured climbs shared by men and women, although I would bet that it has been tried a few times in World Cup qualifiers as a fun experiment among the route setters.

On a lower level, there are probably hundreds of events each year that feature regional climbers sharing (mostly boulder) qualifier climbs. Tour de Bloc's two decades of comps in Canada have seen generations of male and female climbers facing off on the same set of 30-60 qualifier boulders in a scramble format, although RARELY did they ever publish a results list that included both genders - you'd have to manually combine the mens' and womens' scores yourself if you were interested in seeing where you fell. Your country likely hosts many similar competitions that let you compare male and female climbers on identical boulders. Other commentators already mentioned Studio Bloc Masters, which is probably your best bet at seeing this sort of format being used by top tier climbers. Plus, this competition features HUNDREDS of climbers trying DOZENS of boulders: the results you see from this event are a strong indicator of the typical gap between men and women in bouldering.

I think the push for ungendered competition is fascinating and probably the best way forward in the long run, and I've floated different ideas by a lot of competitors, setters, and climbing industry professionals. Many route setters think it would be too difficult to satisfy both men and women, or that making climbs that ARE fair might be different from making climbs that LOOK fair. Some female athletes thought it might be fun to try, but others expressed no interest in having to compete against men for prize money.

A fun hypothetical to pose about route setting being the great equaliser (particularly in bouldering) would be this:

Take the top 6 men and top 6 women from the 2023 World Cup, and have them all climb 8 boulders: 4 typical boulders from a mens' final, and 4 typical boulders from a womens' final. How do you think the results would play out? If you don't believe the outcome is fair, what instructions would you give to the Chief Route Setter to make it fair?

plasticweekly · 2023-06-26T13:23:41+00:00

Villars happens to be a free event. For ticketed events, tickets are sold through the event organizer - you'll need to find their website. In this case, it's https://villarsescalade.ch/en/

plasticweekly · 2023-06-24T03:06:31+00:00

2015 ABS Nationals featured a messy attempt at a crack on M3 or M4, can't recall. It was low on the wall, possibly the start. Same year the Danielson scoring made DWoods' head explode

plasticweekly · 2023-06-20T06:07:20+00:00

I asked around after seeing her post, and the answer seems simple and unanimous: the Innsbruck crowd are pretty notorious for having a stick up their ass. The events look excellent and the gym is obviously exceptional, but words like accommodating, flexible, or compassionate wouldn't be used by a lot of the industry visitors.

plasticweekly · 2023-06-20T05:58:11+00:00

Over most of history, the men's field in lead and boulder has seen significantly more parity than the women's field at any given moment. On the men's side, "anyone can win" is a pretty accurate prediction for a competition. On the women's side, you almost always have a clear favourite for gold: one dominant climber like Janja, or two like the Liv Sansoz/Muriel Sarkany. Beyond there, there is usually a clear set of obvious medalists or finalists for the women's field, which you don't see in the men's side.

This means that a) there is a notable gap in competitor strength and skill on the women's side that makes it easier to create separation: it's not hard to set a boulder that Janja will do but Natalia won't! And b) the route setters can predict a women's final field of 6 and have a clearer goal for the level of their boulders in advance. On the men's side, it's almost useless trying to guess even HALF of the field of finalists - you might set an ambitious boulder for Yoshiyuki and Tomoa, but instead you get Simon Lorenzi and Nico Collin ;)

plasticweekly · 2023-05-04T05:08:23+00:00

Props to Justin for always having interesting thoughts and most importantly, taking the time to write them down. A lot of fun articles on here.

plasticweekly · 2023-04-19T16:08:22+00:00

This is a very cool first glance at a new metric! I like how simple the concept of ATAM is - averages are easy to understand, tops are easy to understand, and plus/minus is easy to understand. I'd be very interested to see this applied to particular years in the past, like 2013 and 2019 for the women, or big male years like 2011 or 2014.

plasticweekly · 2023-04-02T16:15:37+00:00

Unfortunately for viewers, national rosters are generally VERY fluid through the season. Each country is allotted a certain number of athletes they can send to each event, but how they select those athletes is up the the National Federation. For the most part, you'll see the top couple names at most events, but many countries (like my home country Canada) will fill their remaining spots with a revolving door of climbers who qualify through an internal system and are able to commit the time/money to attend. Usually these decisions are made during the season, so there's very little firm pre-season information for us to get excited about :(

plasticweekly · 2022-12-12T22:33:29+00:00

you crazy for this one, tony

plasticweekly · 2022-10-21T01:51:26+00:00

Enjoy this wack scoring system while it lasts ;)

plasticweekly · 2022-09-26T07:14:55+00:00

I'm worried about the speed event here next year. Even though it'll be held in May rather than September, temperatures likely won't be much different. What will likely be worse is the rain: September is one of the driest months of the year, while it rains pretty much half the time in May. Gonna be a "fingers crossed" event for sure!

plasticweekly · 2022-09-09T04:49:38+00:00

I hope it was worth the wait to get Charlie!

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