No one cares about speed climbing, Wujiang 2024 Qualifier [SPOILER]

Speed climbing is WAY more popular in other countries, not the USA.  (Speed climbing on certain routes like the Naked Edge or the Nose is somewhat popular here, but not the competition style format that the IFSC runs).  I guess Reel Rock did do a film on this, but still...

For the men, Iranian Reza Alipour dominated for a long while before the Indonesians took over with superstars like Kiromal Katibin and Veddriq Leonardo (the first human to break 5.00 seconds on the speed wall last year).  Until today, Leonardo held the world record at 4.90 seconds, but enter the young American super speedster Sam Watson who's been a rising star since first bursting on the scene at age 16, one of the youngest world class speed climbers in 2022.  Today in Wujiang in the Speed Qualifier, 18 yr old Watson's first round run set a new WR at 4.859, and his 2nd run lowered the WR yet again to 4.798.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7PmeKGh7tI&t=5055s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7PmeKGh7tI&t=7200s

Everyone says we're reaching the limits of the human body here, but the times just keep going down.

Good gawd these dudes are jacked. 

The starts almost look like false starts to me, they def. got a lot of inertia towards the next hold before the beep (or is that just a sync problem?). Not saying anyone is cheating, but a curious diff. between track and field. 

Man I like the idea of speed climbing, but hate the format. Make the route different each comp and make it way harder is my only big suggestion. Different discipline altogether, for sure. Psicobloc forever!

Long Ranger wrote:

The starts almost look like false starts to me, they def. got a lot of inertia towards the next hold before the beep (or is that just a sync problem?). Not saying anyone is cheating, but a curious diff. between track and field. 

I noticed that too, especially in the 2nd clip.  Seems like both guys blasted well before the beep, but if you slow it down and look only at the green light (ignore the sound) then they're still on the ground when the light goes green.  I think it's just a sync issue with the video.

There's a rule that says if you start within 0.1 seconds of the beep it's a false start (under the assumption that human reaction time cannot be faster than 0.1 secs).  I think similar rules exist in other sports.  This rule most likely cost Colin Duffy a medal in the last Olympics: he didn't start before the beep, but he was within 0.1 seconds and therefore DQed in Speed despite being a very fast speed climber.  Kinda glad speed is a separate event in the upcoming Olympics.

This kind of speed climbing seems way more awesome to me:

Long Ranger wrote:

The starts almost look like false starts to me, they def. got a lot of inertia towards the next hold before the beep (or is that just a sync problem?). Not saying anyone is cheating, but a curious diff. between track and field. 

It's totally different from track.

In speed climbing you just can't leave the ground until 0.1s after the start. It's called "reaction time," but that's a completely misleading term. You know exactly when the start is, and you're allowed to start moving before it.

In track you can't generate force until 0.1s after the start, so you don't wind up leaving the blocks until ~0.4s.

The speed climbing route should change every year. Seeing the same route every year? ZZZZZZZZZZZZ............Speed climbing seems to cater towards non-climbers. 

The Duel climbing comp style is 1000000x times more cool. 

grug g wrote:

The speed climbing route should change every year. Seeing the same route every year? ZZZZZZZZZZZZ............Speed climbing seems to cater towards non-climbers. 

The Duel climbing comp style is 1000000x times more cool. 

I think speed climbing is more like track and field (standardized course) than what climbing (routes/moves/conditions are different all the time) means for most of climbers. It's a bit unfair to both sides when speed climbing is being discussed alongside other climbing disciplines. 

On the other hand I'd totally love to see the Rockmaster duel format become another part of IFSC circuit/Olympics. I can imagine watching Adam and Jakob battling on a 13b being very appealing to most climbers (or even quite some non-climber)...

Stoked Weekend Warrior wrote:

On the other hand I'd totally love to see the Rockmaster duel format become another part of IFSC circuit/Olympics. I can imagine watching Adam and Jakob battling on a 13b being very appealing to most climbers (or even quite some non-climber)...

I'm totally cool with both. But man, forget clipping (slow, boring, full of weird rules that I don't care about). Top roping is always going to be lame (sorry current speed climbing). 

If you fall,  fall into a big pool and then the discipline is perfect. 

I haven't been to a climbing comp since like the second X-Games (in the NINETIES), I don't get all excited when one rolls into town, just to watch someone climb without climbing myself. I can go to Seal Rock any day it's cool to see something like that and be severely impressed. Hell I can go to the A7 boulder too and watch someone in complete existential anguish while wearing a 2lb puff jacket because they can't do Captain Hook. Spoiled, I know.

But yeah: maybe if Adam and Jakob are cruising up something hard and one goes for a dyno and plummets 30'?!? 

*smashes a Mountain Dew*

TBH I don't watch track and field either and there was a time I was the golden child of the entire town for T&F. Sorry, went to art school coach! 

But fuuuuck these dudes are athletes bar none.

Stoked Weekend Warrior wrote:

I think speed climbing is more like track and field (standardized course) than what climbing (routes/moves/conditions are different all the time) means for most of climbers. It's a bit unfair to both sides when speed climbing is being discussed alongside other climbing disciplines. 

I think it should be like motorsport - several standardised courses, revisited each season.

You can still have records for the fastest time, and competitors able to go all out with wired beta.

But some variety and testing the adaptability of the athletes.

grug g wrote:

The speed climbing route should change every year. Seeing the same route every year? ZZZZZZZZZZZZ............Speed climbing seems to cater towards non-climbers. 

The Duel climbing comp style is 1000000x times more cool. 

Thing is, the fact that routes *do* change (in bouldering and lead) every year makes it weird as an olympic sport for me.

Are there other disciplines in the olympics (apart from bobsleigh I guess?) where it's the case?

While in other disciplines you can argue that the best athlete/team wins (and especially in individual disciplines it's measurable, with world records etc), in climbing it's not the case as there will always be a part of luck (even if small) involved.

So maybe I'm against the majority here, but I feel like the standardised speed climbing event is the one that "fits" the most into the olympics even if it's (well in my opinion) the least fun type of climbing.

Tommy-Xavier Robillard wrote:

Thing is, the fact that routes *do* change (in bouldering and lead) every year makes it weird as an olympic sport for me.

Are there other disciplines in the olympics (apart from bobsleigh I guess?) where it's the case?

Variation in the physical setting for Olympic sports is not uncommon.

In skiing, not only are the Olympic races on different mountains each Games, but for the technical events (GS and slalom), the course gets reset between the morning and afternoon runs.

Other outdoor racing sports such as mountain biking, kayaking, xc skiing, and I'm sure lots of others have a different course for each Games.

The marathon is run on a different course each time. 

Amazingly to me, soccer field (football pitch) sizes are not standardized; nor are baseball fields (although baseball is only occasionally an Olympic sport).

So for some sports like swimming or track or speed skating (or speed climbing), everything is standardized and you can compare efforts between different competitions over time. You see athletes set world or Olympic records because the physical setting is consistent (leaving aside temperature, humidity, elevation, etc).

But for others, like skiing or climbing, you can only compare the efforts of the athletes on that day: the course is ephemeral. 

Isn't that like, the coolest thing about indoor climbing: that is IS easily changed out? In speed climbing, we're going against the medium by setting into stone (pun!) some hold set that frankly: kinda sucks at a difficulty level that's not anywhere close to being contemporary to what's being done now, and is only getting relative to the hardest: easier. 

And it's not even like the 100M, where you have this unique, perfectly flat, platonic ideal - the speed climbing route is a route still, with bits of lumpy harder parts and easier parts. In Track and Field, the last big 100M race top athletes bounced because the wind was too strong in the wrong direction. Could you imagine a speed climbing opting out of competition because of humidity? 

Honestly, it makes more sense to have the Moonboard in the Olympics and treat it like the pole vault or something, where each competitor tries to do harder and harder problems, and all the other competitors have to match, then beat that problem. Or however moonboard comps work now (I actually don't know!). Change out the set every 4 years - boom! You're welcome Ben Moon, you're employed for the rest of your life!

I am falling asleep. 

The crazy thing to me is that WRs get broken in practice all the time (well, a lot of the time) but they don't count because it's not an "official" time.  A friend told me the unofficial speed wall record is even lower than Sam's new WR.

This happens in the amazing, riveting sport of Rubik's cube speed solving.  There the "course" changes for each scramble, and competitors do thousands of practice solves at home, sometimes beating the WR, but it doesn't count unless the record is broken during an official event where you get only a handful of solves.  People stream practice sessions, so viewers sometimes see the WR get broken, but it doesn't count.  Kind of weird.

Long Ranger wrote: Honestly, it makes more sense to have the Moonboard in the Olympics and treat it like the pole vault or something, where each competitor tries to do harder and harder problems, and all the other competitors have to match, then beat that problem. Or however moonboard comps work now (I actually don't know!). Change out the set every 4 years - boom! You're welcome Ben Moon, you're employed for the rest of your life!

What about a competition where climbers have to set and send their own problems. Score is a combination of the difficulty of the route and the performance on it. I've seen "fun" versions of events like this but it would be interesting to see a competitive one.

Isn't this how gymnastics works? You submit your routine beforehand, it gets a difficulty score, and then you have to execute it and you get an execution score as well.

Red Bull Rampage as well, each competitor gets 2 team members and a week before the comp, as well as a materials allowance. It does have huge judging controversies though.

Sam M wrote:

What about a competition where climbers have to set and send their own problems. Score is a combination of the difficulty of the route and the performance on it. I've seen "fun" versions of events like this but it would be interesting to see a competitive one.

Isn't this how gymnastics works? You submit your routine beforehand, it gets a difficulty score, and then you have to execute it and you get an execution score as well.

Red Bull Rampage as well, each competitor gets 2 team members and a week before the comp, as well as a materials allowance. It does have huge judging controversies though.

As a creative person, I f'n love these ideas. Your first is like a La Sportiva Legends Only comp. But even I don't know if that fits into "Olympic" format. But if I go that direction of thinking, I don't think climbing does either as a whole, and I've thread drifted this post too much already lol. Have I told anyone how I think skateboarding in the Olympics sucks? Hello anyone listening?!

Long Ranger wrote:

As a creative person, I f'n love these ideas. Your first is like a La Sportiva Legends Only comp. But even I don't know if that fits into "Olympic" format. But if I go that direction of thinking, I don't think climbing does either as a whole, and I've thread drifted this post too much already lol. Have I told anyone how I think skateboarding in the Olympics sucks? Hello anyone listening?!

I used to ride BMX a bit, and it's funny, I don't think the reaction to freestyle BMX in the Olympics was a strong as it was for skaters.

I guess BMX already has more sub disciplines (dirt as well as street and park, flatland is bigger, and racing of course) so people were like sure it'd just another specialty, if you want to spin to win in front of IOC judges why not. The IOC also surprisingly got a really core OG street rider in to head up the program (Van Homan) which was a good move for acceptance.

Freestyle comps were huge in the 80s for both skateboarding and BMX, then again in the 90s with X Games, I think those sports have been around the block a few times for organised competition/reaction against organised competition.

If you have a negative opinion of speed climbing, go to the IFSC SLC World Cup Speed climbing Final on May 4.  It may change your mind. At the very least, it will be a good time.

ClimberX wrote:

If you have a negative opinion of speed climbing, go to the IFSC SLC World Cup Speed climbing Final on May 4.  It may change your mind. At the very least, it will be a good time.

Agreed, in person it's so wild. 

ClimberX wrote:

If you have a negative opinion of speed climbing, go to the IFSC SLC World Cup Speed climbing Final on May 4.  It may change your mind. At the very least, it will be a good time.

Strong disagree. I attend the SLC world cup every year and speed climbing is the least interesting event and has the smallest crowd. If you have seen one round of speed climbing you have seen them all.

Came into this thread hoping to see ragging on speed climbing. Leaving sorely disappointed