Everything Wrong with Olympic Rock Climbing Debut

[@CaitofFate]

I havent found a worse debut than skateboarding, but this takes the cake. The fact that they knew to separate park, and street, but not bouldering, lead, and speed is baffleing me

[@grnarsch5287]

Why was skateboarding bad? I didnt follow it just saw that some 13 year Olds did win whats a bit strange

[@CaitofFate]

@@grnarsch5287 the only kid who got gol was Nishiya momiji, who I think deserves it. (You could also be thinking of Ginwoo Onodera's slam of a run at x games) But the announcers for English seemed to barely know anything about the sport at all. A channel named "Skate or Die" has a video called "why skateboarders hate the Olympics" its a great explanation.

[@spencerashworth7822]

@@grnarsch5287 yeah agreeing with layla the commentators sounded like they skated once as a kid and knew nothing about the actual sport. It was a bit annoying to watch imo

[@redgribben7679]

I think there can be some merit to combining all the disciplines, the thing is, there needs to be single discipline medals as well, so it would be comparable to a medley in swimming or decathlon or pentathlon in athletics. This would show off the climbing sport a lot more. Specialist would probably be competing in 1 or 2 categories and the more generalist climbers would be competing in the combined category, just like decathlon and pentathlon in athletics.

[@CaitofFate]

@@redgribben7679 are you talking about climbing or any group of discipline

[@crustwench4307]

Underarm... to overarm...to squeezing... to fingerholds...

[@ClimbingStuff]

There was one announcer who said a hold was an "upside down undercling", which I guess would just be a regular hold lol

[@tonywilson4713]

@@ClimbingStuff I'm actually an ex-swimmer and I agree the Olympics has some screwed up practices and its been that way since 1896. When COVID happened I ended up watching a lot of stuff on YT and that included some rock climbing. I thought it was insane that they only had a combined rock climbing event. You only have to watch some of each event to realise just how different they are. But here's something about swimming you don't know. For many decades there weren't that many swimming events and many world record holders had nothing AND that's been common for many sports. One of my coaches Mike Troy won the 200m Butterfly in Rome and medal in the 4x200m Relay. In those days the swimming only had 1 event for each stroke. There wasn't a 100M butterfly in those days. In fact there were only 8 men's and 7 women's events in 1960 for 15 in total. next year in Paris there will be 35 events including a mixed relay which was only added in 2020 at Tokyo. Give it time and eventually you'll end up with 4 events - boulder, speed, lead & combined. And if you get inventive maybe some kind of team event like a speed relay. Put it this way. AT LEAST you are in the Olympics. Softball and baseball got dropped for break dancing. If you can explain that then go ahead.

[@reformed_attempt_1]

@@tonywilson4713 well, the Olympics have been an absolute joke for about 10 years already, maybe even more

[@tonywilson4713]

@@reformed_attempt_1 What do you mean 10 years?? I think its been a joke for a lot longer than that. Sorry if this takes explaining. But a friend of mine was ripped off by a Chinese drug cheat way back in 1992. When none of the Chinese were caught for anything people started asking what was going on because it really was obvious. For instance the coach of the girl I knew who got a silver medal behind a Chinese girl made no secret he thought she'd been ripped off. Plus when an Australian girl got a bronze and was then tested her coach asked why none of the Chinese girls were being tested. Then FINA released a list of those tested to show they were testing swimmers from all over the world. One of the British coaches asked one of his swimmers to check that list. So you know. I'm Australian but went to college in America on a scholarship and at another of our conferences teams were 4 Brits. So there is a fair chance I actually raced against the British swimmer who was asked. Also at that time the NCAA had fully instituted the Olympic testing. I know this because I was tested as part of that program. What the Brit pointed out was that the list had: - a lot of Americans who were all at college and had been regularly tested - a lot of Australians and Brits who had all been tested following the their national trials. *AND* - a bunch of swimmers from other countries that were ALSO going to college in America and were all being regularly tested. FINA were selectively testing swimmers they knew who had already been tested. That was 31 years ago and to this day the people responsible have never been outed let alone held accountable.

[@NickSteffen]

@@tonywilson4713 The sheer amount of corruption international sports get away with is staggering. I remember an article from a few years back about Russian government bribing and corruption in FINA to the point where they made a new league I will say this though for climbing. The fact that a significant amount participants literally couldn’t complete a bunch of events just makes it absurd.

[@DavidPeveto]

They've announced in Paris 2024 they're pulling Speed out into its own event and having a combined Lead and Boulder event, which feels like a good step forward.

[@heyyywhynot]

This is still stupid - lead climbing _is_ climbing. Climb as high as you can. Everyone around the world does it, since they were kids, whether they know it or not. Bouldering, too, in a way. Speed climbing is fine, but the same course every time, everywhere, done in seconds- it is not worthy of being its own medal event while lead climbing and bouldering are combined into one - effectively making them worth 1/2 as much as speed climbing, in terms of getting a medal. The best climbers in the world are lead climbers, and not one of them could climb the Dawn Wall in 7 seconds.

[@nekohuntress99]

yeah actually they've just developed a new way to combine boulder and lead

[@danieltatar7575]

@@heyyywhynot​​⁠​⁠​​⁠​⁠​⁠ Speed climbing is a very accessible sport to watch. Very simple rules and scoring, digestible in length and it's very visually impressive even to casual viewers. I doubt that the committee deciding for olympic sports cares much about what you or I or the hardcore climbing community considers "real" climbing. Or even if the best climbers win their event. In fact, I'd bet if they had to choose only one, they'd probably keep speed climbing. You also seem to suggest that it being over in seconds is a drawback. Yet, I'd say the most iconic and most prestigious event at the Olympics is the 100 metres final (completed in just under 10 seconds). All that to say: this is a step in the good direction. Climbing seems to be getting more and more popular. I'd wager if it keeps on growing, they'll suddenly magically find time for 4 events (lead climbing, bouldering, combined and speed climbing).

[@joshknapp7455]

They should do it like gymnastics where there are individual events (Speed, Lead, Bouldering) and an all-around event where the points are combined

[@millacabral9475]

The biggest problem by far with Sport Climbing's Olympic debut was the terrible commentators they dug out of some random broadcast network for the event. That main dude was constantly yelling and blabbering generic crap at the audience, while the women would try to explain the physics behind the sport with clearly no actual knowledge of climbing or physics. Thankfully the format will be completely different in Paris 2024, with Speed being a separate event (still tournament bracket sadly tho), then Boulder+Lead comined, where climbers earn scores out of 100 based on successful moves, with the points from each discipline then added together to form the athlete's final points total, which determines their placement and medals. The max possible score for B+L will be 200 points, requiring flashing every boulder and topping the lead wall. This new format also includes 2 zones for bouldering, which I think is much more fair when the last few moves are fkin hard but you get no extra reward unless you top. It has been successfully tested and tweaked over the European and World Championships in 2022 and 2023, so I'm really excited to see it during the Olympics. What remains to be seen is if they will use the experienced and competent commentators that have been covering IFSC competitions for many years or if they'll call up some randos once again depending on the region and language of the broadcast. Ugh. I'm Canadian, so I sincerely hope we get the general UK-English coverage with Matt Groom and someone else, possibly Shauna Coxsey or Meghan Markle.

[@theblev2882]

solid video but disagree with your point on speed specialists just being allowed in. They all had to qualify following the same rules as the other athletes. Miroslaw reached the olympics by making it to the finals of a combined climbing world cup event as well as other achievements

[@pascaljutras178]

Speed climbing should not be mixed with lead or boulder, would you ask a 100 meter athlete to run 10 000 meters, it would be a joke.

[@theblev2882]

@@pascaljutras178 yeah i agree but that has nothing to do with the original comment

[@pascaljutras178]

@@theblev2882the rules for qualifications were stupid and wrong, a minimum of ability for every discipline should be apply and it was not the case. As an average bouldering climber (max V7) I would have done better than some of speed climbers in the Olympic boulder discipline, this is absolutely not normal. My point is that there is no way to get good qualifications rules when the discipline are so different, it was totally stupid.

[@CykoruKun]

​@@pascaljutras178recently on European Olympics a Belgian shot putter competed in 110m hurdles. Went as well as you think it would 😂

[@seanrhm]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@pascaljutras178that’s maybe the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. Do you know how much power speed climbers need to climb that fast? They can easily climb harder than v7, you are not as good as them. Even if you think you are a better boulderer than them, you still would’ve tied them because you would have also got 0 zones. Unless you think you would’ve got a zone as an average v7 boulderer? Check your ego jfc

[@christiangros]

Totally agree with you! These are simply 3 different disciplines. You will never find someone in the pros who can run a 100m race and a marathon and achieve the best time. (I've never seen Bolt run a marathon) Anyone who climbs and bouldering knows that you can't peak in both at the same time. Respect to all the athletes who have managed to master both disciplines with a grueling training. However, the physical stress is so great in the long run that they can not stand it very long or we will soon see special diseases or doping as in other sports. Let's just hope that it remains a sport where the athletes are friends, train together and try to get stronger together and are happy when someone else makes a difficult boulder or tops the route, no matter what country they come from. That's why I love to watch the athletes.

[@isaacbragg-gardiner2456]

To be fair the decathlon (the standard mixed event for girls is the heptathlon, which removes pole vault/discus, and changes the running distances) is like THE event and if you win that you are considered the winner of the olympics. Similarly swimmers who win in multiple events (or IM) are regarded quite highly. There's definitely a desire for mixed events like that, but I think the climbing triple-crown shouldn't be an event, until multiple people start gunning for it

[@Buphido]

I think the climbing triple has merit, so long as the singular disciplines are separate events, it is advertised as a climbing triathlon with competing athletes trained in all three and the scoring system is rethought.

[@rud69420]

I imagine there were a certain amount of medals dedicated to the climbing category and there weren't enough to split the disciplines. I don't think it's an issue of not being able to acquire physical meals. It would have been that the IOC limited the number of medals that could be given to climbers.

[@KimMilvang]

I think it is about medal inflation as well. Weightlifting is a good example. Normally they have two disciplines with individual and a combined medal. I think they used to at the Olympics as well, but now they only have the combined, because 3 medal sets was too much for a niche sport.

[@isaacbragg-gardiner2456]

Yep, medal counts are very important for the IOC, and they only want to add so many medals per year. They only allocated one medal per gender in climbing, so they had to split the disciplines

[@spookyshark632]

Why don't they just axe a few running and swimming events

[@colamity_5000]

​@@spookyshark632why would they axe the most popular events for untested niche events.

[@redgribben7679]

@@spookyshark632 They have too much history and it would create an outcry in those communities. Swimming and Running are also more televised and more popular on the world stage.

[@spencerj4677]

Solid video man! You made your way into my algorithm, so I'd say you're on your way to getting bigger.

[@ClimbingStuff]

Thanks! The algorithm can be a cruel mistress lol

[@thorna100]

You didn't cover the awful commentary 😂😂 also when Jacob topped the lead it was so anti climactic because it was like the height of excitement yet it was crowning someone else the champion. Felt weird.

[@ClimbingStuff]

I still get annoyed watching it, Jacob climbed so well all around and went on to top the lead wall followed by, "AnD tHe CrOwN gOeS tO sPaIn!!!!"

[@thorna100]

@@ClimbingStuff I also always wonder how it might have changed the result if they put the zone hold as the one Ondra got too on boulder 3. Everyone went so easily to that one crux move, then Adam was the only one who did the move but he got nothing for it which was a shame. If he got a zone there would have made a big difference to his score I reckon. As you say the margins were a bit too thin.

[@ClimbingStuff]

@@thorna100 I think IFSC is transitioning to having 2 zones per boulder which is pretty cool. That would have definitely given Adam the edge on boulder 3 and separated the climbers scores a lot more.

[@alexschmidt6644]

The real issue that you didnt mentioned is that they decided to scored by multiplying the scores????? So if you didnt come in first in one of the 3 events it was basically impossible to make the podium

[@roxane1237]

He did mention it when explaining how Ondra suddenly fell to the 6th place. I remember watching it live, you could see on the face of the athletes that nobody understood what was going on. Schubert didn't realise he got 3d place until he was half way down the rope and his coach signed 3 with his hand. The spanish guy didn't get ecstatic or anything. He was very shocked and placid, maybe he felt like he didn't deserve it and it pained me to see this. I was rooting so much for Mickael Mawem since he was an underdog but a great all rounder. He should have gotten the medal, I dont know if he will ever get a chance anymore with the new format. Also I think the heat played a big big role. Summer in japan is horrible and climbing when the climate is hot and wet makes everything so slippery. You could see the frustration of Rogora when she couldn't perform how she would Hve expected to. Anyway I'm psyched for the paris games and hope that Mickael will perform as well as he did !!

[@panner11]

I mean in the women's event, two of the three medalling athletes didn't come first in any event, so it's not close to impossible. But yes, it's not balanced well

[@DirtyPoul]

Probably would've been better to add the rankings rather than multiply them, and do something clever about tie breaking. That would solve the issue of losing 5 places because someone passed you. Incidentally, this would've resulted in Tomoa Narasaki winning, which is honestly what was expected from the beginning considering his usual dominance in bouldering and being by far the fastest non-speed climber at speed climbing.

[@allanhee]

Miraslaw could have gone home after speed and still tied for the 3rd best score in the competition.

[@arthurdoktor]

Actually multiplying the scores favors climbers who do equally well in all disciplines. Fx if you score two 7 then that would give 14/49 depending on if added or multiplied. A 6 and a 8 would give 14/48. A 5 and a 9 would give 14/45. A 4 and a 10 would give 14/40. A 3 and a 11 would give 14/33. A 2 and a 12 would give 14/24. A 1 and a 13 would give 14/13. So you see multiplying hurts athletes who do really well in one discipline and not so well in others. You are really screwed if you get a bad placement in any of the disciplines.

[@anvil-o4l]

It wasn't that they couldn't produce enough medals, it's that climbing was on a trial run and they tend to ramp up the number of medals based on how well it goes. Climbing gets more medals next time, and that was always going to be the way it happened based on my knowledge

[@16m49x3]

would be better to just omit speed entirely for the trial, as it's arguably the most niche of the branches

[@anvil-o4l]

@@16m49x3 but equally the easiest to understand and be impressed by if you're not a climber

[@BMixMyster]

@jamesowen4059 you are exactly right. This was a test, speed was the easiest to understand. Climbing got great exposure and was well received and it will be split next Olympics. Maybe the Olympics after that there might even be three separate disciplines getting their own medals. This guy seems uninformed about a number of things… and the “Men’s Boulder 1 would be a V0 in my gym”… what???!!! Ridiculous! Anyway, I was very excited to see climbing in the Olympics and I believe it will only get better. :)

[@tobiastames5224]

@@BMixMyster He was saying that ironically, he was poking fun at all those people who say "this would be a V0 in my gym" every time somebody posts a video of any problem on here or on Reddit.

[@infernoleopard3524]

The speed climbing record setter not winning gold because she was quite specialized to being a speed climber reminds me of how a guy in the early modern Olympics set a long jump record in a similar kind of combination event and ended up not getting gold

[@phsopher]

No one let anyone in. How did speed specialists qualify? Well, largely they didn't. There were three speed specialists out of twenty for men, four for women. How did those qualify? Simple -- by being good at speed. Miroslaw and Bassa Mawem (who was the speed specialist, not Mickael) were both 7th out of 20 in the qualis, Anouk Jaubert was 8th, Khaibulin was 11th, Yiling was 12th. They all beat lots of top boulder/lead climbers. The scoring system simply favored being good at one discipline.

[@soyanchd5439]

A gold medal cost about between 800 to 1300$ at current silver and gold price based on its size. Not cheap but the IOC could definitely afford some spares for all 3 disciplines

[@BobfromSydney]

3 medals x 2 extra "events" x 2 genders x $1300 = $15600 - we can round that up to $18000 to cover the silver, bronze and obligatory floral bouquets. That's the cost of two first class tickets for IOC officials flying from Europe to Japan or >0.1% of the cost of a stadium. The IOC could certainly afford it.

[@benjaminvoisin7811]

The issue with medal is not the cost of making more medals, but the fact that the number of medal in the Olympics is supposed to be constant. Meaning that adding a new sport implies removing one medal elsewhere

[@johanalejandrocazadordepin7225]

Why is it supposed to be constant?

[@Monkchelle_Kongbama]

@@johanalejandrocazadordepin7225 to appease the gods, obviously

[@noodlesthe1st]

Take it away from swimming. They have so many medals that the same athlete can win. Michael Phelps isn't the most decorated athlete because he is a master of so many disciplines but because swimming has the most medals and he is an absolute beast at swimming. So many other sports you can be the goat but only every get the chance at a single medal per olympics.

[@DirtyPoul]

0:23-0:35 It's quite easy to find the answer. The silver medals are silver, gold medals are silver with a few grams of gold on the surface (so like gold plated, but using much more gold), and bronze medals are really cheap because they're made of... Yes, you guessed it, bronze.

[@carinthian_boulder]

everybody seems to forget, that Adam, who was by far the worst speed climber, got served a 4th place finish in speed because of the DNS of Bassa he got to advance into the next round.... Seems pretty stupid to me, to give the free round in a KO format to the slowest competitor out of the qualifying. so therefore he shouldnt have got a medal anyway... All in all this was a rather stupid competition and EVERYBODY knew this beforehand!!

[@overgrownkudzu]

well he simply shouldn't have been in the speed climbing discipline because he's not a speed climber and this shouldn't have been combined

[@carinthian_boulder]

@@overgrownkudzu of course... I think everybody would have been ok with a combined format of Boulder and Lead just leaving Speed behind because nobody cares about speed anyway... But this was the format and Adam sucked at Speed more than Jakob or Tamoa did. So if he would have won a medal it would not have been fair imho

[@noodlesthe1st]

@@carinthian_boulder I would like to see all 3 as separate events and for the bouldering to lean into the more dynamic parkourish style climbing while the lead try to mimic outdoor climbing more. That way we have something for the purists and the revolutionaries.

[@earlgrey2130]

Well.. the olympics handled climbing as i handled my first time. No idea what they were doing, trying to be creative and ultimately ended up disappointing everyone involved. But there is always the second time to make up for initial fuckups.

[@darkaquatus]

I personally really don't mind the combination of lead and bouldering because that gives people with slightly different specialties the possibilities to compete with each other. Besides, the two disciplines really compliment each other, so I believe the current format is perfectly fine.

[@vojtam5063]

They got two gold medals(w&m) to award. This limitation is based upon the scale of the organisation effort needed. If you would ask me, this is unfair. Just look at swimming how many disciplines there are. At that point the climbing association had to make a decision which discipline to show to the world and because it would be unfair to the other ones they decided to show them all at the cost of huge compromise and because it was first and only time this combination would exist, they made some mistakes. That is all. No need for this drama. Next time it will be better.

[@holyknightthatpwns]

The commentary about the actual climbing is insightful, but most of your questions about why and how things were done, how people qualified, why heats are used, etc are well documented.

[@IzzyIkigai]

Well documented doesn't mean it makes sense to apply them to everything.

[@panner11]

@@IzzyIkigai There's just a lot of assumptions and questions in the video that are very lacking in very basic knowledge and research about the Olympics. The whole beginning when he said they weren't enough medals, he thought there physically weren't enough medals? Of course the physical medals don't matter for a multi billion dollar event, but countries are stingy about medal counts so it's limited. And the swimming comparison was a bit random and unnecessary. Obviously, swimming is one of the biggest draws in the olympics for a long time, it's a bit drama baity to complain about it. When it got onto to talk about climbing, it was good. But the opinions about the other sports in the Olympics came off as rather ignorant.

[@billfrench1069]

@@panner11but didn’t you know that swimming is a relatively new thing for humans in general?

[@AJ-wn7eo]

Yes agreed-particularly how the speed climbers were able to qualify. They qualified in the same competitions as everyone else! Also, the setters accidentally setting a v14 was also incorrect: the athletes were reading the beta incorrectly. It was probably too complex but the routesetters (who are not at the level of the competitors, sometimes nowhere near) were able to do that boulder with different beta. That might not have been as widely known though

[@kd5nrh]

Combining climbing disciplines makes about as much sense as putting all the combative arts together. Strange that they seem to be able to comprehend how dumb it would be to make wrestlers also compete in judo, karate and taekwondo, but can't figure out that there are specialties in climbing. Now if they just want to make all the combatives one big cage match battle royale, I'd watch.

[@0Clewi0]

The true mixed martial arts.

[@DrZaius3141]

Or making a competition where you had to do the shot put and the pole vault. Oh wait, those exist. And while rewarding generalists is something that can be odd at times (and I agree it shouldn't be the only competition), it's perfectly valid which is why the decathlon is the crowning event of any Olympics.

[@0Clewi0]

@@DrZaius3141 I mean, if you want a better example gymnastics have all and individual element medals, there's a difference between rewarding both and just the generalist, at least in a competition about peak human capabilities.

[@BobfromSydney]

@@DrZaius3141 Imagine making Decathlon the only Olympic event that involves shooting and getting rid of medals for the rest of the shooting events or combining all of the rowing events together, it's rather silly and disrespectful towards the sport.

[@bermuda333]

I think the idea of outdoor climbing in the olympics might be cool, but there are definitely an insane amount of factors to consider as opposed to indoor. It would be nice though to see, and I think it would be a great way to showcase the rock / boulder styles that each country has to offer.

[@shyers3667]

As a swimmer, I found it confusing and weird why my sport was thrown under the bus. But after watching Miroslaw get the world record and not even podium. Damn.

[@jakerussell135]

i looked it up, a gold medal is 92.5% silver, contains about 6 grams of actual gold, rest is just some relatively cheap alloy (bronze i think). in total, it costs about $750 in materials

[@someoneonyoutube181]

"We arguably have been climbing much longer than we've been swimming, since swimming is probably relatively new to us as humans". Unbelievably bad argument. Do you know where all life came from? Long before apes? Few prehistoric humans were doing such needlessly dangerous things like climbing up a cliff. What we WERE doing was crossing rivers and lakes, and catching fish. If almost all humans can swim, but only a small proportion can even do a pull-up, what does that tell you?

[@VAFFANFEDE18]

1:50 that can happen in many sports. You can be the fastest to ever run the 100m, do it in the semis and lose the final

[@sanchi2315]

According to chatgpt - Total Cost: When combining material costs with production costs: The cost of a gold medal can range from $1,000 to $1,500. The cost of a silver medal can be around $500 to $800. The cost of a bronze medal can be around $10 to $20. You can buy a chalk bag for a bronze medal

[@BernhardKohli]

I don't see it as a bad debut. Just room to grow. Do it like in weightlifting: individual and overall medals! That rewards the specialists AND the Overall best climber! 🙌

[@rico9163]

100% a bad debut, not the climbers fault though was definitely the organizers

[@Ellie-rx3jt]

Weightlifting doesn't actually have separate medals for the c&j, snatch, and total at the Olympics. If you bomb out in the snatch you don't even compete in the c&j. Although weightlifting also has more medals overall than the separate climbing disciplines would require, due to the weight classes.

[@IzzyIkigai]

The fact that Ondra didn't make first place or at least podium just shows how broken the scoring system is. It's like failing Einstein in physics. But tbh i think it's good that there are boulders that can't be solved even by current champions in the given time. It gives the viewer the "even the best have room for improvement" feeling that will get them to watch again the next time.

[@tashima42]

You got me at the monke swimming

[@gabrielzang5993]

It's not about the cost of the medals. It's about the numbers of events in the olympics. You can't have to many events as a new sport.

[@purple2739]

The events were already there. They just merged them together as 1 medal. Finish the video.

[@laszlopanaflex193]

The speed climbers qualified the same way the other lead and boulderers - finish top 8 in the world champs or Olympic qualifier. They weren’t just chucked in. Also Mawem wasn’t the only male speed climber, Rishat from Kazakhstan and Luduvico from Italy were as well.

[@Bombsuitsandkilts]

Definitely should split into separate disciplines, but that also means cutting out other sports. I think it would also be cool of every olympic cycle. There was a new sp33d climbing route

[@scatdawg1]

Why does that mean you have to cut out other sports?

[@eccehomer8182]

Rhythmic gymnastics, synchronised swimming, God knows how many medals in shooting, rowing, cycling and sailing. As for climbing, personally, I'd just ditch speed climbing... it's boring... the same course... every climber doing the same moves. It's not climbing... it's vertical running. Bouldering and lead is all that is needed.

[@Bombsuitsandkilts]

@eccehomer8182 well if it's vertical running and running is in the olympics then why shouldn't it be in the olympics, you may not enjoy it like I don't enjoy watching figure skating but people dedicate their lives to a sport to try and get to the highest level, including speed climbing

[@16m49x3]

@@Bombsuitsandkilts Still boring. The holds could have been equidistant bars with varying thickness and it would essentially be the same. The route is completely arbitrary

[@overgrownkudzu]

@@scatdawg1 because there's limited time, money, facilities etc. every athlete and their trainers need to live somewhere, it's a massive undertaking

[@samhitchcock3560]

Best discussion of Olympic Rock Climbing debut in Tokyo. Thank you.

[@nalivai4862]

They always do it. It's easier to push it in as a combined event at first and decouple later, than try to introduce it as three different disciplines from the beginning. People who did it probably recognised that it's bad, but deemed it necessary

[@overgrownkudzu]

as far as i know, next time at least speed will be a separate category which already makes way more sense

[@patatasfritasviewer]

I understand your points but I find interresting too to compare the different skills of the climbers. I'm thinking to powerlifting where there is 3 movements, each athlete can be specialist of one but the goal is to be a complete powerlifter, like strong with every muscle. There is a medal for each movement but the winner remains the best of three. I just find very interresting to also consider versatility as a true athletic quality, maybe we could find a format to reward as much climber ho chose to specialise than those who are good in any type of climbing.

[@poptartsaredying]

ifsc uses tournament brackets for speed climbing as well. i think it’s just how speed competitions are done

[@RichardGadsden]

The Olympics has been obsessed with keeping the number of Olympians down, and they think the best way is to either keep the number of medals down, or only add medals that can be competed for by competitors already at the Olympics - so swimming having 37 medal events is fine, because the same people compete in most of the events (a 100m and a 50m with almost exactly the same field, etc). Apparently (for most sports, ie anything that can use a regular soccer/football style stadium or an arena and doesn't need a custom building like cycling needing a velodrome or baseball needing a stadium of a non-standard shape), the cost of putting on the event is pretty small compared to the cost of making the Olympic village bigger to house the extra Olympians. The medals, since you mentioned them, the bronze and silver medals are actually bronze and silver, the gold medal is solid silver and coated in gold. But they're not a big factor in the costs. If they had added bouldering, lead and speed as separate events, then there would have needed to be many more climbers at the Olympics, as few of the climbers would have qualified for multiple events. The IFSC did the right thing, though - by putting on the event, they demonstrated the problem with a single medal to the IOC, and they've got a second medal for 2024, so speed climbing will be separate from a combined lead/bouldering event. They may be able to go to four medals at some point if they can convince the IOC that most of the entrants into the combined, lead and bouldering events will be the same people: one of the criteria the IOC uses to assess a sport is number of competitors per medal; the fewer the better (so the more you can get competitors to enter multiple events, the better).

[@aakashdeepmundi7226]

the "not enough medals" issue comes from the olympic committee, they only allotted one medal set for men and one for women, so the ifsc had to adapt. Not sure why they kept speed included still, though.

[@hackticdev]

It's so sad seeing arguably the worlds best speed climber getting completely shut down on on these boulders. Hopefully now that speed climbing is split off for 2024, she'll podium.

[@LordKeram]

That whole section about the amount of medals is pretty poorly researched. I did not get much into the weeds, but even I know that the amount of medals given to new disciplines is limited. Yes, some disciplines seem to have medal for god damn nearly anything, while others have like 1 or 2. But when you look into it. It's pretty clear the sports that have the longest Olympic history. AKA have been featured in modern Olympics for the longest. Simply have more medals. Swimming is one of the OG sports and so it has multiple disciplines and multiple medals. You can argue against the bureaucracy, but argument such as "Humans have climbed for centuries". Are dumb. Not to mention if you really want to go down that route all organisms have originally came from the sea, so no. We did actually swim for longer than we climbed.

[@BeardedBeautiful]

They need to do it like gymnastics and have individual event medals and an All-Around medal

[@fisharepeopletoo9653]

I'm looking at these standings, thinking the simplest way to see who wins the overall event is to just add up their finishing places and see who has the lowest number. At first that seems to work out, the first two add up to 12, the third adds up to 13.. but then we get to fourth place. His positions add up to 11, and everyone past him adds up to 12. So it seems pretty clear to me that while I don't know how you would break down all the 12s, but Narasaki Tomoa, who's positions added up to 11, definitely had the number one position. Idk how these scores in the final column are actually calculated, maybe Narasaki committed some technical foul, but I say he got robbed.

[@ClimbingStuff]

The new scoring system for combined should fix this in the future, although I hope there is no combined in the future. If you haven't seen it, you should look it up, it's much fairer.

[@Leo-ge7qy]

2x3x6 =36 , what are you talking about?

[@aaronvannostrand8097]

They should do it similar to like the IM in swimming, or the pentathlon in track, so that each discipline is it’s own event but there’s the 3 as one to see who’s most well rounded between all of them as a 4th event

[@porteurliste]

No really. A pentathlon is a combination 5 different endurance sports. The climbing sports are a combination of a pure explosive 6second race, a very technical sport wich requires a bit of endurance and an endurance sport.

[@dor_quendi]

You really forgot to mention that the belayers were really bad and Adam Ondra mentioned both he and other climbers got shortroped several times during the competition.

[@David-jf3uf]

That adam ondra move was actually insane tho at 6:07. hes so good

[@dorincucos2197]

And yet he came 6th in Bouldering?! What happened there?... I need to watch again.

[@David-jf3uf]

@@dorincucos2197 scoring bull shit. The guys who made the event didn’t know what they were doing so the scoring was just wonky

[@pormodr]

They love to minimize the number of events for some reason. Even in swimming where there is obviously a large amount of medals, they still don't feature even close to all of the events that are done at the swimming worlds championships.

[@heighRick]

Thanks Climbing Stuff, helps a lot!

[@captaincrush8133]

Can't be mad at the dude that won, it was a result of the format. However, I disagree that he earned a gold medal. He placed in the bottom half in all disciplines and somehow that makes him the best climber, presumably in the world? Nah give me a break that is ridiculous.

[@morte1176]

he won speed tho, tournament format a standard in lot of fast olympic competition like runners and swimmers and so on, the only difference is that usually batteries are bigger than two people and the first 3 qualifies for next round.

[@morte1176]

ps: this year in Seol at a clymbing official event the Men speed world record was set in a qualification ruond, he managed to win but with a lower time, a good athlete shuold be able to perform at the minumun required to pass the ruond and use everything 100% only in the finals.

[@pandaplays971]

I’d recommend listening the Climbing Gold’s podcast to understand why the points structure was so. With a proper source. Thankfully seems to be slightly fixed for the next Olympics.

[@Fandresvc]

This take is really disingenuous, mostly because of omission and disrespect towards speed climbing. first I get it, I don’t like speed climbing, it’s completely different to boulder/lead and I know most climbers think less of it, but it is its own discipline that’s just as difficult in its own way, and despite not liking the fact that they joined it with the other two, it did not and should not count for less. The arguing against the bracket format without disclosing that that is how all speed climbing comps are is disingenuous. It doesn’t matter who had the fastest time in one of their goes the entire comp, this is a race vs format, not time trials round robin or some shit. Like in football and other match sports the team that wins is not the one that had the match with the most goals, it’s the one that wins its matches and eliminates its competition. The route is the same even outside the comp, if you only care about their fastest time with no regard for matches might as well skip the comp and just rank them by their all time best. That’s the other disingenuous part, the spaniard didn’t “basically get 5th” and combined with his other mid and bad results somehow got 1st. Be honest, he got 1st place in speed, he won all of his races including the final, and he also received a mid and a terrible result in the other two disciplines. All the other climbers who did great in one category either did even worse in the other two or did better on average, but didn’t get first place in any category. The reason he won and ondra failed is that the committee gave first place in all disciplines a disproportionate amount of points specifically to favor competitors who won at least one of the disciplines in order to decrease the likelihood of having a gold medalist who simply managed to do average to good in all categories without winning any of them. by being displaced from first in lead ondra didn’t get any 1st place and suffered as a result. Again, even knowing this was specifically to prevent mid-good resulta all throughout from winning you gold you phrased it intentionally to make it seem like the guy got terrible placings on all 3 and somehow still won. Also, the issue is not the number of medals, it’s the number of participants. Separate medals means separate participants, in other words more olympic spots, which is harder to get and is actually what the IFSC is hoping to get more of in future olympics. Luckily in Paris only lead/boulder will be combined, and in the future likely 3 separate medals will be had and hopefully more olympians too, and this format might have been a necessary evil, but there is no need to lie at the expense of one of the disciplines and the gold medalist.

[@TarikVann]

There was not much disparity between bouldering and lead climbing, but there was between speed climbing and everything else. Which just goes to show how different speed climbing is that it shouldn't even be considered rock climbing. It is climbing but it's more about pattern memory and muscle memory than it is about climbing technique and strengths. Join bouldering and lead all you want but make speed it's own thing.

[@DustinKeiser]

Indoor comp stuff seems too flashy and more dynamic than static most the time

[@roxane1237]

Also something nobody seem to notice is how frigging hot and humid japanese climate is during summer!! Climbing under those circumstances is far from ideal, way less friction on the wall and so much energy loss. I'm psyched tor Paris 2024, i was rooting for mickael mawem, he was a great all rounder and deserved gold imo

[@97TheWatcher]

Swimming isn’t relatively new to humans lmao all mammals have a diving reflex hard wired into us but you are right, climbing isn’t exactly a recent discovery lmao

[@kevinoconnor6577]

Crazy how swimming gets the medals and climbing doesn’t. The strokes, as different as they are, are basically identical when compared to the differences between like speed climbing and bouldering.

[@tclapson]

Your point is absolutely correct. I for some reason didn't think of the absurdity. Now you've pointed it out, I'm feeling pissed off about it. It's ridiculous, and needs amending immediately... Either that or give just one medal for all events on track... 1 medal 🏅 for all of swimming 🏊🏽... And all cycling should be just one medal 🏅 band so on and so forth...it's stupid...

[@tclapson]

The closest match the climbing Olympics is like is the Ironman, where there's swimming, cycling and running in consecutive order. And surely this isn't what climbing is meant to be is it?

[@sx5r]

I agree ... however, it being the first time is no excuse to f**k up the format as badly as they have. I looked at it for 2 minutes (before the start of the tournament) and was like "this is bad, this is REALLY bad" okay, I do statistics for a living, but how the hell can 10+ organisers in a year not see that the granularity of that format is absolutely unusable? You don't even need to understand the math behind it, just play out some examples and you see how messed up the dynamics is.

[@guusdaanen83]

1:13 we began as fish so unfortunately no

[@MrBetaJacques]

We’ve been climbing longer than we’ve been swimming? Cuz, in the womb we develop the skins between our fingers of our sealiving ancestors

[@TKOfromJohn]

That's because every animals common ancestor came from the sea... That was so long ago that those ancestors didn't even come close to resembling humans or any kind of ape. That's like saying we're all dinosaurs because we share a common ancestor.

[@johnmarc1986]

Wow I forgot how bad the olympics were for the men. You know when Tomoa and Ondra can't even medal that there is a massive issue with the format. Paris should do it a lot better. Definitely need an extra boulder problem and to get rid of the gimmics. That final boulder was just ridiculous.

[@youtubecommentsguy9805]

You know something is flawed if someone topping a climb makes the difference of someone else getting first or 6th place

[@Erik291098]

There's so many different styles of climbing, so hopefully that will be reflected in the number of events similarly to what happened with swimming.

[@rakino4418]

Swimming has wayyyy too many olympic events.

[@sayuh5254]

3:50 hum.... Isn't it Bassa that is a speedclimbing specialist ? And Micka is the bouldering specialist.

[@constanceelaine3909]

Yep. Bassa is the speed specialist but hey, they're both BLACK right?!?!?!

[@sayuh5254]

@@constanceelaine3909 I think the mistake comes from the fact Massa hurt himself qualifying for the finals and, while qualified, couldn't participate. So there was indeed a Mawem qualified for the finals who was a speedclimbing specialist.

[@ItsQubic]

Tomoa deserved the gold. I'm glad climbing made it into the olympics, but seriously, why did they have to screw it up this badly.

[@tegridyfarms6197]

I had to mute the sound while watching this... "she is older than the walls she is climbing on" finaly did to me...

[@unFayemous]

I am a comforted by the constant that is Janja Garnbrett 😌 as long as Janja is top, all is well

[@monkfishy6348]

The medals (Silver and Gold) are made of silver, but the gold one has 6 grams of pure gold.

[@mitchberning1595]

Solid video, but evolutionarily, our ancestors had been swimming for much longer than they have been climbing. It doesn’t really change the point of the video, I just wanted it to be noted

[@nilsp9426]

It is truly like handing out medals for an event combining the 100m dash and the marathon, because "it is both running". The elitist mindset of the olympics is just ridiculous. Just because something is around forever doesn't mean it deserves 10 times as many medals. They allow so many cool new sports, why not also take them seriously?

[@Buphido]

Man, this is humiliating! Going like "hey, you‘ll get a chance to compete in the olympics for your sport, but only if you also compete (and probably humiliate yourself on live tv) in two other sports that you are a novice in"

[@conserve_climber]

I’m psyched for the Olympics…as long as a certain retired UK ex-Olympian climber who really loves to chat…is “not” commentating 😬🙏

[@ShaXCwalk]

well done video. I thought you were a big youtuber. im surprised. subbed

[@macsinger2299]

I really appreciate this perspective and this guys eyebrow raise! Damn! 😂

[@jenniferlenfestey5335]

Still salty over the Olympics climbing debut.

[@tp43793]

Let's be honest, your research about the Olympics could not have been more than reading through one reddit thread. Stick to climbing commentaty or put in some actual work

[@Isontro]

At 8:38 Why did the speed result show him in first when he was 5th can anyone explain?

[@phucdoitoanable]

the speed one was organized in a KO format: you compete with another climber, if you are faster, you go to the next round. His speed result was 5th overall, but he was faster than his opponent on every rounds. Luck has a huge influence on this format.

[@fuzzybee3788]

I just hope there is a change in commentators to accompany the change of format. The commentary was so terrible

[@condealexandervonhasslerra5527]

I see it as pentathlon, you look for the best combined climber

[@dash4800]

They can have different events for shooting rifle and air rifle but not climbing...

[@Snariasdqwada]

Just a scientific point: no climbing is not an older human skill t han swimming. All mammals (all animals in general actually) have evolved from some form of aquatic species. Our first common ancestor with cetacean is about 95M years old. While the common ancestor with chimpanzee is about 7M years old. That said, the "medals" excuse for having all 3 disciplines in one was clearly bullshit and just disrespectful toward the sport. Personally I would have 3 different disciplines with 3 different set of medals for climbing.

[@prodspaceboy22]

the medals are made of silver that has a gold plating over it.

[@youtubecommentsguy9805]

I loved the hype of the olympic climbing but the placement was indeed ridiculously terribly bad. The multiplication system also scked.

[@youtubecommentsguy9805]

I still remember I was happy Jakob topped but the bigger thing looming above it is the fact that he is going to fck up Ondra and give gold to spain (which by all respect - he is a great athlete and all - but I don‘t think he deserved the gold medal)

[@realalbertan]

Its the number of athletes not medals. Swimming has a lot of multi-event athletes and a low max team size for the number of events than can leave qualified swimmers at home for teams like the US.

[@phlintex1510]

Swimming has been in the olympics for a LONG time so obviously they’re gonna have medals for all the disciplines. 🤦🏽‍♂️

[@Datamining101]

1:06 If you're going with some sort of evolution based argument, even with a middle-school education you should know all life evolved from aquatic life originally.

[@nekohuntress99]

it should've been like gymnastics one all around event and individual finals too to be fair to everybody, otherwise, it's just a mess

[@seanmarshall1531]

I don’t see how this is a problem. They combined the events and who ever scored the most point from all three disciplines was crowned the champion. They wanted the best ‘overall’ climber to win gold. This could been seen as something similar to Athletics in the Hemptathalon. Where setting a WR in one event doesn’t guarantee you a medal in the final standings.

[@batlikcover2538]

Colin Duffy deserved the gold medal...never been 6th or 7th

[@krumplin8992]

I agree with the main sentiment of this video in that the combined event was a big misstep and should have been separated. But you do come across as very condescending to the specialist speed climbers, despite saying several times that you don't intend to. Especially with the conspiracy theory that they were somehow "let in" undeservedly. They qualified by the same rules as everyone else and Miroslaw made it to the Olympic final on a the combined score, same as all the other finalists and a huge achievement.

[@samgoodwin89]

Speed climbing is stupid. Not even close to the same sport as bouldering or lead climbing

[@porteurliste]

I like parkour and I like bouldering. But to me those are two vastly different sports. I

[@prdoyle]

3:05 - dispairancies?

[@QuintusEuander]

Analogy: Lets have the olympic decathlon fought over by guys who are only good in one discipline.

[@JoaquimArisso]

I'd like to see Usain Bolt do the 100m + the Marathon, and average both times. I'd say I'm better than him.

[@vlbz]

This was such a joke I stopped watching climbing comps altogether.

[@chadgibson5708]

I hear ya big guy

[@benjaminleonard4642]

We came from the oceans

[@conserve_climber]

Dude; sorry to be mean but you can train anyone to speed climb 🤷