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Olympic Climbing SPOILERS

Live Perched · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Sep 2016 · Points: 21
Josh Gates wrote:

I was thinking about this, and I've come to the conclusion that they are setting as if it's a WC final, with only 6 tip-top climbers. If you look at the top 6-8 scores, the setting looks much more reasonable. If they pitched to the middle, I think you'd see 6-10 climbers top all four, and that wouldn't be good. Their setting allows for score separation in the top half (necessary for competition), but the bottom half is pretty much shut down (not fun to watch, and I feel bad for the very bottom that can't even do a single move).

Good point.  There was clear separation.

Ondra was so pumped when he salvaged the round with the problem four send.  The difficulty of the problems set that up.  

I have to think Ondra will kick himself when he sees how he could have unlocked and sent problem one.  I really felt that English kid was robbed on problem, but he didn’t have it nearly as solidly as the German or Japanese fellas.  All that really speaks to your point about what the setting achieved.  

Brian Prince · · reno · Joined Mar 2010 · Points: 2,893

The women’s had a ton of tops and still seemed to have decent spread? Was fun to watch.

Old lady H · · Boise, ID · Joined Aug 2015 · Points: 1,375

Having watched both the women's and men's (women, live, this morning, men on replay today) on Peacock?

Imo, the women's was way more fun to watch. Lots more variations in how the ladies chose to work the problems, even being able to make some choices between static or dynamic, no matter what the setters were figuring.. Coming up with a different solution to a problem is much more interesting. It was also considerably better coverage then the men's.

Yeah, it's the Paris olympics, but geez, don't just sit on the camera the French guys dropped off of, while there's a roar going on from the crowd for someone else. Hurry it up, control room peeps! Get those shots, that's what you're there for. There's just not much time to do a replay on most of this. So don't cut to the same coaches (?) over and over and miss actual moves. Or just the crowd, when there's action. 

Watch the women. Well worth it.

My 2 cents?

The British guy in the men's, Tony something, and Janja for the women, were the smoothest, best, climbers of the bunch, and of those 2, I'd go with Janja. Both climbers made those things look easy, and graceful. 

That, to me, is just beautiful.

H.

M A · · CA · Joined Jun 2015 · Points: 22
Brian Prince wrote:

The women’s had a ton of tops and still seemed to have decent spread? Was fun to watch.

Definitely, they overcooked the men's. The women's was way more enjoyable.

Live Perched · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Sep 2016 · Points: 21

One more vote for Women’s Bouldering being superior to the Men’s.  Crowd got into it.   Instead of watching simultaneous Jedi flailure, one had to rewind because two people were being amazing simultaneously.

Garnbret is amazing, next level.  McNiece, ranked 19th, stepping up big.  Very cool sends.  MacKenzie too.  Rabatou and Nonaka  have that power style. If she can touch it, she can hold it.  Mori sent everything she could reach.  Grossman was so close on problem 1, a little bit the same situation as Ondra, just missing 15 points.

Really fun.  Look forward to seeing the outside content these men and women post when they finish their indoor careers.

Brian in SLC · · Sandy, UT · Joined Oct 2003 · Points: 22,793

Wow...Janja.  Amazing.

Yeah, the women's coverage was way better.  Maybe due to how the gals were climbing and their timing made it easier for the camera to focus on the individual tries better.  Also likely due to the difficulty being more distributed better amongst the field.  Must be pretty difficult to get that right.

Edit:  have to admit feeling bad for the first gal to go.  Yikes.

Now...watching the replay on Peacock...yikes.  Got really tired of Lebron turning up the music.  Funny the first time.  Over and over...not so much.

Jake Jones · · Richmond, VA · Joined Jun 2021 · Points: 170
Brian in SLC wrote:

Wow...Janja.  Amazing.

Yeah, the women's coverage was way better.  

I got a temp. subscription to Peacock to watch just this stuff, and the ads for the women's vs. the men's semis are insane.  Like 3 minutes of ads every 15 minutes or so.

But yeah, she's unbelievable.  Can't do the move? (W4) Just jump over it.  

Math Bert · · Minneapolis, MN · Joined Aug 2018 · Points: 90

No breaks given today - 6 competitors got essentially the same score (12 or 12.1), including poor Tomoa who looked ready to cruise before his foot blew.  Seemed like if you got through that first section of slopers you cruised through the next 10 holds or so, and basically everyone who did that is through.  My lukewarm take is that whoever can get the most boulder tops in the finals will win it. 

Josh Gates · · Wilmington, DE · Joined Mar 2017 · Points: 5
Math Bert wrote:

No breaks given today - 6 competitors got essentially the same score (12 or 12.1), including poor Tomoa who looked ready to cruise before his foot blew.  Seemed like if you got through that first section of slopers you cruised through the next 10 holds or so, and basically everyone who did that is through.  My lukewarm take is that whoever can get the most boulder tops in the finals will win it. 

Agreed. The boulder tops vs 10s seem to really have a huge effect. It's really hard to come up with a "fair" combined score, but it seems a little wonky.

Redacted Redactberg · · "a world travella" · Joined Feb 2020 · Points: 27
Jake Jones wrote:

I got a temp. subscription to Peacock to watch just this stuff, and the ads for the women's vs. the men's semis are insane.  Like 3 minutes of ads every 15 minutes or so.

And the athletes see almost none of that money. Olympics are a scam.

Jake Jones · · Richmond, VA · Joined Jun 2021 · Points: 170
Redacted Redactberg wrote:

And the athletes see almost none of that money. Olympics are a scam.

Ok man. I'm just here to admire the skill.  Maybe open up your social media pages and start a campaign there.  Idk.

MattH · · CO mostly · Joined Sep 2011 · Points: 1,354

I think this round has demonstrated that the ordinal scoring system of the last olympics is superior to the cardinality-based scoring of this year's games. The setting stiffness should not affect how much that discipline matters in the overall score, especially given how volatile the overall difficulty is in bouldering. 

This isn't like decathlon where you can rely on the absolute performance of each event - '3 tops' is not a reliable unit of measure like '100m dash time' is.

Math Bert · · Minneapolis, MN · Joined Aug 2018 · Points: 90
MattH wrote:

I think this round has demonstrated that the ordinal scoring system of the last olympics is superior to the cardinality-based scoring of this year's games. The setting stiffness should not affect how much that discipline matters in the overall score, especially given how volatile the overall difficulty is in bouldering. 

This isn't like decathlon where you can rely on the absolute performance of each event - '3 tops' is not a reliable unit of measure like '100m dash time' is.

Maybe.  Don't have strong feelings either way, but would note if they used the multiplication system from last time, the top 4 would be the same, in the same order.  Qualifiers 5 and 6 would also go through under both systems.  The people getting "screwed" are Tomoa and Sam A, who got 2 and 4, respectively, in bouldering, but tied for 14th in lead.  Is that better than 11/6 (Duffy) or 8/8 (Hamish)?  I'd note Duffy and Hamish did A LOT better on lead, feels like there should be some reward for that.  Obviously no perfect way to score it, 

Daniel Joder · · Barcelona, ES · Joined Nov 2015 · Points: 0

A few questions…

Do they all have to tie in with a figure 8?

Who are the belayers? Are they provided? Is the belay device standardized? 

Has anyone seen a competition in which the belayer messed up the climber, by short roping or otherwise?

In the men’s lead, one of the early competitors came off early and was caught not to far above the ground. Has a belayer ever dropped a climber in competition?

I am kinda of new to watching this modern competition climbing stuff, but it is fascinating. The women’s boulder (yesterday?) was incredible—the technique, flexibility, and raw strength. 

Josh Gates · · Wilmington, DE · Joined Mar 2017 · Points: 5
Jaren W wrote:

I thought the men’s SF lead was set very well. No wild coordination moves that have already been effectively assessed via the boulders—just pure traditional difficulty in terms of technical precision, a powerful campus section, then straight up power endurance.

Did you (or anyone) get a read on what was killing the climbers that all fell at the high point? Seemed like it was tricky and they all read it wrong, maybe. Most tried that drop knee and peeled off. I couldn't tell if it was too hard or just hard to read

Brian in SLC · · Sandy, UT · Joined Oct 2003 · Points: 22,793

Yeah, dunno....maybe that left foot drop knee didn't put them in a position to get the next hold?  Shut everyone down.  Kinda wonder if they switched around to a right foot on that hold...

Anyhow...good stuff.  Nice to see Ondra in there for the finals.  Wish Alex coulda made it.  Nice to see one of the US climbers make the top 8 and looked strong.

Bryan · · Minneapolis, MN · Joined Apr 2015 · Points: 482

Men’s lead semis was heartbreaking to watch. Those foot slips. Women’s bouldering semis was amazing to watch. So fun and exciting. Men’a bouldering semi’s was nails. Finals are going to be crazy.

amarius · · Nowhere, OK · Joined Feb 2012 · Points: 20
Daniel Joder wrote:

Do they all have to tie in with a figure 8?

Yes, they do. Quite amusing to watch some of them attempting to untie jammed 8s after, usually, a whipper. 

Who are the belayers? Are they provided? Is the belay device standardized? 

Yes, they are provided. I've seen fig8, tubers used for belaying. 

Has anyone seen a competition in which the belayer messed up the climber, by short roping or otherwise?

Yes, I remember seeing two instances of shortroping and inattentive belaying. A couple of comps had a bit of mess with clipping and quickdraws - a whole bunch of climbers got tangled up in rope when making moves after clipping.

In the men’s lead, one of the early competitors came off early and was caught not to far above the ground. Has a belayer ever dropped a climber in competition?

Never seen hard decking, but one of the falls looked like soft decking - climber sort of hopped to the ground. Something to keep in mind - a lot of comp walls do not have padded floors.

I am kinda of new to watching this modern competition climbing stuff, but it is fascinating. The women’s boulder (yesterday?) was incredible—the technique, flexibility, and raw strength. 

Yes, what climbers can do in these comps is incredible; it is even more amazing that both semis and finals are onsights - keep in mind that semis and finals may have sequences that are similar to the ones used in qualis. One of the IFSC comps let Alex Honnold try women's final (???) boulders, he tried slab problem before it was adjusted to be harder. He did not send, but managed to get to the hard part. I believe 3 women topped it. According to some commentators men's routes are 5.14-/5.14

Frankly, I don't care that I don't like speed events, but men's WR right now is 4.74s, which is just bonkers and amazes me. Glad that speed climbers got their dedicated event to show off their skills

Live Perched · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Sep 2016 · Points: 21
Daniel Joder wrote:

A few questions…

Do they all have to tie in with a figure 8?

Who are the belayers? Are they provided? Is the belay device standardized? 

Has anyone seen a competition in which the belayer messed up the climber, by short roping or otherwise?

In the men’s lead, one of the early competitors came off early and was caught not to far above the ground. Has a belayer ever dropped a climber in competition?

I am kinda of new to watching this modern competition climbing stuff, but it is fascinating. The women’s boulder (yesterday?) was incredible—the technique, flexibility, and raw strength. 

There looked to be short rope.  The French guy Paul J got short ropes on the first traverse.  

Live Perched · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Sep 2016 · Points: 21
Brian in SLC wrote:

Yeah, dunno....maybe that left foot drop knee didn't put them in a position to get the next hold?  Shut everyone down.  Kinda wonder if they switched around to a right foot on that hold...

Anyhow...good stuff.  Nice to see Ondra in there for the finals.  Wish Alex coulda made it.  Nice to see one of the US climbers make the top 8 and looked strong.

Ondra slapped the last hold he reached.  He looked calm.  My questions: did he know he qualified already and elected not to spend the energy?  Did he understand his mistake when he reached the apex and not bother with more effort?  Obviously, those are the only possibles.  

M Lead was amazing.  Megos lost concentration for a split second too long.  Hard to see his frustration and disappointment.  

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

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