Dropping by to debunk all comments saying that it's impossible to have bias among the routesetters to favor the American climbers "because the routes are set by a team of international routesetters." FYI, 2 out of the 4 routesetters on this comp were American based on the info sheet from the IFSC website. Chief Routesetter: Jamie Cassidy (GBR) Routesetters: Garret Gregor (USA), Yann Genoux (GBR), Flannery Shay-Nemirow (USA) And it's interesting to note that Garret Gregor was also the former Director of Operations at Team ABC, owned by Brooke Raboutou's parents and where Natalia Grossman also trained.
Thank you for mentioning this, hopefully more people will see your comment. I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but the consistency with setting almost nothing but easy slab boulders in both SLC women’s finals combined with the info you provided does raise a lot of suspicion. It’s really a shame to try to highlight a country’s own athletes through biased route setting rather than allowing them to showcase their true abilities on challenging and diverse boulders.
Honestly! I hate to be that person but it definitely felt fishy right from the start. It was like 'oh hey...they //know// these moves a little too well
He wasn’t just a routesetter. And i quote from his Facebook description of his former job at Team ABC, “I coach A(merica's) B(est) C(limbers) and I absolutely love it!!” He coached these two young athletes so obviously he would know what their style and strengths are. Not to discredit that Brooke and Natalia are strong and amazing though, it’s just fishy.
I knew something was off when 2 American female climbers flashed the first problem while other world class athletes couldn't, and then made every other problem look easy, almost like they've done them before (hmmmm). I have a strong suspicion these two won't be able to re-create their success when their trainer won't be route setting for them.
If I wanted to watch parkour or athletics, I would've tuned in to a parkour or athletics stream. The men's competition was completely unenjoyable for me.
The men acrued a combined total of 4 tops and 11 zones whereas the woman managed 19 tops and 3 zones. If the goal of setting these boulders was to achieve maximal speration between the competitiors they clearly failed, twice.
I'd say the separation among the woman was fine. You've got to realise that a small tweak in difficulty on the problems is the difference between multiple women getting 3+ tops, and almost no one topping anything.
@@babsds0 I feel like the difference between 1st and 2nd place was marginal this time. Winning because you took 2 fewer attempts to top than the 2nd place competitor hardly showcases any difference in performance. Not to take anything away from the winners, but hopefully with more suitable setting their wins would have been much more emphatic.
@@babsds0 Nah, too many tops and more importantly way too many flashes. 1st place being 4 flashes and 2nd being 4 sends in 6 tries is not good. Mens final was abolutely terrible
I am getting a concussion just from watching the men fall on the top dyno of M4. How could anyone in the IFSC think that this is save enough? What are we testing the athletes there? Their stuntman abilities?
Worst setting I can remember of. Total joke. Men's boulders were mostly about getting lucky. Women's were like what V8/9? What a shame. Almost makes you wonder if they somehow intended to favor US climbers. I'm glad Ondra avoided this bs. He smelled that shit!
Add there some useless zone placements e.g. women 4. If you made it to zone (with more than 5 seconds left) you would finish the route with 100% chance.
A moment of appreciation for whoever designed the score graphic convention of showing the standings with a series of vertical bars representing progress up each challenge. That translucent overlay was perhaps the best I've seen in sports history. Good graphic design should always feel this obvious and natural, after-the-fact of its implementation. Like with climbing, though, you don't see most of the effort, and it's easy to miss the top.
what was with Yoshiyuki Ogata not getting the zone on bolder 3? in the end it wouldn't have changed anything but it was odd when they gave the zone to the other 3. he clearly was stable on the zone.
I agree... kinda. I'm not sure about the rules about it though. As Stasa was commenting in a previous event I think she elaborated on that. I just checked the rules @IFSC but couldn't find anything about that which is just as weird honestly.
Awful call by the judges, I'd say Ogata had better control of it than anybody else on that attempt. Maybe if he hadn't doubled back and grabbed it longer a second time I could understand that call, but he did.
Men's boulders seemed too dangerous, dynamic style is great but setters should take athlete's safety more seriously. Setting dynos to crimps and dynos that leave them falling from 10 feet onto a shoulder are not ok. Difficult boulders can be set without creating this kind of excessive risk.
I was scared for them, lots of 12 ft falls off the last boulder. It’s pretty unnecessary and risky considering a lot of them are going to the olympics.
the mens except for maybe that last boulder was so Dull to watch. Ask most climbers, they don't enjoy techy tricky dual tex climbing and im sure the athletes don't feel too inspired by it either haha.
Sadly happened twice with both women’s finals in the SLC world cups. At least the first Salt Lake cup had W4 (with a dynamic coordination move), but apart from that the boulders for both women’s finals were all straightforward slab/precision footwork problems that suited the strengths of the American climbers and were too easy to flash in general. Glad that Innsbruck is up next, the European world cups tend to have better setting in general.
The route setting for women final is way too easy than the semi final. In addition, it is very obvious that it's so easy that as long as you don't make any careless mistakes, you can win. Not a fair game, it's not hard enough to test the climbers' abilities. Very disappointed.
Imagine a competition weekend, where in semis, the director isnt sleeping and missing most of the tops and in the finals the routesetters are not totally baked... That would be great
It will be interesting to see the statistics at the end of the season for US climbers. So far, outside the US : No win (out of a possible 2) and 1 podium. In the US : 3 wins (out of a possible 4) and 5 podiums. These are actual numbers without any comment or judgment. As a statistician, I will need more data to make any kind of comment. So let's see how the rest of the season unfolds, including the Olympics. PS : And for those who think I may be biased, Natalia is my second favorite female boulder climber in the world and Sean is my favorite male boulder climber. I really regret both of them won't be able to participate in the Olympics, the selection having been made last year. Natalia's blooming is great for boulders and will keep Janja on her toes. She may not be as powerful as Janja yet (as the semi finals show) but she is sooo smooth and make very few mistakes, including "decyphering" routes ! Watch out when she gets a little stronger ... In lead, Janja will have to beware of Akiyo and Ai (japan), Seo (Korea), Laura (Italy) and Oriane (France), the last 4 being 20 years of age or less (Oriane just turned 16 !).
I think it has a little bit to do with the psychology of competing in front of a home crowd, I am pretty sure there are studies on those effects, particularly in football. Last week and this week in the US, or in Russia where Viktoriia Meshkova who crushed it in Russia or Jan Hojer in Munich. Obviously not always the case, but I think it plays a role.
Oriane speedrunning that first boulder in the last 31 second was so funny, struggling the whole way, then just getting it at the end with 5 seconds to spare!
Honestly the route setting is quite disappointing for this comp. Boulders should test the holistic ability of climbers, not focus on one specific type of boulder. Women’s final was too easy and the problems were all slab/precision footwork type boulders. The men’s final was more parkour than climbing, watching climbers attempt a jump over and over again shouldn’t be the theme of all the boulder problems. The Salt Lake wall here is far too slabby and uniform (barely any incline or angle diversity), route setting is subpar and too targeted at a singular skillset, and the commentary is awkward and minimally insightful at best. Glad to see Stasa in the finals, but the quality of commentary from her and Matt in Meiringen is sorely missed :(
Honestly the women's settings seem pretty good to me, they are more like bouldering on real rocks, maybe a bit on the softer side but still enough to separate all the climbers.
This has to be the worst final we've seen in a while. Men's boulders were too hard and always in the same dynamic style (not to mention dangerous, wtf was that 4th boulder?!), women's boulders were way too easy. Natalia is a beast but a true fight vs Janja would have given more spectacle, this just came down to two silly mistakes Janja made and they looked equally comfortable on the boulders. Poor route setting here sadly.
They are not even in the same class. There was either advance insider route preparation to assist the Americans or the route setters just purposely made the women's route "kinder" to cater to their athlete's abilities. In no other world tournament would Janja lose to these upstarts. Haha.
@@lordguan99 Well Janja completed all the boulders with ease, but a very silly mistakes cost her, but as commentators said - that's a good learning experience for her to wait few seconds.
Well said, those swan dive falls on M4 were just asking for someone to be injured, not to mention the shoulder tweaks that could’ve come from the other jumps. And the women’s final was just a flashing slabs competition instead of a who can climb the greatest variety of challenging boulders comp. Not to discredit Natalia as she’s a great climber, but it’s highly unlikely that she would’ve beaten Janja if the boulders weren’t all straightforward slab climbs that were easily flashable.
Im realising more and more what a loss Charlie was from the commentary. Or at least commentators who are doing the circuit. Would have prefered Matt Groom to carry on even. Charlie used to get in gues commentators and he was really knowledable on the athletes from years on the circuit. He also kept it real and didn't say thing liike 'what an exciting final' after a dull final.
So true!!! My favorite commentators were Charlie together with Mike Langley or when he had one of the athletes, who did not make the final, joining him. That was always a very interesting combination. I loved Charlie's chill attitude. Is he not coming back to commentating other world cups?
As far as I understand the IFSC is going to have different commentators for the Americas and Europe. So I am sure Matt will be back for the comps in Europe. Maybe that is only temporary because of Covid though.
I think it's great they have a woman climber as commentator. But please - and I know this sounds prejudiced - stay away from having two American commentators. They're awful. Matt and Charlie are so much better and they don't compulsively praise everything and treat the audience like little babies.
The way Megan just said "wrong beta" or "wrong move" when the competitors are trying out unintended beta for the problems just rubbed me the wrong way. As a climber herself, she should know that there are multiple ways to tackle a problem. Heck, it's called a "problem", not a "solution", so you can't be right or wrong. And then when people did actually beta break, she didn't correct herself and said "oh I was wrong", but instead said something like "well this is another way to do this problem" 🤦♂️. I know she doesn't have bad intentions, but as an official commentator, I feel like she could work on her wording a bit more.
This is one of the only valid criticisms of the comp that I’ve seen so far in these comments. Well that & that man’s 4 seemed unnecessarily risky for injury. But yeah as a tall climber who climbs at a gym with short setters, I often have the conversation about how the intended beta is simply irrelevant if it can be done another way securely
Having the wall in full sun seems like a huge oversight. It’s not hard, just face the wall north. It’s would certainly take a few unknowns off the route setter’s plate.
This was pretty bad, from the boulders, to editing and commentary. It's cringe when commentators repeatedly try to convince the audience how good the route setting is when it obviously isn't.
Pete saying "if you think these boulders are too easy, believe me they're not" just because someone had a foot slip. Dude, we know they're not v2's, but they are obviously too easy for the competitors. Doesn't know what he is talking about.
Yep, lmao at 3:33:35 when Meagan says “it was cool to see the diversity of the boulders, different styles, really testing that well-roundedness from each athlete..” Who is she trying to fool the women’s final was all easy slabs and the men’s was mostly parkour jumps, the boulders were anything but diverse and they solely tested one singular skillset. Really hoping to see Matt return in Innsbruck, this fluff commentary is painful to listen to.
She was fun to watch. It was cool how quickly she got up boulder 1 and I like how excited she was when she topped. Though, it seems like Stasa's foot placement was maybe better than the others. I think avoiding foot swaps is probably a good idea, no?
I feel like she adds extra challenge by trying to onsight these boulders. Once she reads them properly, it's pretty much a flash for her. Game over for everyone else. She's too good.
Fourth boulder in the men's seemed unnecessarily dangerous. Are you setting for the climbers or for the spectators? Also, please teach athletes to walk away when they are hurt. There is nothing noble or impressive in fighting through what could become a serious injury.
yeah, specially after the previous 3 boulders which also involved jumping... So they put the most aggressive jump on the 4th boulder when the muscles are tired and coordination starts to fail; unnecessarily dangerous as you say
Fourth boulder in the men's was the fun boulder out of all of them, and not necessarily as dangerous as you might think... dynos arent that dangerous if you've had practice with them. As for walking away, i agree Zach shouldn't have pushed so hard, but i can also see why he tried. He only scored one zone in the whole finals, which probably made him pressured to try until the end. However you look at it, its still a competition.
Disappointing final... There were virtually no tops for the men, while the tops were thrown at the women. Even the number of attempts is relatively low. Womens Boulder 3 was a real shame. Three moves, one "crux", and it didn't even look interesting. I know it is difficult to estimate the strength of the competitors after Corona, but I had hoped that the quality would increase after last week and not stagnate or even decrease.
@@crescentfuze yeah, route setting wasn't very good this time. Everyone still climbs the same boulder tho. Either way you can see separation amongst climbers. If we have multiple flashing every problem or no tops then we got a serious problem.
I agree about the men's but I think the women's was made very well. Everyone got at least a couple tops, but only 2 topped all 4 and only one flashed all 4. It was really right in the sweet spot for both difficulty and entertainment.
@@Hihi6789sfvvdsc maybe Toby Segar. Other than that, no, probably not, but the point still stands: if climbers start doing parkour, they'll get a lot better at this type of boulders, so is it climbing or parkour? (I love both but let's keep each in its own lane). I mean, the four boulders involved some crazy parkour jumping, right? Since when a boulder requires a dyno?
3:20:45 I cringed when Pete Woods described Sienna Kopf as "a volunteer they must know from the community" she was in the semis last week when he was commentating!
Didn't enjoy this women final at all, route setting were not good at all. All 4 boulders need to have different techniques. For instance all 4 boulder tops in women were holds. So many Slabs. Finals should not be that easy to Flash it becomes hard to seperate these top athletes and it comes down to really small mistake. Like Janja just slipping in start hold and that is all that costed her the win. all 6 women had a flash in the finals on some boulder that's not fun.
Well said, I agree 100%. All the boulders were slabs/precision footwork problems which undeniably caters to the strengths of the American climbers. The podium was just a flashing contest, and having 5/6 finalists with 3 tops is not at all good separation.
@@SpMile Agreed, the European world cups tend to have much better diversity in their route setting. Janja is not likely to lose to the American climbers with challenging and distinct boulder problems that provide actual separation amongst the finalists. Looking forward to some quality climbing in Innsbruck!
Would anyone else like to have open section and women's section for these world cups? Wonder if climbers like Janja would be interested in climbing in open rather in women's.
M2 - more of the same, and no tops. This route setting is awful. And I’m having to watch with the sounds turned off because the commentators are so annoying.
Let’s hope the route setters learn from this awful men’s final. Give us some variety between the 4 routes, and set problems that have more than one solution - so we can see the athletes use their individual strengths to overcome the problem. Not easy, I know, but most competitions manage it somehow. Parkour style doesn’t help with this.
I am the biggest janja garnbret fan !!!!! However in a way I’m happy she came in second because that will only make her better for the olympics . Now she can correct any mistakes she has rather than make those mistakes in Tokyo .
Horrible setting for men's boulders. Nothing but parkour moves here. I get that it's fun to have 1 or 2 dyno/coordination moves but this is ridiculous.
Now can we get commentators with this amount of respect for competitors of all countries and all levels even with a clear frontrunner, onto the artistic gymnastics commentating?
@@TxHoneyBee I don’t remember myself claiming she is not? Well aware, thank you very much. Does not mean I can not hope to listen to commentators who respect the other competitors taking part in the competition when showing their routines
@@elinamauno8833 Well in a comparative sport where the best is competing, all others will be compared to them. So you'll have to deal with that or not watch an American broadcast that will celebrate the greatest of all time who is also American. You will deal.
@@TxHoneyBee It is possible to compare gymnasts to each other (including the best), without being disrespectful to every other gymnast out there by not learning their names, refusing to say anything positive about their gymnastics, and praising the mistakes made by Simone while ridiculing other gymnasts for making them. There are ways to commentate celebrating a gymnast without completely ridiculing everyone else on the field.
@@elinamauno8833 That rarely if ever happens that the American commenters don't know an athele's name. They could make a mistake while LIVE broadcasting (ya know humans make mistakes live) and correct themselves latter. Show proof of 'disrespect' in favor of discussing better athletes?
Setting fail. Mens boulders overcooked, womens too easy to differentiate between athletes. Although Bailey climbed quite well, I personally always find it a little suspicious when the setting fail coincides with the sweep for the home team... In the end, I was annoyed to watch this final, so much so that the only thing I found entertaining was Stasa's hair.
the route setters who tested and topped the mens boulders oughtta be competing lmao (i know this comp is old but looking back its just funny how hard they were)
In the case of a young climber, such as Zack Galla, shouldn’t his coach really be stepping in on M4, using his better judgment/experience and withdrawing him from the competition? It was painful to watch him try to climb through that injury knowing he was only making it much worse.
I don't think the coaches has any privileges to speak to the athlete while he's on the mat. In that sense climbing really is an individual sport. But I agree, it was painful to watch. Especially as i currently suffer from a similar injury and I know how much it hurts when you keep pushing through it.
He is 21 and old enough to make his own decisions. He just wanted so badly to get the zone... and yes it was painful to watch, but it would have been not the first time that an injured climber keeps going and sometimes succeed on a boulder nevertheless. Sometimes the success means so much to them that they keep going no matter what. If that is a good thing I don't know, but that's how it is in any sport.
Route setters did a very poor job but it is not an American thing - there have been a few competitions in Europe where the setting has been similarly bad. Men's route setting was particularly terrible ... almost nothing to do with climbing technique just jumping. Women's was very samey throughout, so not brilliant setting, but at least it wasn't two hours of people failing to jump. Personally I thought the women's result was fair enough. Janja made 2 careless mistakes and paid the penalty - but isn't that what climbing plastic is about? Natalia Climbed very well both weeks - confirming last week was not a fluke. As for commentator bias? Well I thought they were pretty positive about most of the climbers and so were the crowd. They were understandably pleased that American's did well for a change - Sean, Natalia and Brooke did climb really well. (I am not American so not biased). I think mostly what the last two weeks have shown is that too many climbers have been laid off for a year and are still trying to get back consistency - more surprised by the number of good people who failed even to qualify?
videographer zooming in on the back/arms/back of the head when they're doing technical foot switches is.... annoying. Can we just get the video from the back and show zoom-ins and different angles during the replays?
I don’t know if Natalia is just really good now or the boulders suited her super well. I want to say the routes were easy but even Miho only topped 2 and Janja looked less comfortable doing the boulders compared to Natalia.
Miho was just not fit, see she hurt her shoulder ! rest all found it not that challenging at all the route was easy, this is not how a final should be.
@@joemark1154 somewhat true but stasa and oriane took way more attempts to complete 3 boulders while Natalia flashed all 4. Although I have to admit it was a super boring women’s final lol
I don’t think she’s better than Janja, all of these problems were slab/precision footwork type boulders with hold finishes, which is obviously the strength of the American climbers. Watch Natalia in Meiringen a month ago where the setting was significantly better with its diversity, and it’s evident how much better Janja is as a well-rounded climber. Natalia isn’t great at powerful/crimpy boulders or dynamic moves, but technical movement is her forte, and every problem was like that here. Sadly for Janja, it turned the podium into a flashing contest rather than a holistic climbing evaluation. Congrats to Natalia nonetheless, though.
I love Sean Bailey ❤❤ i'm a new fan to this sport and i find this guy pretty impressive along with Nathalia Grossmann. He is so humble....love him !!😍😍😍
Grossman looks very impressive - interesting to see if she can maintain form on the European and Asian circuit. love Janja, but she needs some serious challengers - hopefully Grossman can be that challenger...
I can not agree, that the man´s boulders are too hard und the woman´s are too soft. Don´t forget the speed competition most of them joined. But a boulder like the M4 should never be seen any more. How could the responsible person or the IFSC give there ok for that boulder. Either you get the top or you fall badly. Happily Bailey, Fuji and Ogata have no injury. That is not the sport i want to see.
How would you name this style of the commentator? I would call it 'backseat driving for climbing'. Please leave some room for the audience's imagination and route reading.
I love both Brooke and Kyra but it’s a shame Natalia won’t get to rep USA in Olympics. She’s clearly hitting her stride and would have the best chance to podium.
the top womens boulderers have been so insanely consistent. they stole the show for sure. the male commentator doesn't know what's going on. he talks way too much.
And here I am again having to use a VPN to watch climbing comps. Why are the full videos not available in Brazil anymore?? If it makes any sense, please someone tell me why :\
Hey IFSC, why was the live chat disabled? It's always more fun to watch while chatting with other spectators, plus from a business perspective, it's good to a place where newcomers can ask questions (otherwise they'll probably tune out pretty quickly).
Because last week's live chat was vile. They've said they'll bring back live chat when they can make sure they have mods for it. I agree that it's nice to have the live chat - commentators do explain the jargon but it can be confusing for new viewers to have to wait for those explanations.
@@danbealecocks4344 vile? Last one I was in was nothing but positivity (well, some criticism too, but constructive), except for literally two trolls that everyone blocked so it's as if they weren't there. Glad to know they plan on bringing it back. I'm sure plenty of people would volunteer to mod.
The mens' routes were not very exciting to watch. Please bring back more routes that showcase upper body strength, rather than almost only coordination and leg strength. Im tired of watching someone flailing their way through a three part dyno. It also seems a bit excessive making moves that require extreme flexibility to do.
What if there was an overlay displaying the degree of the wall? It's hard to tell sometimes how far out the wall is protruding when it's shot from the front.
Don't understand why so many people are on here hating on the route setting/commentators. I came out here to see some great climbing, and I saw some great climbing. Chillax.
Mens: Good decision from Ondra to sit this one out 🤣 think he would have been furious by the end of that final. Womens: More variety and a bit harder then i'd reckon janja would have knocked it out of the Park.
Yep, smart choice from him haha, he would have despised this boulder set. It would likely have worsened his shoulder injury as well if he tried these parkour jumps.
Why were the commentators lavishing the route setters' work with so many compliments when the climbs were so terrible? Are they afraid of badmouthing an American competition or just dumb?
