The Vail Bouldering World Cup at the 2012 Teva Mountain Games took place over the weekend, and while it wasn’t the best weekend for the American contingent, it certainly didn’t lack for excitement.
For the men it seemed as though Germany’s Jan Hojer was on his way to victory as he easily flashed the first three problems. He was stymied, however, by a hand jam sequence on the 4th problem which knocked him down to 3rd place as both Austria’s Kilian Fischhuber and Canada’s Sean McColl were able to top that problem out. Fischhuber narrowly edged McColl for the gold based on how many attempts it took them to finish all four problems.
For the women it was more gold for Austria as Anna Stöhr held off a game field as she was the only woman to send all four boulders.
Here are the full results:
| 2012 Bouldering World Cup – Vail, CO | |
| Men’s Final Results | Women’s Final Results |
USA Finishes
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USA Finishes
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Not sure what scores like 0t 4b9 mean? Check out this post where I tried my best to explain the World Cup scoring system.
Media
- Will Hummel Photo Gallery
- Ben Fullerton Gallery
- Full live feed
Athletes
To watch someone absolutely crush the first 3 boulders and to get shut down by what boulderers would call a “party trick” is hard to watch. After 3-4 tries, I realized he was probably not going to do the problem. Kilian who was beside me felt the same. He said to me “I don’t want to win like this”… and it’s true. Even though I knew I’d come second instead of third, it wasn’t in the way I wanted. Jan was stronger than both of us in finals.
Im just going to say it, I live up in RMNP and I watch the US Guys climb V15 all day and all night, they put up V15 all day and all night. I never really hear of EU climbers putting up the equivalent (V15) in the mass quantity that our US elite do and yet you never see those same US Elite in the Top 10 of the World Circuits. I think its time that magazines and blogs start coming down on these so called V-RediculousBSRoutes that are going up, as well as the egos that are climbing them.
Post Script: I know I can’t climb at that level, the best Ive ever done was one solid V10 in RMNP (Hueco tanks V4) so please don’t feel the need to ask me what Ive done in hopes of humiliating me, I already know my potential.
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I’m not really sure what one has to do with the other. I think it’s pretty well established that outdoor climbing and comp climbing are two very different games that are hard to excel in at the same time.
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If you have time I’d love to read a post on how they differ. Obviously comps focus more on onsight skills, and I’m guessing comps focus more on big, dynamic crowdpleaseing moves, but I’d love to learn about the more subtle differences.
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ifsc.tv has an archive of every single world cup event from the past three years.
you only have to watch maybe two or three finals (or semis) before gaining a complete and thorough understanding how far removed world cup competition is from bouldering on rock.
big dynamic moves couldn’t be farther from the reality.
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Actually Narc, I’ve been meaning to ask for this for a while:
Can we get an article on the differences between US comps and International comps? I don’t mean just scoring, but having seen a lot of both I’ve noticed things.
> Using (or forcing the use of) the aretes/edges of the wall is much much more popular in international events, but that might just be a function of the walls being modular/mobile.
> International comps have put a heavy focus on use of large bolt on features thats only just starting to get traction in the US.
> Along with that they always seem to have this huge gnarly – one-off looking smooth features.
> I’ve been noticing the World Cup comps have been doing more and more run start \ general low percentage sequences.
I’m sure there’s more I am missing, but I wonder what drives all these differences.
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In outdoor climbing we only hear of the good days and successes. In comps, your results will always be published. That is one of the big differences, I think.
I think most of the US climbers did what one would expect in a comp, or even better. (Compared to earlier results)
But of course, it helps to focus on comps if that is what you want to improve. In the end it also has something to do with the sponsored climbing scene too. I guess that climbers that are sponsored by a climbing federation naturally focus on comps. For other sponsors it could be more imortant that the climber is part of a popular movie,get media attention etc..
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My favorite part of the US world cup is listening to the excuses afterwards. Last year it was “we dont know how to climb volumes”. My personal take is that our climbers are not well rounded. Locking crimps off to your balls is hard, but it doesnt take much skill. It just amazes me that a country of 300 million cant produce one or two podium finishers.
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300 million is irrelevant if there’s only 10,000 who’ve ever even heard of rock climbing.
You don’t get talent from numbers, you get it from a culture. We don’t have a climbing culture. Expecting us to dominate nations like Austria who’ve embraced it as a culture for centuries is probably a better example of the American arrogance that keeps us from doing better in sports like this.
Which, incidentally, is BS– last season showed Americans podium at multiple World Cup events, take third in the overall World Cup standing, podium in the World Championship boulder events as well as win the World Championship overall title.
What’s actually amazing is that someone expects a nation who has absolutely no awareness of rock climbing as a sport do as well as we have….
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Where the hell do you people get these numbers? “10,000”? Why don’t you just make up words, or quote family guy, I mean its pretty much the same as this BS.
Here you go, I find your comment “Shallow and Pedantic”
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Thumbs up again, since I can’t do it twice with the button.
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I once shot a 18 point bull in a white out condition, that doesn’t make me an expert hunter and Where the hell do you people get these numbers? “10,000”? Why don’t you just make up words, or quote family guy, I mean its pretty much the same as this BS.
Here you go, I find your comment “Shallow and Pedantic”
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I am not sure why that would amaze you. The teams from other nations have coaches, training plans, and more experience on world cup style setting. Every guy in the field has climbed v12 or harder, but can you do it in 5 minutes with a goofy sequence? You have to be well rounded, well coached and ready for anything. The american males look lost, the females don’t as much, because they have always relied more on technique then strength, unlike the guys. Females try to figure it out, guys just pull harder. The results don’t surprise me for male or female in a very tough field.
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Our american climbers are focused more on sending and developing new problems on rock and also do comps on the side whereas comp climbing is the focus of many of the athletes that are on the podium and they train specifically for comps. I find it impresive how the americans finished based on this alone. The hard routes that are being put up require the same dedication that it takes to train hard on plastic but the focus is different. You cant expect those dedicated to first acents to compete with those dedicated to plastic and vice versa. who really cares about the standings of comps anyway.
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One last thing, I think it says numbers about our US guys like Matt Wilder that keep climbing solid even though he’s getting up there in the years LOL, that guy freaking kicks ass old school.
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Matt had a great entry on his blog about this very topic leading up to the comp
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It was hard to tell for sure, but it really looked like Jan Hojer’s hands were too big for the hand jams. We were front row, and every time he tried to get his hands in the crack, he couldn’t seem to get his palms in. Hopefully video will show more. It’d be a bummer if hand-size kept him from doing better, although I did love seeing the jams in a world cup!
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Big gallery of photos from the comp is up at http://willhummel.blogspot.com/2012/06/teva-mountain-games-bouldering-world.html
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Not really a fan of putting hand jams in a comp boulder problem . . . Hojer got pretty screwed, he was clearly outclimbing everyone up to that point. The announcers mentioned that he had been practicing hand jams the day before though, so it’s pretty obvious that he was tipped off beforehand. In comparison, Sugimoto appeared to not even be aware of handjams as a climbing technique. Something fishy going on there . . .
Not to mention, the problem wasn’t even set in a way that forced the handjams. Two of the competitors managed to bypass the jams by compressing between the crack and the arete. Maybe that would have been a better use of the black tape than the fairly pointless (and inconsistently enforced) ‘out of bounds’ on the first two finals problems.
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I agree with you about how the particular sequence was set, those were all problems for sure. That said, I did like the concept of throwing something so screwball at world-cup competitors. Hand jams are a climbing skill, ones the average climber uses more dynos or bat hangs, and they’re something a well-rounded competitor should have some experience with.
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My issue is that a perfectly parallel sided crack on artificial features is going to be very hand size dependent, which is not something that a comp boulder should be.
I also think that comps should be about the climbers, not the routesetting. I have this feeling that when setters throw weird stuff like that in there, they’re kind of trying to make the comp about them . . . maybe that’s just me though.
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Agreed on the parallel crack thing, however this could have been solved with a flaring crack, which would have been more difficult anyhow.
As for the comps being about the setters, I agree and disagree. I think the setters are definitely trying to one-up each other, but the result (hopefully) is exciting problems. I actually thought this comp had less “gimmicks” than some of the other world cups, although you have to realize the IFSC themselves are pushing this showy, gimmicky, stupid human trick type of setting because their theory is that it’ll help make the sport more layman-friendly, i.e. the olympics.
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If you look closely there is a tick mark on the hand jam problem pointing to the arete. It seems that the setters were aware of multiple solutions to the problem. In my opinion, this makes for better, more exciting setting.
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The inconsistent enforcement of the black tape as well as the seeming confusion on the part of many of the climbers as to how to start a few of the problems was pretty odd.
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Not to mention three spinners in semi-finals. Why in the hell did they not set-screw every single hold?
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I agree that it was unfortunate to have the comp decided by a hand jam as this is something you rarely (never) see in actual bouldering. This is not to take anything away from a very impressive effort by Killian.
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http://mountainproject.com/v/diesel-power/107047347
http://mountainproject.com/v/chief-broken-wing/106792849
http://mountainproject.com/v/fist-fight/107548036
http://mountainproject.com/v/beer-crack/106050232
http://mountainproject.com/v/gill-crack-aka-the-brat-gill-variation/106514078
Shall I continue?
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I really hope you are not being serious. Obviously there are a few counter examples, but take Hueco Tanks or Bishop for example- maybe less than 0.1% of the problems there have handjams (if that). It’s quite possible to get to v14 without ever knowing how to handjam and seeing how this was a comp to test bouldering strength, i don’t see the need for it.
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It comes down to what we expect of a world cup athlete. I agree it’s rare to see in a boulder problem, but if a large chunk of climbers out there could hand jam that (I felt them post comp, the jams themselves were jugs for a 5.10 crack climber), I’d expect it to at least be a part of the world cup athlete’s library of moves. I don’t expect them to be good at it, but at least know the basics. The larger of climber’s library of moves, the better they’re going to be.
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You said “never,” I proved you wrong, problem solved there. Also I must ask: if 0.1% of problems (according to you) in the real world have handjams, what percentage of World Cup problems have had hand jams? I would venture to guess at this point pretty close to the real world average.
And if this comp was to test bouldering strength (as you put) wouldn’t they just put a campus board out and see who could perform the best there?
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I once shot a 18 point bull in a white out condition, that doesn’t make me an expert hunter
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Oooh man . . . . old people.
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Does anyone who is familiar with IFSC world cup scoring/ranking know if it’s mathematically possible for Alex Puccio to bring her standing up enough in Munich (Aug. 17th) to be in the top three overall?
She’s currently in fifth place with 231 points, 94 points out of third (Noguchi).
http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php?page_name=ranglist&cat=ICC_FB&cup=12_WC
I know the chances of her being able to overcome such a strong field is unlikely, but i’m curious as to what chances are actually available to her, if any.
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It’s mathematically possible but I wouldn’t bet on it. She needs to pass both Noguchi and Markovic. To make up 94 points on Noguchi she needs to win (and earn 100 points). She also has to hope that Noguchi places 26th or worse (earning 5 or fewer points) and that Markovic places 9th or worse (earning 37 or fewer points).
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Boulderers whining about handjams… pure comedy.
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You assuming that the objectors are just boulderers . . . even better comedy.
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Just a minute, not to blow the guys spot up one more time, but Matt Wilder is one of if not the smartest climber in the States which puts him pretty freakin high on the international list. He’s methodical, that BS that they just pull harder is a weak excuse.
Maybe our “Press” should stop treating this “kids” like they are gods, they are not going to achieve “international” appreciation if we keep allowing them to claim V-Ridiculous on every climb.
Coaches? Training? Have you actually been into The Spot, or Movement, or the BRC? They train. They have great trainers; I mean on any given day there are legends setting routes and giving advice to these kids. The only problem is that our Press allows them to think that they are better than anyone else so their arrogance blinds and deafens. They don’t need leaders, they need humility. The sad thing is that losing doesn’t humble Boulderites, it just provides for denial and excuses.
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I’m not American, but I will say that the well-known US climbers seem to climb pretty hard outdoors overseas as well, on problems they didn’t FA. i.e. they don’t climb 8B+ at home and flail on 8A overseas. So if they’re drastically overgrading problems at home, people overseas would seem to be doing it as well.
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Gonna agree with Paul here. This is an awfully cynical post. “Allowing them to claim V-Ridiculous on every climb.” There is enough evidence to go against your implied accusation that the new grades for these climbs are incorrectly high. For example, Woods, in Europe, did three V15 boulders in 5 days last April, one of which he downgraded (and which was first put up by Webb-Parsons, an Australian?). Sure, the others were put up by Americans, but on foreign soil, and their grades have not been questioned.
How about Graham? I don’t think anyone would expect him to have a podium finish in a world cup competition but he has put up more “V-ridiculous” (rather, V13-15) lines in the last several months than anyone else . . . and correct me if I’m wrong, but he seems to have the reputation to back the grades he gives.
The only reason I felt compelled to respond to this was that AJ somehow received a few up-votes, meaning others share the same misconstrued perception of the slew of recent hard FA’s and perhaps how that relates (if at all) to World Cup performance.
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What coaches and great trainers, like who? Legends, so what, doesn’t mean you are a coach or have any idea what it takes to do well in a world cup event. Name the coaches for every U.S.A. climber in the top 20? Are there any?
Yes, I have been in those gyms and yes, I know lots of good climbers are in boulder. A coach would have a plan, an athlete would follow it, and this happens over months or years. giving out random tips at a gym isn’t coaching or training. How did the U.S.A coaches prepare the athletes for this world cup? Enlighten me….
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Well bill, if you actually read a post instead of instantly putting it down, the post did mention the availability of great minds in those gyms as well as great coaches, it also mentioned egos getting in the way. What it didn’t mention at all and I repeat at all was that I had answers so I don’t really understand what enlightenment you are looking for here? Last I checked this was an open forum, you do know what that means? You are taking things personally, which leads me to believe that you are personally involved with the climbers that my opinion has focused on. So with that being said, I apologize that you feel you are better than the grades you are climbing, I apologize for your delicate sensibility, and I apologize for the nature of the discussion that seems to have disrupted your sensibility.
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I like Sean McColl’s post. Very modest of Sean and Killian to recognize the dominance of Jan over them and everyone else.
Is there any video? I didn’t get to watch it online…
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You can watch whole live feed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1fecJv0ups
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Ugh, I hate to even get involved, but I have a sincere question for “AJ”. My name is Dave McAllister and I live in Denver (just to get rid of that anonymous tag). I spend my fair share of time in the Boulder gyms and I’ve spent time with a fair number of the media/press “gods” of which you speak. Alright. Introductions taken care of…let’s get down to brass tacks.
My question is, can you expound on the egos you are speaking of and how this cumulative ego is impeding Boulder climbers’ success in World Cup events? And also, what sort of denial are you speaking of? The denial of a tenth place finish by Daniel Woods or a 4th place finish by Alex Johnson? What exactly are they denying? Or is it the gaggle of other US World Cup athletes you’ve heard making denials? Or is it the “press”?
And excuses. Can you give me some examples of the excuses you’ve heard from the climbers, or are you talking about excuses made by people who aren’t involved in the actual climbing? I haven’t heard any as of yet, other than the valid criticism that a country like Austria is light years ahead of the States when it comes to paying, sponsoring, and fundamentally supporting their climbers (that’s a whole different ball of wax, but I do believe it’s a valid “excuse”). I can give direct examples, from the mouths of Kilian and Anna, per Austrian support, if need be.
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Hey Dave, are you the co-host of Climb Talk Radio? I’ve been listening to the archives. Good stuff, keep it up.
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Ya, Colin, that’s me. Cheers for the kind words! Stay tuned — we’ll be putting all our archives in iTunes podcasts come late June!
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I dont recall putting anyone (“pro” climbers), Daniel is an amazing climber, so is Alex, so are all climbers in my book simply because we all have our own styles and accomplishments. I to know most of the climbers you speak of, I have shared beers with Nicole and we have talked about the same issues, the same as many other climbers. I speak of the press, like I stated in my original.
I get tired of hearing about all the V15s, I do especially when the same climbers that some how were brought into the forum do in fact down grade a lot. My critique was questioning why are they allowed to originally grade so high with the FA? Is it due to their sponsorships? Is it because of social media and the need for fans?
I was just in france, actually I was in a few different places, and every place that I was climbing the same questions were posed to me about the topic I brought up. It was embarrassing actually, Americans are known as being “American” with their ideologies and sometimes that carries over into peoples impressions of us. I guess purity was my original question.
And I am not the only person that feels the same way. To keep in the tradition of this forum I will now make up some numbers and stats: there are 3.2 million people that think the same way as myself, compared to Europe where its only 145,000 people. Thats 41% of the votes that believe in both my thoughts as well as Obamas “change”.
Trust me when I say I speak the same thoughts to a lot of the climbers that are in these circuits. They talk right back civilly, and then we laugh. I feel like this is a mountain project forum with people taking things way to serious, as if it were religion.
And on another note, ego does not necessarily mean a bad thing
“Ego: the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity”
we are all egoists when we climb, we all test our personal identities. Again, I asked about the press and sponsors bloating the grades in order to keep the free shoes and crash pads.
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AMERICA NO MORE WIN AT EVERYTHING?! ANGER!
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I think, at face value, there is a discrepancy in the sense that, if head-to-head performance in climbing competitions is a measure of ability, then certain american climbers have a disproportionate number of v-super-hard ascents in comparison to their European counterparts (that seem to outperform on a regular basis).
This topic has really been beaten to death in climbing blogs, and I for one do not think it’s a black or white issue. Sure, in a perfect world there would be more humility from climbers when claiming a v15 or 14, because in a perfect world a new hard problem would get a lot more international traffic and grade liquidity would come about as a natural consequence.
On the other hand, not only is there fault in the reasoning that competition climbing skills should translate linearly to outdoor ability, but there is an issue of statistical inference as well. It’s easy to think that since few Austrians/Europeans dominate the circuit, it should somehow translate to a national average. Following that train of thought, (even in terms of percentages) Austrians pull harder, and consequently, there should be more super hard FAs overseas in Europe. Something is wrong with that reasoning. One thing is certainly the angle of causality. Rather than
Austrians climb better at comps therefore should climb harder outside,
perhaps it should be,
The few Austrians competitors spend a disproportionate amount of time training indoors and less time working/scoping/cleaning projects outside and therefore have less hard ascents on their scorecards.
I don’t necessarily subscribe to differences in climbing culture philosophy. Colorado is what five million versus Austria’s eight (not that far off) – > don’t really think the state of Colorado is lacking a climbing culture (or even tradition).
I do think that training specifically geared at competition climbing makes a huge difference. The lack of it in the USA is likely a consequence of how the media/sponsorship – climber – climbing “federation” relationship is structured.
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There are several guys over the past few years who have outperformed Ondra at comps – is anyone really going to suggest that he inflates the grades on his FAs or doesn’t climb harder than them outside? It’s absurd.
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Several? Actually not so many in bouldering comps , when you look at it. In the last two years he lost to Dima and Kilian a couple of times,and Mccoll ones. Ondra is a very good comp climber, he is not a good example to prove your point.
More like the opposite. Last year he basically did not compete but took silver and bronze in the world championship, the year before he was total WC cup winner in bouldering and the year before that in lead. ( That said you could be right anyway)
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I can’t tell you how good those jams are or aren’t, I haven’t stuck my hands in them. But it was obvious that many men in the field didn’t throw into it with the idea of jamming. A few just immediately started gaston’ing or compressing it, their carpals never coming close to plastic. I suck at most forms of climbing but I know crack climbing pretty well being that I grew up in So Cal. All the guys I’ve seen who climb rediculously hard have done so on cracks, too. You don’t not climb something because of a feature, its a weakness you work. Lindner and sharma have done 13+ trad, not because they lived in Camp 4 for 3 years but because the learning curve on crack climbing, once dedicated, is pretty easy.
Again, I have no idea how good or bad those jams are. But I do see that many boulderers can’t jam, and many trad climbers are weak as HELL. If I’m going to go on a website and make comments about other people from behind a computer, I’ll at least try to be honest and fair with it. I suck at most aspects at climbing, and I wouldn’t be psyched if people broke down my weaknesses in comments sections… but there you have it.
And this nationalism thing is RIDICULOUS. Your mom happened to shat you out in the US, or in Austria, or in Japan, or whatever. The idea that I or anyone else holds ownership of how well Daniel Woods climbs is silly. The only one responsible for his success is Daniel Woods. I pull hard and want climbers to win who work very hard, who train as much as they can and who want it. Whatever country you are from, if you work hard and you put it on the line, I am a fan of what you do, man woman or child.
If the crux was a tufa-pulling fest Americans would be bitching that its favoring the french, if it was razer edges everyone woudl be pissed because RMNP climbers would get an advantage. Just enjoy it for what it is, and if this makes climbers who got beaten down by the foreign techniques (not necessarily the case, just for sake of argument, again I never felt those jams) work on weaknesses, great!
Hope all is well. I loves you guys.
Greg
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all the bickering about grades, comps and the performance of Americans at the world cup all comes down to an argument about how to figure out who the “best” is. IMO that will never be possible… How can you decide who the best is out of Chris Sharma, Adam Ondra, Dani Andrada, Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell? Not possible. Comps are one area of climbing at which individual climbers can either be good at or bad at. Ondra has a way more impressive outdoor ticklist than probably all of the climbers who have beaten him in competition. Not saying comps don’t matter or aren’t fun, just that it’s only one of many ways to judge a climber. And I’ve never really stopped to think about nationality when I contemplate climbing, but if people care so much then as Americans we have plenty of talented climbers to be proud of, just as the Europeans also do.
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very proud of.
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Competition is the only way to figure out who is the best at anything. The only objective measure is the same day, same route, same rules, just like any other sport. Grades are subjective, depends on the day, 2nd attempt or 50th attempt, and a tick list is partly how good but also how much time you spend, and some of the tick lists are impressive. Plenty of talented American climbers, the Euros are just generally better prepared for comps…
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http://vimeo.com/43392353#at=0
o you know, just your local comp. no big deal.. compared to abs local?? This defiantly wins.
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What’s up with all the jugs?
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