Adam Ondra is set to compete in the upcoming Lead World Cups in Valence, France and in Kranj, Slovenia, but before doing that he’s made a stop in the Frankenjura where he’s done three 5.14d’s in a single day according to his 8a scorecard.
He started off with a second go repeat of The Elder Statesman followed by a second go repeat of The House Of Schock, and then he finished up the trifecta with a repeat of Sever The Wicked Hand. Not content, as usual, he then finished up the day with a second go repeat of Wut zum Leben (5.14b).
Not bad.
I guessed wrong…
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Well then, it looks like his performance in the World Cup is going to come down to his ability to read plastic after focusing on rock for so long. It’ll actually be really interesting to see how he does because it could clearly demonstrate how different (or not) comps and outdoors really are, because he’s clearly the best outdoors right now,
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@Dylan
Comps are not simply “the best climber wins” but “the guy who does best right here right now wins”. I bet in Frankenjura he didn’t feel half the pressure he will experience in the World Cups.
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This is actually a rather worthwhile point. Climbing (particularly redpointing outside) is a fairly unique sport in that you get as many tries on a route as you need, and the final (send) go is the only one that matters…the dozens of failed attempts before as simply the groundwork needed to build up to it. As such, an outdoor sport climber generally doesn’t need the ability, needed in most other sports, to summon up a peak performance at a specific time on a specific day. If you are feeling weak one day, or the conditions aren’t to your liking, you can usually wait until tomorrow, or next week, or even next season. This is particularly true for the pro climber with weeks or months available to hang out at a given crag until they send (the weekend warrior faces a bit more in the way of time pressure).
The world cup climber, on the other hand, needs that ability to perform, under pressure, at a given moment. To win at world cups, you have to be able to perform consistently, not just when you feel like it. Two different modes of performance, for sure.
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1 – Adam will be competing in Valence, France, this coming weekend, not just Kranj.
2 – I doubt reading plastic can be a problem when you read rock so well. Endurance, on the other hand, might be an issue
3 – Pressure? He didn’t train for competitions nor did he partake in the rest of the season. The pressure will be on the guys for which the seasonal title is at stake. In fact, I believe that he was pressuring himself to onsight another 9a, as you can kind of see in this interview
http://www.restjug.com/2013/10/adam-ondra-sabbatical-ends/
and he will have less pressure at the WC.
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…and thanks for proving my point Adam!
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I believe that he was training to figure out how to keep Papi off base, not so much for the WC
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