Olympic Climbing SPOILERS

Note:  This thread will include spoilers, and is generally about competition climbing on plastic.  If either of those pose a problem for you I'd suggest a different thread.  I guess you can post about speed climbing but IDGAF.  

Tough first day for the men!  A bunch of sloper-y problems, outdoors in the heat?  No tops on #3, and I don't think any problem saw more than 3 tops.  I don't think the setting was unfair, a bit devious on 1 that you had to stand up into the final hold and press, couldn't grab it from below.  Wild to see everyone grease off the top holds on 2, then watch Sorato come through and nail it.  

Colin's got a bit of work to do to make the finals, but it's only .5 between him and 7th place, so definitely possible.  Megos WTF man?  He's washed.  

I want to see Alberto not make the finals and for Colin to make the finals. That is all. It would be cool to see Megos and Ondra in the finals.

Math Bert wrote:

Megos WTF man?  He's washed.  

You're a joke if you think this. Just because someone isn't winning gold at plastic parkour/circus climbing doesn't mean they are washed. 

Being a plastic king/queen is cool and I enjoy it as a sport, but its not as impressive as outdoor accomplishments. 

I'll be sending strong ant-gravity vibes at Ievgeniia "Jenya" Kazbekova (Ukraine) in the women's lead climbing comp.

If I were a Megos fanboi and looking to defend him from a throwaway joke comment, first of all I probably wouldn't, but second I'd go with "It's just 4 boulders, sometimes it be like that".  Especially on a day where out of 80 attempts, we saw 7 tops, total.   If I were going to say something like "it's nothing like what he grew up wiht1!!!" then that would force me to also explain how Ondra and Shubert, who are both older, did reasonably well, and I wouldn't want to have to do that. 

Math Bert wrote:

If I were a Megos fanboi and looking to defend him from a throwaway joke comment, first of all I probably wouldn't, but second I'd go with "It's just 4 boulders, sometimes it be like that".  Especially on a day where out of 80 attempts, we saw 7 tops, total.   If I were going to say something like "it's nothing like what he grew up wiht1!!!" then that would force me to also explain how Ondra and Shubert, who are both older, did reasonably well, and I wouldn't want to have to do that. 

Dude you live in fucken Minnesota and your killing your own dumb topic, slack up a bit maybe.

Hank to the rescue

I'm not a Megos hater but I don't think it's a shocker that he's underperformed (not just at the Olympics but at comps in general) when he's always had an open distain for technical movement. He has said in countless interviews that he hates kneebars, heel/toe hooks, slab, etc. It's not just run+jump parkour BS, it's anything that's not in a 2d plane of movement. I get it, I like straightforward power climbing too but you can't expect to win the biggest climbing comp in the world if you openly admit you're not trying to be an all-rounder. 

It'll be interesting to see how he does in sport, especially now that lead is getting more committing/low-percentage - he's so damn strong that maybe it makes up for other areas of weakness but who knows.

I wished it was a little easier, it's way more fun to watch when it comes down to more flashes versus tries. Coming down to zone 1s and attempts was boring and I bet sad for the competitors. 

It’s not even that “it’s just 4 boulders.” It’s more like 1 boulder. Ondra topping the 4th boulder alone gave him a high score. If Megos topped a single one, he would have qualified. Maybe this is normal in comps, I haven’t watched many.

Does make for interesting strategy though, i.e. Ondra giving up early on the 1st one to presumably save energy and focus on a single problem.

I agree it seems more fun when they’re a bit easier. But it does make it all that more impressive when Sorato makes them look easy.

NBC coverage of the men's boulder round was total crap, is there a better stream? I thought Honnold was over there to commentate?

I watched it on USA network and/or peacock.  Wasn't too bad.  Paid little attention to the commentary...  Those boulder problems looked hard!  Really interesting mix of balance, technique and power.  Wow.

Didn't prefer watching a competitor (Ondra for instance) and in the middle of their try...they cut to another climber.  Only four boulder problems...a quad split screen woulda been nice (ha ha).

Maybe the BBC coverage is better? 

Good luck US gals! 

I really don’t like the split screen format. Also don’t care for the recent ifsc drone perspectives, odd angles and bizarre cropping. Oh well, there’s my 2 cents not worth a plug nickel. Do enjoy watching single climber climbing, then highlights with odd angles as filler would be ok by me.

Gold Plated Rocket Pony wrote:

NBC coverage of the men's boulder round was total crap, is there a better stream? I thought Honnold was over there to commentate?

Meagan Martin, where were you?

Live Perched wrote:

Meagan Martin, where were you?

Huh, I'm watching it on youtube TV that just records NBC's coverage. It's some british guy and petra klingler commentating. What are you watching it on?

I feel bad for the South African climbers. Both of them came out and had to sit on the stage alone, unable to do the first move on the first problem.

Gold Plated Rocket Pony wrote:

NBC coverage of the men's boulder round was total crap, is there a better stream? I thought Honnold was over there to commentate?

#betterthanmattgroom

Gold Plated Rocket Pony wrote:

Huh, I'm watching it on youtube TV that just records NBC's coverage. It's some british guy and petra klingler commentating. What are you watching it on?

I watched it on Peacock with the same announcers, Klinger and the Brit.

As an uninitiated, color and play by play commentating doesn’t seem super important and the difficulty is hard to gauge.  In her absence, I can appreciate just how good Meagan Martin is and how important the commentary is.

To be fair, the Olympic set up with four amazing climbers simultaneously flailing dozens of times on four boulders was difficult to cover.  Klinger did improve after the initial 30 minutes.  

Having been to small comps and watched big comps on YouTube with more tops, the lack of tops and repeated swinging around seemed to take a lot of energy out of the audience.  That is hard to commentate over.  

Live Perched wrote:

To be fair, the Olympic set up with four amazing climbers simultaneously flailing dozens of times on four boulders was difficult to cover.  Klinger did improve after the initial 30 minutes.   

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).

“…can’t even do a single move…”

I soooo identified with them!! 

You guys should have seen the last Olympics with the speed climbers attempting boulders. Big oof.