Whew. What a finish. Congrats to Sean McColl and Alex Puccio for winning 2011 ABS Nationals in impressive fashion with flashes of their final problems. Here are the final standings:
| Men’s Final Results | Women’s Final Results |
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Thanks again to everyone who tuned in for the live blog. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the show.
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More to come but until then you can read the live blog archive and check out a few screen caps I grabbed during the broadcast:
final results are posted on the ubcprotour now!
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Nevermind, you already know. 8)
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The commentator was super annoying, better with the sound off.
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I didn’t find the commentator TOO bad (other than every other word being ‘absolutely’), but the announcer at the event was absolutely awful. How would you like it if an old guy in a beanie was yelling at you in stereotypical 90’s surfer speech while having five minutes to work a V10+ boulder problem?
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I did not watch but was it the same guy who did the announcing at the utah finals(i think it was) event with sharma, glassbergm woods, carlo, etc.
If so they really need to get rid of him. I’m the first to admit that I’d be terrible at this but again they need to step it up and get someone who has some experience in this type of thing. There has to be a climber out there who would be good at this.
I still think Obe would be a good choice.
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No way, Obe is really bad. I hate to hate, but I really can’t stand when he does commentary.
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I’m wondering why Alex Johnson (Male) is placed 8th after semi’s.
He has the same result as Magnus Midtboe. But Magnus did better in the qualifiers (6 tops) instead of 5 tops for Alex Johnson.
So based on the result and the fact that the IFSC Scoring system is used (1.Tops, 2 Attempts for top, 3 Bonusses, 4. attempts for bonus)it seems that magnus would be placed 8th and Alex 9th.
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Hey Herman. USAC used a different scoring method than the IFSC for this comp. They used 1. Tops, 2. Bonus, 3. Attempts to top, 4. Attempts to Bonus.
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yeah, found it in the other post
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from sean mccoll’s blog, can anyone shed any light on this? is this what happened?
“Let me lay this out for you. I qualified in first place (I’m Canadian FYI), then there were a handful of Americans from 2nd – 5th, and then in 6th place was Nicholas Sherman (Columbia Citizenship) so they were like oh we need to let two more Americans into finals. So they kept going down the list, and found that in 7th place was an American, then in 8th place was Magnus Midboe (Norwegian Citizenship). They then proceeded to “skip” Magnus to let the 9th place competitor (who was another American) into finals. WAIT, WAIT, WAIT. So you’re telling me that even though Magnus clearly BEAT whoever placed in 9th place, that person advances to finals, and Magnus is just S.O.L? Something about that just doesn’t make sense. So based on that paragraph, Magnus came 8th after semi finals, but because they’re going to take 9th place into finals, Magnus is going to finish 9th place at ABS Nationals… without even getting a chance to compete in finals. In my opinion this is just wrong, and unfair. In my opnion, they should’ve let Magnus into finals for finishing 8th, and then realizing that there still wasn’t 6 Americans in finals, let the 9th place as well. Again, my opnion, so think what you like on how they select for finals.”
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just gonna put it out there. IF YOU think that you can do a better job of commentating on a bouldering comp, id love to see it. otherwise, shut up. it has to be INCREDIBLY difficult to try and give commentary to people who’ve never watched a bouldering comp ever and at the same time try to explain to the desk boulderers why daniel woods wasnt in finals even though hes like teh bestest evar and continue to keep it interesting for the people out there who know how many tries it took ethan pringle to finish iron monkey. chill on the commentary commentary. please.
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Without having heard this year’s broadcast, but having put up with probably close to a decade of Sal Masakela announcing the x-games, I can sum it up with three words: Less is more.
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shut up tim. let the people in question defend themselves if they choose. stop doing others dirty work and take care of yourself
love
bassforyourface
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Ya that announcer at the event was horrible… I believe it was the same guy that did the earth treks comp that kept says “A000000h D Woods!”, F-ing annoying…
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Obviously I’m in the minority here but I thought the announcing improved dramatically from the previous comps. I liked all the different cameos and thought he did a good job explaining all the intricacies of our sport. As of right now there is no Bob Costas of rock climbing. I think we should be happy that they are making strides, even if they aren’t yet at the point we would all like to see.
But the guy down on the floor, he was absolutely horrendous. I can’t imagine how annoying it must be for the climbers to have him screaming nonsense in their face while they only have a few minutes to figure out a hard problem.
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The dude’s job is to get the crowd there psyched, if it works there then that’s all that matters. I understand we dont have espn quality but what can we expect. What would you like to see more of?
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Definately wasn’t getting people in the crowd psyched. Pretty much everyone hated it.
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Some good points here on the commentary . . . it is nearly unanimous that the floor commentator is annoying and horrible. He is an embarrassment to the sport, and I would think (perhaps worse) distracting for some of the competitors. For any sport, if the activity of the sport itself doesn’t get people “psyched” to watch it, then the sport is lame and so much the worse for it’s popularity. The “color” commentary did improve from the last event, but that is largely due to the fact (as noted by some folks on Narc’s FB) that the inclusion of guests was a good idea, and that most were much better than the main guy. The guests would calmly describe what the climbers had in mind for the next move, what needs to be done, etc. They would provide relevant information. The main guy didn’t seem to learn a thing from the last comp and I can’t believe that someone in production didn’t tell him to stop beginning every reply to other commentary with the word “absolutely.” Sometimes he would say it three times in a row. He likely said it nearly 100 times during the broadcast. Sorry, that is unacceptable at any level. Also, his descriptive vocabulary of individual climbing styles was limited pretty much to one word: “interesting.” Sure, these guys are not pros, but that doesn’t mean they have to be so deplorably bad. And as Sean (above) said, no matter how adept the announcers are: Less is more.
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Listen. I hear that everyone has some problems with the announcer. To all you anonymous whiners out there, the announcer was Scott Mechler, the man behind the PCA. He literally brought professional bouldering to the forefront in america. He has arguably done more for the sport of professional bouldering than any other route setter and did it almost singlehandedly. At Saturday’s event there were 6 route setters and they had a week to set the problems. Scott would have 2 days for the PCA, set 90% of the problems himself, then he would MC the event. If any of you think you could do better then I’d like to see it. To call him an embarrassment to the sport as “John” did is not only inaccurate but a flippant insult to a guy who has busted his ass for 8 years to make events like this happen. How about a little appreciation for the fact that he put over 100 hours of his life into this event? His job was to get the crowd psyched and to give interesting facts about the climbers. Having been at the event he did both of those things. Thanks Scott for the effort!
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Scott Mechler clearly has done a lot to promote bouldering, and the sport is most definitely indebted to him for that. Being critical of his MC-ing skills is in no way detracting from his overall contribution. The fact is, regardless of everything else he has given to the sport, he is not a good MC. It was quite annoying, and I was surprised that nobody had brought it up with him. If I was competing or viewing, I would have been extremely distracted by his comments. My experience of his MC-ing skills was limited to the brief segments that were shown on the live stream, but it seemed as though he offered no interesting and insightful commentary (notes on beta, tricky sequences, hold quality) only an amateurish attempt to “hype” people up. If the sport really wants to reach the next level and be taken seriously, then they need to improve significantly when it comes to announcing and color commentary.
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Josh I agree that his route setting has nothing to do with his MCing. My only point in mentioning his contribution to bouldering was to say that calling him and embarrassment to the sport is ridiculous. If you don’t like his MCing fair enough. Personally I love it. Growing up climbing and watching the PCA, Dosage Vol. 1, etc. Mechler was the man! Seeing him live in action for me was awesome. I’ve seen him MC before and I hope to see it again. I love the psyche!
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I work for a small company. We suffer from what’s called “founders syndrome”. Two absolutely great guys started a business 30 years ago and brought it to the successful status that it is at. Unfortunately, over the last few years, as they have had the opportunity to relish in that success, they have done more damage than good. At this point, those two great guys I mentioned should step aside and do what they did best from the start….hire the right people and let them get to work.
I didn’t hear the commentary this year but it sounds like there were some improvements and also a bit more of the same thing when it came to psyching up the crowd. I think that everyone would really like that toned down a bit. The vibe in bouldering is always there – it happens even when there are 3 people climbing together in the gym or at the crag – we all cheer and get excited. I think we can trust that the crowd knows when to ooohh and when to aahhh and I’d absolutely love to hear it. I think there’s definitely a place for a floor announcer to say “lets hear it for so and so” or “give it up for so and so” in the middle of a problem but I think it should be left up to his/her discretion. Sincerely – yet another office chair boulderer.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment and I think it’s great that those who are the real players in this are here reading and commenting – I think thats one of the coolest things about the climbing world (climbing aside).
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I tend to agree with some of John’s comments. When you go to a NFL game or NBA game you don’t hear an announcer do hyped up commentary to the fans in attendance. But the announcer will provide small amounts of info. The announcer for a comp should introduce the climbers, announce his or her score for the problem when finished, announce flashes, and occasionally provide the audience with standings and other basic info. There is no need to be yelling at competitors or the crowd.
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Calm yerself JC! You don’t have to put my name in scare quotes because John IS my name; thus, I’m not anonymous. Trust me, I saw the names of the people I’m talking about and recognize that the MC is a seasoned route setter. Kudos to him for that. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself at the event. I would have as well, but Mechler would have seriously detracted from the level. Clearly, the people behind this event want it to grow in popularity. This is made way too painfully obvious by the repetitive cheerleading of the sport by the commentator. This is a worthy goal, but if they want to be serious about it, then they must heed and incorporate critiques of their performances. I don’t care if SM invented bouldering and has personally set every indoor route in the country, that doesn’t make him a good MC, nor beneficial to the sport in that particular role. Maybe the guy who drive the Zamboni should do the play by play or color commentary in hockey, or the main stage director at the Kodak theater host the Academy Awards?
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First, not only is he a seasoned route setter he is also a seasoned MC having worked well over 15 comps. Second, critiques are important and I am okay with people saying that they’re not psyched on Mechler’s style of MCing. My problem is that people have a tendency to come online and shoot their mouths off about someone who has done amazing thing for professional bouldering. To call him an embarrassment to the sport of rock climbing is, like I said, flippant and inaccurate. As far as his MCing is concerned I enjoyed it. I guess it’s all about personal preference.
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professional bouldering… Hype and plastic. Two of the least appealing things about ‘rock’ climbing. Let’s hope it retains it’s limited appeal.
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Everyone has their preferred aspect of rock climbing. Personally I love real rock and would much prefer it too plastic; however, I do think that indoor climbing and competitions are the future of the industry. The reason that the best climbers in the world are making 1/32 of what other professional athletes make and many of us are climbing in an old rundown gym all winter is because there’s no money in climbing. This is starting to change, in a large part due to competitions and the proliferation of climbing gyms. Comp climbing is obviously climbing porn, but it is also an easy way for people to find out about the sport and bring more money to the industry. Let’s hope it’s “limited appeal” starts to grow.
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no way! I want to keep climbing poor. I’m glad there is no money in it, that will help keep the assholes out and the people left will be the ones that love it.
I don’t begrudge new climbers getting in at all, but the shameless promotion and marketing is the very worst part of the sport. If you want to make money, do something else. Lots of guys have jobs and still crank. the current crop of pro climbers with trust funds is bad enough.
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Who learns about the sport through comps?
Virtually everyone there was a competitor, parent or local climber. Who’s going to find the ubc website to watch streams who doesn’t already climb?
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That’s the real question for event organizers isn’t it? How do we get anyone outside our relatively small bubble to even notice what it is we are doing??
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I heard alcohol may have been a factor in the quality of SM’s MC job……..
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HAHA… yeah he definitely had a beer or two, but his MCing was just Mechler being Mechler. He’s always loud and he always brings the ruckus. I guess that has just fallen out of favor.
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So, a Canadian is our National Champion? How’s that work? Or is Alex Johnson technically our Natioal Champion?
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Alex Johnson is our national champion
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@db
I would wager a lot of people could potentially find out about the sport from an online video. How often do you go online and find some stupid video about parkour or some other random fringe sport. Personally, I stumble upon random video’s all the time that get me psyched to try something new. I think that as long as the production value is good, random people are bound to stumble upon a video of a cool climbing comp and get psyched to give it a try.
Who knows how many people attended who don’t actually climb. I’ve gone to skateboarding competitions and the winter x-games even though I have no intention of becoming a skateboarder or skier (although I’ve spent a lot of money trying to do both). The skating comps and x-games were cool to watch and exciting. I think if we can attract people who are just psyched about watching climbing then the sport will grow.
Comps are exciting to watch therefore they have the potential to grow the sport. By making them more accessible we give people more opportunities to be sucked in.
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