2: Maya Witters, World Cup Judge

Aug 7

Thanks for tuning into the podcast! Maya is an outspoken IFSC volunteer + former world cup judge currently living in Japan who has helped out with world cups in Edinburgh, Morioka, and Hachioji. She has some great behind-the-scenes context into world cups, what team Japan is like behind the wall, and she has some spicy takes on the IFSC organization (even got blocked once by their social media)…

Show Notes

Guest links:

https://www.instagram.com/mayasounds

Reference links:

Japanese outdoor climbers Sachi Amma (@sachiamma) and team Rokdo (@rokdo_team)

Timestamps

Timestamps of discussion topics

0:00 - introduction

4:16 - why she got into volunteering

9:13 - how can other get involved in volunteering at world cups?

15:51 - downgrading Yoshiyuki for stepping on a bolt

18:02 - it’s not easy for Matt Groom

22:37 - getting blocked by IFSC on social media

25:17 - who is the IFSC?

28:20 - the IFSC’s PR problem

32:09 - has the Eurosport deal been positive?

37:22 - full time athletes and money troubles

41:28 - world cup prize money

43:43 - why does team Japan’s make-up vary so much year to year

48:04 - what makes team Japan so dominant?

54:35 - addressing routesetter flack

58:10 - how much experience do Japanese comp climbers have outdoors?

1:02:02 - thoughts on Chaehyun’s skipped clip controversy

1:08:39 - athlete quirks from isolation

1:13:33 - favorite athletes?

1:16:02 - English training for the Japanese youth team

1:18:54 - where has Kai Harada been?

1:20:07 - final thoughts, growing pains

1:23:27 - outro

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Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Climbing podcast.
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I'm your host, Jinni, and I'm excited to introduce my guest for today, Maya Witters.
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As a volunteer, she has been up close and personal with everything
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IFSC behind the scenes related.
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She's volunteered as a judge at the Edinburgh World Cup
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and done athlete management at the Morioka and Hachioji World Cups.
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In this episode, we'll discuss what makes commentators,
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route setters, judges' jobs so difficult.
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We'll get some insight about Team Japan and we'll dive into all the IFSC
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controversies, including how she managed to get blocked by the IFSC on social media.
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This is a spicy one, so I hope you enjoy this conversation with Maya.
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How are you? How are you doing today?
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I'm good, thank you.
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I just moved to Tokyo literally three days ago.
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Oh, my gosh. That's a lot of moving effort.
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Yeah, I was in the north of Japan before that, so I've just moved down to Tokyo
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and I'm sitting on the floor of my new room in this really janky setup
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in order to avoid the noise of the aircon and stuff.
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But no, it's good.
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I've moved to Ogi-Kugo, which for people who know they're comp climbing,
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they'll realize that that's close to B-pump Ogi-Kugo,
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which is the world's most notorious training gym probably.
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So, yeah, I haven't been yet, but...
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Yeah, you've got to go.
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Yeah, that's my closest now.
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So I guess I'll become a regular.
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But yeah, that'll be interesting for my ego.
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I know some of the Japanese World Cup team struggle on what they call V4.
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So I don't know what I'm going to climb, minus V5 or something.
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But you're going to get so good.
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Or very demoralized.
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I think that's also an option, but let's hope for very strong.
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I'll strive for very strong.
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Yeah, mental training is part of it, too.
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Yeah, I think that's possibly what I need the most, to be honest.
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So it's probably a good thing.
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Yeah, it'll help there.
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Well, I hope it works out well.
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I would love to hear what your experience is like there once you've tried it out.
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I'll be sure to let you know.
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Yeah.
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And how long have you been climbing?
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I've been climbing about five years now,
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with the obvious COVID breaks in between.
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Climbing for me was kind of the first sport ever that I really, really got obsessed with.
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Before that, I was just not a very, like, exercisey person.
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Like, as a kid, I tried lots of different things,
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but I was always more of a sort of artsy kid rather than sporty.
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So I think it made climbing more challenging in some ways,
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because I didn't really have any base strength or endurance or anything.
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But I think what really caught me about it was the sort of puzzle aspect.
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That's why I really got into bouldering.
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I'm much more of a boulder than a, you know, lead or top rope climbing.
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I started off doing a top roping course to sort of challenge my fear of heights.
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And then I didn't know that bouldering was a thing.
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As far as I know, when I grew up, I'm from Belgium.
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And when I grew up, I don't think there was bouldering in my city, at least,
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because I remember doing, like, you know, some climbing at kids' parties and stuff like that.
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But I don't think there was bouldering.
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And so I did the top roping course and then discovered bouldering.
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I was like, oh, this is interesting.
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So you got into it in Belgium and then you eventually moved to the UK?
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No, I got into it in the UK.
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So before I lived in Japan, I was in the UK for seven years.
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And yeah, that's where I did the course and where I got all into bouldering.
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Yeah, and I guess that's also where you started your volunteering work for climbing.
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Yeah, I got really interested in comp climbing early on.
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I think comp climbing is part of the community aspect of climbing to an extent, right?
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That's also something that's really attractive about the sport.
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Like, it tends to be really supportive in the gyms.
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It's easy to talk to people. It's a really good way to make friends.
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And to me, I think comp climbing is to an extent an extension of that.
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I think sports, you know, televised sports, especially, it helps, you know,
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people come together and have something to discuss.
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So I got really interested in the movement of comp climbing as well
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and in the creativity and what I perceive as freedom of it.
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But I sort of missed that community aspect because, you know, it's on YouTube
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and you're not watching it with people.
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So it can be a bit isolating.
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And then if you're just, you know, discussing stuff in the YouTube comments.
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I think something that always surprised me about the YouTube section,
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the comment section of comp climbing is it's so supportive in real life.
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But then. Oh, God. Yeah.
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All the keyboard warriors come out, right?
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So it's interesting.
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And so I kind of missed that aspect of having, like,
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interesting level headed, you know, well thought out discussions
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with people about comp climbing.
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So I found some of that on a on a Discord group that I'm in.
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And then I just also got interested in maybe trying to get more involved directly.
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And I heard through some friends that,
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especially youth competition climbing, they always need judges.
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So I got in touch with GB Climbing when they had a comp in London.
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And I went there and I just rolled into judging for the first time.
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It was really fun. And I did a few comps like that.
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And then they were like, we're doing a World Cup in Edinburgh, do you want to come?
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And honestly, I thought they meant like, oh, you know,
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you can open the door or check people's tickets or something.
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It turned out they wanted a judge.
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And I was as surprised as anyone.
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So I ended up going to Edinburgh, becoming a World Cup judge for,
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you know, the lead World Cup there, which was a really interesting experience.
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And then literally about a week later, I was going to move to Japan.
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And so the person from GB Climbing got in touch with her counterpart in Japan.
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I was like, hey, you've got another World Cup coming up.
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You know, this person is a World Cup judge.
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Do you want to like invite her or whatever?
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And so I ended up volunteering at a bunch of the Japanese comps as well in the last year,
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not as a judge, but as in the role of athlete management,
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so much more backstage, guarding the isolation zone and making sure,
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you know, people go out onto the stage at the right time and things like that.
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And so I got to do that at the Morioka and Hachiochi World Cups,
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as well as at all of the Japanese local main comps.
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So the older Japan Cup, the Japan Cup and the combined cup.
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So, yeah, it's been a year of very interesting experiences.
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Yeah, so that is such like such a quick jump from like,
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oh, I started at a GB local youth comp to, oh, now I'm going directly to the World Cup.
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Was there anything else between that or was it just straight from one to the other?
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I think, well, local youth comp, I think the thing I judged before was the youth,
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the National Youth Boulder competition.
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So it was, you know, a fairly sort of orderly event,
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a fairly official thing, not like your local gym comp, but it was a fairly big jump.
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And yeah, it's really interesting.
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When I came to Japan, I was told I wasn't allowed to be a judge here,
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because actually in Japan, you have several levels of qualifications
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that you have to go through before you would be allowed to be a judge in UK.
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We don't have that system at the moment.
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So that was an interesting contrast as well.
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And even for the athlete management position, because it requires
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understanding the competition flow really well.
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They prefer having people in those positions who have a judging license.
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But because I had done World Cup judging, they were like, I guess you can do this.
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So they let me do that.
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But it's it's a big contrast between the two, for sure.
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Yeah, so one of the questions from the discord, someone named Sawika,
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was how are judges selected?
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Is there like a more regimented process than what you go through usually?
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Or especially in the Japan team, where you say that they have a bit more
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of a process for selecting judges?
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I think, you know, just like I was listening to your episode with Nikki
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from the other week, and just like he sort of explained that the roots
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root setter selection process is not superficial and quite vague.
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I think the same probably applies to judges.
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I think also one thing that people generally who watch Club Climbing
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maybe don't realize is to what extent the IFSC is or isn't involved
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in the actual organization of World Cups.
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So the World Cups aren't organized by the IFSC per se.
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They're organized by national federations.
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These national federations, they apply, they sort of have
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proposals of what, like, we want to host this kind of World Cup.
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We can do it here or there.
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The IFSC gets to do the decision making on the calendar and on what happens where.
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But it is ultimately the national federations that do the actual organizing on the ground.
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The IFSC only sends their media team, you know, MacGroom,
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who everyone knows, the commentator, but also their sort of behind the scenes team,
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media team, and then they send normally three people per competition,
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a jury president, a chief judge and a technical delegate.
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And those are licensed IFSC people.
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So I'm not entirely clear on how the licensing process for that works.
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I'm not saying it's not transparent. It might be.
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I just haven't actually tried to look into that.
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So there are people who are qualified as, you know, technical delegates,
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which means that they sort of run a lot of the, as the name says, technical aspects of the competition.
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They help make decisions in case that there's rain delays, like we saw in Seoul.
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And apparently they didn't have a technical delegate at that competition.
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I don't know why.
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But so that's that's unhelpful because your technical delegate would be pretty material
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in making those decisions.
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And they make sure, you know, all the rules are followed.
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And then there's a chief judge who sort of manages the team of judges
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and the team of judges will be national judges.
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So in Hachioji, we had a massive team of national judges, all Japanese people.
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And in Japan, those are all people who have the A qualification.
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So or the B qualification, but they're in training.
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So that's how it works in Japan.
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Everyone who gets to judge a World Cup has to have those qualifications,
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which is sort of, I guess, a way to standardize judgment.
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But if there's any appeals, if there's any problems, it goes to the jury president, essentially.
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And the jury president will discuss with the national judges and with the chief judge.
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And they'll come up, you know, they'll review video footage and they'll come up with a judgment together.
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But that's ultimately how that goes.
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So all the actual judging is done by the local federation.
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But obviously, it's done, you know, by multiple people per bolder or per brute
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to make sure that there's no, you know, no problems or no disagreements.
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If there's any issue whatsoever, it tends to go to the IFSC people.
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And the chief judge is usually also the person who sort of liaises with team coaches.
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The team coaches are up front right behind the judges.
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And so the chief judge will probably be rowing around.
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If someone wants to make an appeal, they'll go and have a discussion with that person
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and sort of, you know, guide them through the process if they need guidance.
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Obviously, the experienced teams don't really need guidance, but they might, you know.
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Emotions are high usually at these points.
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So the chief judge tends to then, you know, calm things down or say, OK, we'll review it or whatever.
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So that's how that goes in general.
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But on the national level, the way that those national judges are selected is obviously vastly different,
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as we've seen between, for example, Japan and the UK, because in the UK, we don't have a qualification system.
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A lot of the time, the people who judge youth competitions are just competitors' parents.
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So we have a lot of pretty experienced judges in the UK, but they're all parents of competitors.
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So obviously, if it's a World Cup, you're not going to have, you know, family relationship judging.
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But yeah, it's vastly different.
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Also in the UK at the World Cup, all the judges, we were basically allowed to cheer on competitors
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and to, you know, to just cheer them on and say, come on or whatever.
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In Japan, absolutely not allowed because it might be confusing for the competitors.
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So, you know, there is a difference in standard there.
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I don't want to say that, you know, the UK system is bad and I think everyone at the World Cup did a good job.
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And ultimately, you have the IFSC people there to resolve any dispute.
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So they would normally guarantee that, you know, judging is even across all World Cups.
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But there is no real standardisation across the world currently.
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And, you know, education for judges, for example.
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I learned everything from just, you know, watching competitions.
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And then I went to, you know, do some judging and the people from Chibi Climbing were like,
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yeah, you know what you're doing. Can you come to Edinburgh, please?
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So, yeah, it's a big difference.
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So you didn't feel like totally out of place judging in Edinburgh?
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I felt somewhat out of place also because all of these systems behind it,
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there doesn't tend to be someone who says, by the way, this is how it works.
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So you're going to have this and this and this happening.
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That doesn't happen. They just go, can you come?
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And then you're there and you just figure out what's going on and what to do.
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And so it's very, it's very experience based.
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But, you know, it was hugely interesting.
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There's just things where you think, why is this happening?
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Like I walked into the venue in Edinburgh, I walked into Rathow,
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and I looked at the lead wall and I went, where are the bald covers?
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Why are there no bald covers?
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And they just kind of went, oh, yeah, we don't have them here.
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And I said, we're going to have bald stepping incidents.
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I just know it. Whenever you don't have bald covers, you have incidents.
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Because, you know, it's such a stupid thing.
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Bald stepping, I understand why it's not allowed, but at the same time,
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as a climber, if you're just focusing on the sequence,
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it can be so difficult to see where your feet are at all time
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and making sure that you don't touch it.
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And of course, on the route that I judged in finals,
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we had that problem where Yoshiyuki touched a bald.
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I saw it happen. I said to the chief judge,
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you judged a bald, I can't judge if he used it,
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but you're going to get an appeal.
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And of course they got appeals.
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And they reviewed the footage like a hundred times over
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and he got downgraded for it and lost out on a medal.
242
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So it's one of those things.
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00:16:59,400 --> 00:17:04,080
And I talked to the jury president for that competition and I said,
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can you please, please make bald covers mandatory from next season?
245
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And he said, yeah, yeah, we're looking into it.
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I think we're going to make it mandatory.
247
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And they're still not mandatory this season.
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So we had incidents this year as well.
249
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:19,120
So it's one of those things that you think,
250
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this should be so simple, but it's not in place yet.
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00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:27,400
I don't know if it's just that they're difficult to get in some places
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or what it is or if it's too expensive or whatever.
253
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I can't imagine them being that expensive, to be honest.
254
00:17:31,840 --> 00:17:36,960
But it's one of those things where you just think it should be so easy to solve.
255
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And it's heartbreaking as a judge, you don't ever want to demote someone
256
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for stepping on a bolt.
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Like, obviously it's really unpleasant thing to have to do.
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But yeah, it happened.
259
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So, yeah, and people get quite upset about it.
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People get understandably very upset about it.
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00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:57,760
And I think Nikki touched upon this as well when he said,
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you know, one thing that's also lacking in climbing is context.
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Very often in competition climbing, like you have an appeal happen.
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And then at the end of the broadcast, you actually don't know
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if the appeals gone through or not.
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There usually isn't very good communication between the judges
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and the commentating team.
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Often they're not even necessarily within speaking distance of each other.
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They're often off to the side or in the back or even sometimes behind the wall
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and just watching the screens.
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So that communication tends to not be there.
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So, you know, people often complain, oh, the commentator doesn't even know
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what's going on, whatever.
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And, you know, again, keyboard warriors coming out to complain about something
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that they don't know the circumstances of, which is one of the reasons
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why I wanted to do this, to, you know, sort of clarify some of the circumstances
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that are there.
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But I think that is a problem.
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Like, if you don't have a way of giving that context to viewers,
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it makes sports very difficult to watch.
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So, you know, there's definitely improvements to be made there.
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Yeah, it's so hard to know, like, what's going on.
283
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And people get so much hate online for it, I think, especially like Matt
284
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Krum gets a lot of hate on it.
285
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I wish I could have him on the podcast one day to ask him what his thoughts are
286
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and what he's experiencing when he's actually commentating.
287
00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:24,520
Yeah, I feel bad for Matt, to be honest, because I think he's
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trying so hard.
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He has a really difficult job.
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He has to do a lot of traveling.
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It's very exhausting.
292
00:19:31,720 --> 00:19:36,560
And, you know, the thing people always get him on is his pronunciation
293
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of climbers names, especially, you know, foreign climbers.
294
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But honestly, you know, I've I've looked at lists of climbers names in one.
295
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I don't even know where to begin.
296
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And it's not like he doesn't try.
297
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I've spoken to him numerous times.
298
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I've actually sent him voice messages in the past, like teaching him the
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pronunciation of Japanese names.
300
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That's so funny.
301
00:19:57,400 --> 00:19:57,880
Yeah.
302
00:19:57,880 --> 00:20:02,120
So he really tries, but he's dyslexic and it's just and he's British.
303
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You know, that doesn't help either, I think.
304
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So it's really, really hard to get all of them perfectly correct.
305
00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:14,600
And I think, you know, there are obvious points where he could improve,
306
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but he also has improved a lot in his few years now as a commentator on the circuit,
307
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I think there's been vast improvements in the way he commentates.
308
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And, you know, that's hopefully that'll just continue.
309
00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:30,480
And he brings the psych.
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He's, you know, he's psyched about talking to climbers or watching climbing.
311
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So I think that's important as well, especially now with a climber,
312
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usually as a co-commentator, I think it works quite well.
313
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So, yeah, but there are obvious aspects that can be improved.
314
00:20:48,200 --> 00:20:53,320
And some of that is just down to him, you know, people not communicating to him.
315
00:20:53,320 --> 00:20:57,880
He told me last time in Hachioji that, you know, he tries to always go to the technical delegate
316
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before the comp and say, oh, you know, can you please, if something happens,
317
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can you write me a little note or, you know, come to me or, you know, whatever it is,
318
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but do something so that I can tell the viewers.
319
00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:15,360
And obviously, in some competitions, that's easier than in others
320
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because the technical delegate is really busy, you know.
321
00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:23,600
They're busy with those judgments and with appeasing coaches and climbers.
322
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And so, you know, communicating with the commentator doesn't always come first.
323
00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:33,040
And at the same time, you know, that commentator has to do so many things at once.
324
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He has to watch the climbing, but also often they don't see the whole life.
325
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:42,680
So they also only have the footage that gets fed through to YouTube,
326
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which isn't, as we know, always the best footage.
327
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He has to, sometimes if there's a moment where he wants a replay,
328
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he needs to signal that to his team so that they can set up the replay.
329
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He has to try and, you know, get people's attention if he needs experience on anything.
330
00:21:57,840 --> 00:21:59,720
So it's a very difficult job.
331
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:02,720
And I think, you know, people don't appreciate it enough.
332
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:07,800
And it's very easy to get angry about things online.
333
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:12,600
And I understand because I think I used to, to an extent, be one of those people.
334
00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,280
I don't think I was ever like a horrible keyboard warrior.
335
00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:20,960
I like to think that I try to be nuanced whenever I talk about things even online.
336
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:27,160
But I used to just, you know, get mad at the IFSC for whatever,
337
00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:31,120
in my opinion, idiotic judgment that they made or whatever.
338
00:22:31,120 --> 00:22:32,520
But then once you get in...
339
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Lack of organization.
340
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:39,120
Yeah, lack of organization or, you know, it's actually funny.
341
00:22:39,120 --> 00:22:43,520
I once got blocked off of all social media by the IFSC.
342
00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:46,000
Right, I wanted to touch on that.
343
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:50,000
Because I've been critical of the Eurosport deal, you know,
344
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the deal where in Europe it's now impossible without a VPN to watch the broadcasts for free
345
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:01,120
because it's being broadcast on Eurosport.
346
00:23:01,120 --> 00:23:04,320
And they announced this as like, you know, an amazing thing for the sport
347
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:06,840
that was going to grow with the viewership and stuff.
348
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:12,960
And a lot of people were angry about it just for reasons of not being able to watch it for free anymore.
349
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:17,520
But I think, you know, there's also a huge discussion point of, is this actually a good deal?
350
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:19,960
Is this going to grow the viewership?
351
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:25,280
Because Eurosport, first of all, had commentators who knew nothing about climbing.
352
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:27,880
So it was horrible to watch.
353
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:36,160
And they ended up usually not broadcasting semifinals at all, or maybe online only.
354
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:42,040
And even finals, you know, it was very low down the list for them in terms of priority.
355
00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:46,320
If there was any other sports that might attract more viewers, they would broadcast that instead.
356
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:50,640
So even finals weren't always broadcast live.
357
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:54,520
And obviously, if you're having them in Asia, the time zone is weird anyway.
358
00:23:54,520 --> 00:23:58,880
So there were lots of discussion points about, is this actually good for the sport?
359
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:01,920
And also, what are you doing with the money that comes in?
360
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:03,080
I think that's a fair point.
361
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:07,600
Like, as the IFSC, you're getting broadcasting money.
362
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:08,600
What are you doing with it?
363
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:10,760
Are you investing it back into the sports?
364
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:15,880
Is it going into the professionalization of this sport?
365
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,320
Is it going into development of route setters?
366
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:20,320
Is it going into prize money?
367
00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:21,320
Spoiler alert, it's not.
368
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:24,240
But they didn't communicate anything about this.
369
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:26,320
So I was quite critical of this.
370
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:32,800
And I put a few platforms because I'm on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and all those things.
371
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:39,720
So on a few of those platforms, I posted a response to them saying, you know, I don't
372
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:40,920
think this is good for the sport.
373
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:44,000
And they ended up blocking me off of all social media.
374
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:47,200
And I just, I was like, what is happening?
375
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:48,200
This is crazy.
376
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,580
This is like some weird dictatorship level censorship.
377
00:24:51,580 --> 00:24:58,440
So I sent them an email as nicely as I could muster being like, excuse me, what the actual
378
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,640
fuck are you doing?
379
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:05,120
And they were like, oh, we thought you were spamming.
380
00:25:05,120 --> 00:25:08,160
But okay, we'll unblock you, I guess.
381
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:11,200
And you know, that was like early last year.
382
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:15,040
And then months later, I ended up being a judge at the World Cup.
383
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:20,240
So it was this really weird, awkward, awkward thing.
384
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:26,000
And it's sometimes very difficult to know who's making those decisions because the FSC
385
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:33,240
also is a very, I don't know if decentralized is the right word, but you know, people are
386
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,680
spread over various continents.
387
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:41,240
So those, the technical delegate, the jury president, the chief judge, those people,
388
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:45,680
they're different at every comp because those are just people who have normal day jobs who
389
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:48,660
do this as like an extra thing.
390
00:25:48,660 --> 00:25:56,240
So they only go to like maybe three, four big comps a year in those capacities.
391
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:59,960
So are they the IFSC?
392
00:25:59,960 --> 00:26:05,540
They're part of the IFSC, but they're not necessarily the part of the IFSC that makes those decisions.
393
00:26:05,540 --> 00:26:13,040
Because in Hachioji, I sort of ended up running around with the IFSC people quite a lot because
394
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:18,680
you know, they needed a fair bit of interpreting between English and Japanese.
395
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,240
So I ended up running around with them quite a lot and talking to them.
396
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:28,600
And they were like, I told them this story and they found it very, very weird.
397
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,920
And you know, they were like, okay, that's not good.
398
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:34,040
So who is making these decisions?
399
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:40,400
It's often quite difficult to know like who at the IFSC is actually deciding that, you
400
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:44,600
know, blocking all discussion on social media is a good thing.
401
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:48,080
It doesn't seem like there's a big sort of system behind it.
402
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:54,240
And when I emailed their head of communications essentially to say, hey, can you please unblock
403
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:57,360
me?
404
00:26:57,360 --> 00:27:03,940
We had a bit of discussion and I said, well, you know, I just think there needs to be discussion
405
00:27:03,940 --> 00:27:06,560
there needs to be an open discussion about these kinds of things.
406
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:11,760
And if we if we as a community can't have discussions about, you know, what's good for
407
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:19,200
this sport, then it's very much, you know, a sort of dictatorish point of view from which
408
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,440
the IFSC is deciding all of this, because it doesn't seem like they're listening to
409
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:23,440
their athletes very much.
410
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:27,400
There was a lot of athletes who didn't like this at all.
411
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:29,960
It doesn't seem like they're listening to their community because you're blocking them
412
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:33,920
of social media when they try to bring up points.
413
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:37,400
So what's going into this discussion?
414
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:42,640
And guys sort of said, well, if you want to have discussions with the IFSC, social media
415
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:49,280
isn't the right way to do it, because we just send like a report every three months to the
416
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:53,000
top of the IFSC to tell them what's happening on social media.
417
00:27:53,000 --> 00:28:05,360
So, you know, I think obviously, again, people online, people who are just viewing from the
418
00:28:05,360 --> 00:28:10,520
other side of YouTube, they often don't know what's going on behind the scenes.
419
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:16,640
So I'm not saying, you know, you should just listen to the majority opinion.
420
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,440
But listening in some way might be a good thing.
421
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:26,120
Posturing discussion might be a good thing, and it helps to engage viewers, because I
422
00:28:26,120 --> 00:28:30,720
think right now the IFSC really has a PR problem, basically.
423
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:32,880
Oh, for sure.
424
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:38,760
You know, everyone kind of hates them because they don't explain why they make decisions.
425
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,160
It's very untransparent.
426
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:44,800
Communication is just not very good, to be honest.
427
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:49,080
And they never respond to points of criticism.
428
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:54,520
They seem to like what they did with locking me off their social media accounts.
429
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,080
They seem to do a lot of censoring.
430
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:02,800
Recently this has come up around the BMI and Redes discussion.
431
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:07,560
For those who don't know, at the beginning of the Innsbruck IFSC World Cup Finals live
432
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:13,280
streams, they didn't know that the microphone was already recording, and the co-commentator
433
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:18,360
Alana Yip asked Matt Groom if he could ask her a question about what she would like to
434
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:24,760
see changed within the IFSC so that she could talk about the lack of BMI testing.
435
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:32,040
They cut out Alana's message, and then recently, you know, the chief, two of the main medical
436
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:37,400
doctors on the medical board of the IFSC resigned because they said, well, we've been bringing
437
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:40,520
this up for years, there's no action being taken.
438
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:47,520
And this obviously helped bring the message to come into attention again.
439
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:50,400
So this was going around on social media quite a bit.
440
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:59,480
And then apparently, a climber started this campaign making t-shirts that say, you know,
441
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:05,000
IFSC please listen, and planning to have a lot of people wear those in Bern at the world
442
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,680
championships next week.
443
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:13,880
And from what I've seen on social media, it turns out that the IFSC threatened that person
444
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:18,400
with a lawsuit and tried to shut them down.
445
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:26,000
So a lot of weird stuff going on that I just don't think they're helping themselves really
446
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:32,440
in the way they communicate or don't communicate to make this sport, you know, more enjoyable,
447
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:37,600
more accessible for viewers and climbers.
448
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:42,040
Because I think a lot of athletes also share this opinion saying that, you know, they don't
449
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:48,000
just not listen to viewers, but they don't listen to athletes very well either.
450
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:54,140
So you know, if as a sports body, you're not listening to anyone who's actually involved
451
00:30:54,140 --> 00:30:58,120
in doing your sports, what are you doing?
452
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:00,720
And you know, I don't want to just be critical.
453
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:05,480
I think there has been improvements in some of the communication in the last season.
454
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:13,000
I think they're doing a bit better with posting on social media and with trying to engage
455
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,080
and create a story to an extent.
456
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:19,320
But if you suppress discussion every time something slightly controversial happens,
457
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:21,840
then you know, you're undoing your own efforts, I think.
458
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:22,840
Yeah.
459
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:25,200
Do you know if they have like a social media team?
460
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:31,320
Or is there like, I don't know, do they have any way of reaching out properly?
461
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:36,840
I think their social media team is one person.
462
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:44,440
I'm not sure, but I think that it's one person mostly running it.
463
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:49,160
And yeah, I don't know if they have much of a policy behind it, to be honest.
464
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:57,020
Or if they have a policy, it doesn't necessarily seem well informed or, you know, as someone
465
00:31:57,020 --> 00:32:05,040
who does communications myself, I don't think it's the best communication policy that they
466
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:09,400
have in place for their own reputation, as well as for, you know, engaging people and
467
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:10,400
engaging.
468
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:11,400
Yeah, clearly.
469
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:20,720
But going back to what you mentioned about the Eurosport deal and how athletes were responding
470
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:27,360
to it, I guess, how does it affect athletes?
471
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:35,160
Also after it's been like a year or so since this has happened, has there been any updates
472
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:39,360
on whether it's been actually good for them or anyone?
473
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:46,280
No, I think I had a brief discussion with Sasha Gale about this at one point where at
474
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:50,480
the time she said, well, I don't really get why people are so upset about this.
475
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:53,280
If we get to be on television, that's good for us, right?
476
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:58,800
And you know, I tried to make the argument that it just depends if you're gaining or
477
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:07,360
losing viewers essentially, because ultimately climbing is booming, it's getting much bigger,
478
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:12,280
but it's not fully mainstream yet.
479
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:15,760
And it's not always the easiest to understand.
480
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:20,220
Like the rules aren't, the details of the rules aren't always easy to understand.
481
00:33:20,220 --> 00:33:25,320
And I think when you have a sport like that, it's very difficult to just get viewership
482
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:28,160
from people randomly happening upon it.
483
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:33,360
So the big question is, you know, if you put this on television right now, are you actually
484
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:35,480
gaining viewers or are you losing them?
485
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:39,520
Because you know, if you look at people, well, and again, communicating, that's a lot of
486
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:43,880
them saying, well, I'm not watching anymore because I'm not paying for it.
487
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:47,400
Especially because there are also repeated complaints even from the people who normally
488
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:52,240
like to watch it that, you know, the footage isn't very good.
489
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:57,960
The camera work, you know, often zooms in when we actually need to see the whole climber.
490
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:00,680
It's not terribly well coordinated.
491
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:02,600
Commentating isn't always the best.
492
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:06,120
Again, there's this communication issue and when there's an appeal, we don't necessarily
493
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:07,880
know what's going on.
494
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:15,400
So those things are very difficult, I think, if you want to just attract viewers who happen
495
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:16,840
upon your sport.
496
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:22,480
I think that's unlikely to happen at this point, unless you, you know, manage to improve
497
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:28,600
on a bunch of those points, but also manage to sort of have better PR for climbing in
498
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:32,400
general as a federation, as a sport.
499
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:38,960
You know, you need stories, I think, in sports in order for people to stay engaged and inspired.
500
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:43,860
And that's one thing that's been really difficult, I think, this season is because we have the
501
00:34:43,860 --> 00:34:46,220
Olympic qualifying coming up.
502
00:34:46,220 --> 00:34:49,600
So many athletes have been skipping, skipping the World Cups.
503
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:53,240
And it makes it really difficult to find the narrative line throughout the season.
504
00:34:53,240 --> 00:35:00,240
It's not like there's not really been a battle for the overall title.
505
00:35:00,240 --> 00:35:04,240
And I think that's just, you know, it makes it really, really difficult for people to
506
00:35:04,240 --> 00:35:05,760
stay interested, to stay engaged.
507
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:12,000
Also, I think Nikki mentioned this in his interview about, you know, climbing personalities
508
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,380
and who are the big personalities?
509
00:35:15,380 --> 00:35:20,880
Who would you trust to explain climbing to people who don't know climbing?
510
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:25,320
And that's, I think, also a point where, you know, a federation can do so much work.
511
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:28,400
And again, they've been sort of doing stuff this season.
512
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:33,840
They've had like their golden moment for every comp where they've highlighted things on social
513
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:39,240
media and, you know, they try to sort of bring out those things.
514
00:35:39,240 --> 00:35:43,880
They've tried to do some more interviews with people, which I think is an improvement.
515
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:49,440
And I think it's a good evolution, but there's a lot more work to be done.
516
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:53,800
And you know, I think realistically, if you want to do it well, you probably need a bigger
517
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:54,800
social media team.
518
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:57,320
You need more people involved.
519
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:02,440
You need probably some good PR people who know, you know, where to help you.
520
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:06,160
And you need to just be more transparent as a federation.
521
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:12,400
I think that's why, you know, an initiative like this podcast is really great because
522
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:18,000
it helps us spread some insight into behind the scenes of comp climbing.
523
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:24,600
However limited, however limited to, you know, my experience or the things that I know, which
524
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,120
isn't very much.
525
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:33,000
But you know, why don't we get to see more of that from the IFSC?
526
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:34,000
Yeah.
527
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:35,000
Yeah.
528
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:39,440
I'm really hoping to sort of fill that gap because I just wish that we could learn more
529
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:43,720
about the athletes or learn more about behind the scenes, just like have footage that we
530
00:36:43,720 --> 00:36:45,640
can see.
531
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:48,160
So I am really hoping to fill that gap.
532
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:52,840
And maybe one day they'll be like, hey, do you want to interview people as part of the
533
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:53,840
IFSC?
534
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:55,840
No, that'd be amazing.
535
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:56,840
Yeah.
536
00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:02,800
I think, you know, this sport, we're in the middle of an evolution of professionalization
537
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:04,760
with this sport.
538
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:09,320
And being in the middle of an evolution like that means it's a really interesting time.
539
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:11,080
There's lots of change happening.
540
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:13,680
There's lots of new things all the time.
541
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:15,760
But it also has a lot of challenges.
542
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:17,800
You know, it means that we'll run into problems.
543
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:21,360
We'll run into issues where people disagree.
544
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:27,680
And also one of the big problems, I think, is that the professionalization of the sport
545
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,840
isn't happening at the same rate everywhere.
546
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:34,520
So it's not happening at the same rate in different countries, within different national
547
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:35,520
federations.
548
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:39,280
It's not necessarily happening at the same rate within the different disciplines of the
549
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:44,840
sport or within, you know, the management side and the route setting side and all of
550
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:47,760
those different things.
551
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:50,640
And that makes it really tricky because it means that there's different levels of money
552
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:54,080
going around in different places in different countries.
553
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:59,520
It means that it's really difficult to leave stuff up to national federations when national
554
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:02,800
federations aren't really an established thing everywhere.
555
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:07,640
So I think that brings along a lot of challenges.
556
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:12,920
And again, that makes it interesting, but it means that, you know, you just run into
557
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:17,240
issues and you can see it in so many different things.
558
00:38:17,240 --> 00:38:23,000
I think, you know, there's countries where there's a statute where athletes can be employed
559
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:24,240
by the army.
560
00:38:24,240 --> 00:38:29,400
And that means that they just have an income that comes from the army and they don't have
561
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:35,600
to, you know, have day jobs necessarily or rely on sponsors in order to...
562
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:36,600
And what countries?
563
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:37,720
What countries are those?
564
00:38:37,720 --> 00:38:41,880
I know that this is the case in France and Slovenia.
565
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:46,120
I don't know in which other countries, but I know that this is a system that some countries
566
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:47,120
have.
567
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:50,120
And then there's some countries where there isn't such a support system.
568
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:55,920
And so athletes really have to rely on prize money or on sponsorships.
569
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:58,920
And that makes it really hard in a country like Japan.
570
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:00,600
You know, you can see a vast difference.
571
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:07,400
There are so many talented athletes, but there's a vast difference in sort of the security
572
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:09,240
levels that they have.
573
00:39:09,240 --> 00:39:14,760
There's some big names like Mio Nanaka or, you know, Tomoe Narasaki or people like that
574
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:17,520
who are very well established.
575
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:20,480
They're, you know, they go on television here.
576
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:26,080
They're pretty well-known faces by now, sponsored by really big brands, especially Miho, you
577
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:31,160
know, with Adidas, Beats sponsorship, Big Yogurt brand sponsoring her.
578
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:35,200
So, you know, she's very secure in that.
579
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:41,720
And then there's lots of other really talented climbers who go to university and, you know,
580
00:39:41,720 --> 00:39:51,080
sort of have this student athlete statute, which I think kind of helps them sort of balancing
581
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:55,200
both, but doesn't do much in terms of financial support.
582
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:59,360
And so they all work at climbing gyms.
583
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:00,440
They work as route setters.
584
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:08,280
And so they have to somehow balance training, going to all these World Cups and their day
585
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:10,760
job and studying.
586
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,560
And it's just not a level playing field that way.
587
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:18,960
So there is a big question there of, you know, where is the money?
588
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:23,680
Is there money in the different countries for all the athletes?
589
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:28,800
We have seen in the past, you know, athletes crowdfunding in order to be able to even go
590
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:32,080
to the World Cups because it's expensive.
591
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:37,240
And if your federation doesn't have the budget to send X amount of climbers to a World Cup,
592
00:40:37,240 --> 00:40:39,680
but you still want to go, then you have to sell fund.
593
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:41,600
I think this is still the case.
594
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:48,640
We saw it for, I think we saw it this season for some of the Indonesian boulders because
595
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:52,540
their speed team is really well established, but their boulder and lead climbers aren't
596
00:40:52,540 --> 00:40:54,320
as well known yet.
597
00:40:54,320 --> 00:41:03,320
They have twins who compete and, you know, they've been crowdfunding to be able to go
598
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:04,840
to the big events.
599
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:10,520
I know the physio for Team Australia had to crowdfund because the federation didn't have
600
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:12,360
budget to send a physio.
601
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:14,280
Oh my God.
602
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:21,540
So you know, these are things that are going to change and hopefully get better.
603
00:41:21,540 --> 00:41:26,760
But as we are in that process of evolution, there's lots of interesting little bits of
604
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:29,760
friction, I guess you could call it.
605
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:30,760
Yeah.
606
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:37,360
I mean, money must be a pretty big problem to overcome in this sport.
607
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:42,320
Because I mean, even if you win, the prize money is pretty small, isn't it?
608
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:43,320
Oh, it's low.
609
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:44,320
Yeah, it's really low.
610
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:47,920
And I think it's been reduced recently as well.
611
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:56,560
So you know, and I just think also just the fact looking at this past season of how many
612
00:41:56,560 --> 00:42:02,720
people have been skipping comps, I think that tells you how low worth the prize money is
613
00:42:02,720 --> 00:42:07,560
because they've all been sort of skipping those comps.
614
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:12,360
And it also tells you that there isn't much prize money in gaining the overall title because
615
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:14,680
no one's been competing for the overall title.
616
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:16,820
It doesn't seem like anyone's been interested in it at all.
617
00:42:16,820 --> 00:42:21,480
So if the athletes aren't even interested in it, how can we as viewers ever be interested
618
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:22,480
in it?
619
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,600
Also, it doesn't really get mentioned throughout the season, right?
620
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:27,280
It's the last comp of the season.
621
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:31,040
Oh, by the way, we also have the overall podium and someone won.
622
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:32,040
Right.
623
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:34,040
Yeah, they never talk about it.
624
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:35,040
No.
625
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:40,400
So there's a lot of work to be done in developing storylines across seasons and keeping viewers
626
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:41,400
engaged.
627
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:46,120
And it is also tricky with things being in different time zones.
628
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:49,160
You can't always watch everything live anyway.
629
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:57,160
But giving people a reason to rewatch your comp and making them really want to see what
630
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:01,200
happened, I think there's a lot of work to be done there.
631
00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:02,200
Yeah.
632
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:07,300
Do you know what the prize money is for gold, silver, bronze?
633
00:43:07,300 --> 00:43:12,640
And is there a separate prize money for winning the overall season?
634
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:14,120
I don't know.
635
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:16,440
I don't know the actual amount.
636
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:20,680
I know that it's not very high.
637
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:26,000
But I don't think I've tried to look for it, but I don't think it's officially publicized
638
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:30,760
at least publicly on the IFSC website at the moment.
639
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:41,120
But yeah, I think it's, you know, not above $5,000 probably for winning a World Cup.
640
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:44,680
I think it's possibly well below that.
641
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:54,200
I guess in Japan at least, some athletes, you say make their money from rapsiding, sponsorships
642
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:56,940
if you're really big, I guess.
643
00:43:56,940 --> 00:44:03,840
Is that part of the reason maybe why in Team Japan there's so much turbulence between who's
644
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:09,920
rising and who just kind of falls out and we don't ever hear from them again?
645
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:14,640
I think it's part of the reason why probably.
646
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:22,280
I think there's a lot of, the level of professionalization in this country is quite high compared to
647
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:26,320
most countries or especially compared, you know, the only other one that I have experience
648
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:32,960
with is UK and Japan is much more professional in the way, you know, the comp system here
649
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:33,960
is set up.
650
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:40,200
There's way more regional competitions and local competitions that get official judges
651
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:41,200
in.
652
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:45,880
So actually people here who do the judging qualification, they often have judging duties
653
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:51,160
every other weekend, basically going around to, you know, prefectural competitions, youth
654
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:52,160
competitions.
655
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:58,840
So there's a volume of comp climbing here that allows for that professionalization, but
656
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:04,960
also that volume of comp climbing means you have a vast field of really strong climbers.
657
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:12,920
And you know, the best way that Team Japan is found to select their international representatives
658
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:16,880
every year is by a comp at the start of the season.
659
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:22,120
That's the Boulder Japan Cup, the League Japan Cup, the combined cup, the speed cup.
660
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:26,960
Normally their team for the year is selected at that competition, which means you have
661
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:28,280
one shot.
662
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:34,040
So unless you already have guaranteed representation because the top 10, world top 10 every year,
663
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:37,720
they automatically get to go to all the world cups.
664
00:45:37,720 --> 00:45:43,440
So unless you're in the top 10 for this year with Team Japan, you have to basically, you
665
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:48,040
know, do your best and try and get into finals for those competitions at the start of the
666
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:49,480
season every year.
667
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:53,220
And if you don't make it, then you're not in the selection for the year.
668
00:45:53,220 --> 00:45:57,200
And you have to, you know, just stick with national competitions.
669
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:02,920
And so everything hinges on one competition, which is a tricky thing.
670
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:09,400
For example, last year we saw that Tomoa had a bit of a disaster in his semi-finals for
671
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:10,400
the League Cup.
672
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:16,320
I think he slipped really no on one route and then on the other route he had a clipping
673
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:17,320
problem.
674
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,640
And this was in qualification because it was two routes.
675
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,820
He skipped the first clip accidentally.
676
00:46:23,820 --> 00:46:26,440
And so he didn't even make it to semis.
677
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:31,560
And so he wasn't in the lead team last year, which obviously, you know, for him was a big
678
00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:35,880
problem looking at, you know, combined training and stuff.
679
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:41,560
And so he worked really hard to improve that this year.
680
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:51,440
But yeah, it's obviously somewhat down to luck as well when it's all down to one competition
681
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:53,080
for the team selection.
682
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:57,160
And I think Japan is the only country that has this problem really at the moment.
683
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:04,280
Maybe USA and France have big enough teams that they have to do some selecting as well.
684
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:09,800
But Japan is the biggest one where, you know, you see people in one year and then out the
685
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:12,560
next year.
686
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:17,880
But there is obviously also, you know, a problem there of the people who are already at the
687
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:23,920
top and who are self-sufficient, who can, you know, rely on sponsors and don't need
688
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:25,200
to have day jobs.
689
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:26,960
They have way more time to train.
690
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:30,480
They probably have money for a coach.
691
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:33,240
They have access to better training facilities.
692
00:47:33,240 --> 00:47:39,120
You know, I mean, Tomoa, Tomoa Narasaki and Akiyō Noguchi have their own gym that was
693
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:42,080
funded by private money.
694
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:46,660
That's like one of the best training facilities in the country, but, you know, it's private.
695
00:47:46,660 --> 00:47:49,440
So it's just down to who they invite.
696
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:56,960
So access is a big problem and consistency is a big problem because if you need to constantly,
697
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:01,520
you know, scramble to have enough money or to also focus on your studies or whatever,
698
00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:05,760
then I think it's much more difficult to put in a consistent performance.
699
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:06,760
Definitely.
700
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:07,760
Yeah.
701
00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:14,920
And so you've been pretty up close and personal with Team Japan now, even despite like whatever
702
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:19,160
money issues there are.
703
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:24,960
How do you think from their training regimen, what makes them so dominant in the sport compared
704
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:26,840
to other countries?
705
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:31,960
You know, the level of professionalization that we were talking about is a factor to
706
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:34,360
an extent.
707
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:38,140
They have a big history.
708
00:48:38,140 --> 00:48:45,460
They have a lot of depth of field, which means, you know, there's a lot of examples that young
709
00:48:45,460 --> 00:48:47,920
climbers could look up to.
710
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:53,240
They have a history in the sport, which always helps.
711
00:48:53,240 --> 00:48:57,200
It's interesting sometimes because they don't necessarily have the best training facilities.
712
00:48:57,200 --> 00:48:59,760
Obviously, you know, I'm near B-Pump here.
713
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:06,160
B-Pump is one of the, meant to be one of the world's best training gyms where also, you
714
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:09,280
know, the grading has nothing to do with real life grading.
715
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:14,720
And I don't know if that's just some sort of idea of, oh, if we make the grades insanely
716
00:49:14,720 --> 00:49:17,200
hard then people will want to chase them.
717
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:20,040
I don't know if that's, you know, part of the reasoning.
718
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:24,920
But for example, lead walls, there really aren't that many in the country.
719
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:30,080
And there's a big access problem when it comes to training for lead climbing.
720
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:33,360
Just because there is a lack of space, it's difficult to find buildings that are high
721
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:35,800
enough.
722
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:40,480
So there's a lot of bouldering gyms, but not that much lead climbing.
723
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:44,600
So to an extent, it's surprising that, you know, Team Japan are that strong in lead as
724
00:49:44,600 --> 00:49:48,000
well even though there is that access problem.
725
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:53,240
So sometimes it's really difficult to tell why they are so strong.
726
00:49:53,240 --> 00:49:56,920
They also tend to not train as a team because they have such a big team.
727
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:58,240
Everyone lives different parts of the country.
728
00:49:58,240 --> 00:50:05,120
So unless there's a training camp organized somewhere, I think, you know, they'll do training
729
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:10,880
camps maybe a few times a year, often abroad as well, for the representative team of that
730
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:12,000
year.
731
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:18,040
So I think they had a training camp a few weeks ago in Innsbruck, for example.
732
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:21,720
So unless it's that kind of an event, they don't tend to train as a team.
733
00:50:21,720 --> 00:50:24,400
They all have their own local gyms.
734
00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:25,720
Some of them have their own coaches.
735
00:50:25,720 --> 00:50:32,600
So there are obviously team coaches for Team Japan, but they're mostly coaches, you know,
736
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:39,240
during the competition and people will have their own, you know, private coaching separately
737
00:50:39,240 --> 00:50:40,240
from that.
738
00:50:40,240 --> 00:50:42,400
That's probably self-funded as well.
739
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:47,040
So I can't tell you what the secret is really.
740
00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:54,400
They're just, you know, they're very motivated to train and they work really hard and they
741
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:55,800
have a good history.
742
00:50:55,800 --> 00:51:03,400
They have a pretty professional, you know, organization.
743
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:06,520
But other than that, I don't know where the magic is.
744
00:51:06,520 --> 00:51:13,400
Yeah, I mean, I would think even if you don't have a big, nice lead training facility, I
745
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:18,440
hear a lot of athletes just kind of use the spray wall and do endurance training on that.
746
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:20,700
But I'm sure it is a bit different.
747
00:51:20,700 --> 00:51:22,200
So not sure.
748
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:26,600
Yeah, I'm sure there's plenty of ways to do endurance training, but I think one of the
749
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:29,720
things that you see, for example, we saw it in Morioka.
750
00:51:29,720 --> 00:51:37,000
We had some athletes who it was their first time ever at a World Cup, but it was also
751
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:41,320
the first time anyone from their country was at a World Cup.
752
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:46,440
And even if, you know, you've been watching the sport and you might be the top in your
753
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:53,560
country, if you've never been able to actually try out at that level, then it can be really,
754
00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:56,960
really difficult to actually judge it accurately.
755
00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:03,220
And we had a girl from Mongolia, Morioka, and I just felt really bad for her because
756
00:52:03,220 --> 00:52:08,200
she got zero on all of the boulders and then she fell off hold four on the lead wall or
757
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:10,080
something.
758
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:13,360
And that doesn't mean she's, you know, not a good climber.
759
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:14,840
She's probably very strong in her country.
760
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:18,680
And you know that these routes tend to be around what, 8b plus or something.
761
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:20,000
So maybe she climbs 8b plus.
762
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:25,080
It's well possible, but it's such a different style as well, right?
763
00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:28,740
Comp climbing, if there isn't really comp climbing in your country and there's no setting
764
00:52:28,740 --> 00:52:32,600
for comp climbing, then how are you going to practice your dynamic moves?
765
00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:36,320
And you might not be at all familiar with the hold sets.
766
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:42,640
You know, the holds are so different, modern comp climbing holds, big macros, big volumes.
767
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:49,880
It's hugely different from climbing on just, you know, little old fashioned crimps or whatever.
768
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:54,440
So yeah, there's a big difference there.
769
00:52:54,440 --> 00:53:01,520
There's a big gap that I think unless you've experienced that level and you have some of
770
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:06,120
that infrastructure in your country and you have it available, it's going to be very,
771
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:09,320
very difficult to actually compete at that level.
772
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:13,760
Maybe that's part of why Team Japan is so strong, at least in bouldering, because they
773
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:14,760
have B-Pump.
774
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:17,880
That's always challenging even their top athletes.
775
00:53:17,880 --> 00:53:19,480
I think that's part of it.
776
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:25,840
Obviously B-Pump also isn't the only gym in the country that has that high level of
777
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:26,840
setting.
778
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:27,840
There's lots of gyms.
779
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:37,680
Also, I think Japan has a fairly high number of IFSC qualified route setters, or at least
780
00:53:37,680 --> 00:53:47,180
a few that you see at a lot of the World Cups or other big international competitions.
781
00:53:47,180 --> 00:53:51,280
They have quite a lot of really, really good route setters who go and set internationally
782
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:59,080
and then also set at local gyms and who will set specific events or training moves at B-Pump
783
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:00,600
or even privately.
784
00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:06,680
I think, you know, Tomoa Narasaki often just invites good route setters to his gym to set
785
00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:07,680
for him.
786
00:54:07,680 --> 00:54:12,680
So if you have that access to a really high level of setting, as an athlete I think that
787
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:19,240
is a huge boost for your training potential because then you know you can actually measure
788
00:54:19,240 --> 00:54:23,960
your strength on the sort of stuff that you're going to encounter at World Cups, at the world
789
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:24,960
level.
790
00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:35,340
Whereas, you know, if you're just training in some old basement gym somewhere in a far
791
00:54:35,340 --> 00:54:39,120
away quarter of the country, it's just a little harder.
792
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:40,520
You can get as strong as you like.
793
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:46,320
But as we've seen, as Nikki also discussed, you know, climbing isn't just about being
794
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:51,280
very strong because if it would be, it'd be impossible to distinguish levels, the level
795
00:54:51,280 --> 00:54:52,280
between people.
796
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:58,480
And, you know, people in, again, in the comment sections always love to go, oh, this is not
797
00:54:58,480 --> 00:54:59,480
real climbing.
798
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:00,480
It's parkour.
799
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:01,480
People are jumping around.
800
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:08,520
And it's just, you know, you try setting a boulder that doesn't have any of those elements,
801
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:14,000
but that still lets you distinguish the level between the world's strongest climbers.
802
00:55:14,000 --> 00:55:19,560
Because I can tell you, on a strength level, they're all very close together.
803
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:25,680
So if you don't have any learned, like, roofs that require learning on the spot, then you're
804
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:30,880
just going to either get all flashes or all, you know, zeros across the board.
805
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:35,720
And then everyone will just complain about the separation in the scores instead.
806
00:55:35,720 --> 00:55:36,720
Exactly.
807
00:55:36,720 --> 00:55:40,760
So you can't really win if you complain about one and the other.
808
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:44,720
So I think, you know, it must be so hard for route setters.
809
00:55:44,720 --> 00:55:47,760
They get so much hate.
810
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:50,720
Anytime they try anything new, they get hate.
811
00:55:50,720 --> 00:55:56,060
You know, in Hachioji, we had that really cool jump into a palm press that no one got
812
00:55:56,060 --> 00:56:03,440
in the finals, and then everyone was like, oh, bad setting in finals, like, no one got
813
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:04,480
the boulder.
814
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:07,880
And then, you know, it just turns out this is a move nobody had seen.
815
00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:13,920
And once Meiji was told the beta, he just got on it and did it in trainers.
816
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:16,040
And so is that bad route setting?
817
00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:21,680
No, I don't think it is because you're setting a season opener, so you're trying to set stuff
818
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:27,480
that's interesting, stuff that maybe they haven't seen before, stuff that's tricky.
819
00:56:27,480 --> 00:56:35,080
And you know, the margins between no one getting it and just one person getting it are really,
820
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:36,520
really thin.
821
00:56:36,520 --> 00:56:42,120
And whether that's a route reading thing or just, you know, conditions play a big role,
822
00:56:42,120 --> 00:56:45,280
whether it's hot or cold.
823
00:56:45,280 --> 00:56:51,200
Sometimes, especially when you're setting outside, you know, a lot of the competitions
824
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:54,240
happen outdoors.
825
00:56:54,240 --> 00:56:59,280
It's really difficult because temperatures can swing by like 20 degrees Celsius from
826
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:02,240
one day to the next.
827
00:57:02,240 --> 00:57:09,640
And it does, it really does affect how easy or hard it is to climb something at that level.
828
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:10,640
Yeah.
829
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:19,280
So it's such a hard job, and they get so much hate and also very little sort of respect
830
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:24,320
from people when they do it right or when things go their way.
831
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:30,240
So you know, I'm honestly pretty much impressed that anyone still wants to do the job, given
832
00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:39,760
how as a community we sort of tend to vilify these people who are really, really essential
833
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:42,840
to comp climbing and to climbing in general.
834
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:47,640
Like, okay, unless you only climb outdoors, if you didn't have route setters, then you
835
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:51,120
can't train, you know, you can't go to a gym, you can't.
836
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:58,760
So these people are really essential and they deserve a lot more recognition and respect,
837
00:57:58,760 --> 00:57:59,760
I think.
838
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:00,760
For sure.
839
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:01,760
Yeah, well put.
840
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:10,720
Going back to the Japanese team, someone on the Discord had a question about their experience
841
00:58:10,720 --> 00:58:12,400
with outdoor climbing.
842
00:58:12,400 --> 00:58:17,600
They asked, how much experience do the Japanese comp climbers have outdoors?
843
00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:22,200
From the West, we rarely hear about their outdoor achievements, despite Japan being
844
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:24,760
quite famous for its outdoor climbing.
845
00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:30,880
Yeah, I think there's a lot of individual variety.
846
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:36,480
I think there's quite a lot of climbers in Japan who don't maybe climb outdoors that
847
00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:40,800
much.
848
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:49,040
So exclusive gym beasts like you, which might to an extent help with how specialized they
849
00:58:49,040 --> 00:58:51,220
are and how good they are at comp climbing.
850
00:58:51,220 --> 00:58:56,760
At the same time, there's people who climb at insane levels outdoors here, but they don't
851
00:58:56,760 --> 00:59:01,640
tend to be the same people who comp climb.
852
00:59:01,640 --> 00:59:10,360
So we have Sachi Ama, who is a former competition climber who now exclusively puts up new lines
853
00:59:10,360 --> 00:59:11,360
outdoors.
854
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:12,520
He does a lot of lead and trad.
855
00:59:12,520 --> 00:59:14,100
He goes to bolt new places.
856
00:59:14,100 --> 00:59:19,240
So he climbs really hard.
857
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:24,280
We have a few people like that who are former World Cup climbers who've now moved to outdoor
858
00:59:24,280 --> 00:59:26,200
climbing.
859
00:59:26,200 --> 00:59:34,840
And then of course we have Team Rockdoll, who are a sort of outfit of three or four
860
00:59:34,840 --> 00:59:38,080
really, really strong climbers who exclusively climb outdoors.
861
00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:42,520
Although, I mean, not exclusively, their big achievements are outdoors, but they're all
862
00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:45,080
all they're also all route setters, I think.
863
00:59:45,080 --> 00:59:47,680
So they do indoor setting as well.
864
00:59:47,680 --> 00:59:52,840
But they're boulders and they go and just put up insane lines outdoors.
865
00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:58,880
So we saw Floating last year, V17, is a line that one of them put up.
866
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:04,000
And I think they've just got back from Rocklands in South Africa where they've crushed a whole
867
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:06,060
bunch of really hard boulders.
868
01:00:06,060 --> 01:00:11,320
So you do have you have really good outdoor climbing in this country and you have people
869
01:00:11,320 --> 01:00:13,080
who are extremely strong.
870
01:00:13,080 --> 01:00:17,960
I think one thing that's tricky about outdoor climbing in this country is the season for
871
01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:20,000
it is quite short.
872
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:22,600
It's completely impossible right now in summer.
873
01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:24,560
Like it's 35 degrees Celsius outside.
874
01:00:24,560 --> 01:00:26,760
I don't have any idea what that is in Fahrenheit.
875
01:00:26,760 --> 01:00:27,760
I'm sorry.
876
01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:31,740
But it's hot, but it's also extremely humid.
877
01:00:31,740 --> 01:00:35,720
Like humidity levels tend to go around 70%.
878
01:00:35,720 --> 01:00:39,160
So you just like slip straight off anything.
879
01:00:39,160 --> 01:00:42,160
There's no way you can climb outdoors right now.
880
01:00:42,160 --> 01:00:46,720
And so for high performance climbing, it almost has to be in winter, but then it can't snow
881
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:48,440
and it can't rain.
882
01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:57,400
So it is pretty tricky to find the right conditions to do outdoor climbing in this country because
883
01:00:57,400 --> 01:01:05,260
spring and autumn are fairly warm and can be wet as well.
884
01:01:05,260 --> 01:01:08,160
So for high performance outdoor climbing, that also isn't ideal.
885
01:01:08,160 --> 01:01:10,760
You want it to be colder.
886
01:01:10,760 --> 01:01:16,480
So I think that's probably one of the reasons that makes it quite challenging in this country.
887
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:23,760
It's not like Fontainebleau where you can have decent conditions, probably for three
888
01:01:23,760 --> 01:01:27,860
out of four seasons of the year.
889
01:01:27,860 --> 01:01:30,880
And also access, I guess, a lot of these areas.
890
01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:35,360
There's a fair few like reasonably developed areas, but I think a lot of them are inaccessible
891
01:01:35,360 --> 01:01:37,260
if you don't have a car.
892
01:01:37,260 --> 01:01:38,640
So that makes it tricky as well.
893
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:45,960
Other than that, I had a few IFSC controversies that I wanted to touch on.
894
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:48,200
I feel like I've already criticized them so much.
895
01:01:48,200 --> 01:01:49,200
A bit.
896
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:55,720
But these aren't so much about the IFSC, just rather things that have happened and things
897
01:01:55,720 --> 01:01:58,400
that you might have mentioned earlier.
898
01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:03,120
So the first one was also a Discord question.
899
01:02:03,120 --> 01:02:04,120
Which one was this?
900
01:02:04,120 --> 01:02:12,240
So at the Chamonix comp, thoughts on Chaeyoung being DQ'd for miss clipping or skipping the
901
01:02:12,240 --> 01:02:13,240
clip.
902
01:02:13,240 --> 01:02:16,600
I think, yeah, you also mentioned Tomoa had done that.
903
01:02:16,600 --> 01:02:22,440
This person said, I might be misremembering, but I thought Sean McCall Z clipped in 2019
904
01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:25,440
but was able to keep climbing.
905
01:02:25,440 --> 01:02:29,320
I know it's not quite the same, but it feels weird if you can get disqualified for one
906
01:02:29,320 --> 01:02:31,880
clipping error, but not another.
907
01:02:31,880 --> 01:02:33,280
Do you know the rules on this?
908
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:34,280
Yeah.
909
01:02:34,280 --> 01:02:43,920
So I was really taken aback by how militantly people were wrong in the governance.
910
01:02:43,920 --> 01:02:48,920
How militantly people were arguing for this really stupid, it needs to be changed, blah,
911
01:02:48,920 --> 01:02:49,920
blah, blah.
912
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:51,320
The rule is there for safety.
913
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:57,200
Because first and foremost safety, but also fairness.
914
01:02:57,200 --> 01:03:00,900
Fairness because if you skip a clip, clipping takes energy.
915
01:03:00,900 --> 01:03:06,760
So if you skip a clip and you can keep climbing, then that would incentivize people to skip
916
01:03:06,760 --> 01:03:09,600
clips which is dangerous.
917
01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:15,880
Because they're literally there to make sure people don't ground fall while they're putting
918
01:03:15,880 --> 01:03:18,600
up a real high level climbing performance on the wall.
919
01:03:18,600 --> 01:03:21,240
You prefer them not to die.
920
01:03:21,240 --> 01:03:31,000
Now in I would say 99% of cases if someone skipped a clip, going back to fix it would
921
01:03:31,000 --> 01:03:36,080
be dangerous because going back to fix it, even if you've already clipped a higher point
922
01:03:36,080 --> 01:03:40,520
so you're not going to ground fall, but it increases your chances of falling on your
923
01:03:40,520 --> 01:03:42,080
own rope.
924
01:03:42,080 --> 01:03:45,400
Also down climbing and 8b plus is insanely hard.
925
01:03:45,400 --> 01:03:49,400
So the chances of it going well are low anyway.
926
01:03:49,400 --> 01:03:54,280
But again it increases your chances of getting tangled in your own rope, of taking a difficult
927
01:03:54,280 --> 01:03:55,800
fall.
928
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:58,760
It's hard for the b-layer to know what to do with the slack.
929
01:03:58,760 --> 01:04:04,280
And also if as a judge you would have to decide in the moment whether it's safe or not for
930
01:04:04,280 --> 01:04:12,440
the climber to down climb and go and re-clip, that puts a lot of strain on a judge because
931
01:04:12,440 --> 01:04:16,220
in this split second, you know, you can't make the climber weight all the wall.
932
01:04:16,220 --> 01:04:21,960
So it would be down to a judge's decision to decide whether or not it was safe to go
933
01:04:21,960 --> 01:04:25,160
and re-clip.
934
01:04:25,160 --> 01:04:28,920
So instead of that we have a very clear and simple rule which is clip all the clips in
935
01:04:28,920 --> 01:04:35,280
order and it means that you take away any confusion, you take away any personal opinion
936
01:04:35,280 --> 01:04:40,120
and you have a really clear and simple rule that tells climbers what to do and they're
937
01:04:40,120 --> 01:04:41,880
aware of this.
938
01:04:41,880 --> 01:04:49,320
Now in the specific case of Jaehyun Seo, you know, skipping that clip and immediately fixing
939
01:04:49,320 --> 01:04:53,920
it from the same position, there's no danger.
940
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:59,820
But again, if you're gonna change the rule to make it more arbitrary, you're just opening
941
01:04:59,820 --> 01:05:04,800
the door to more discussion and to more fuzziness and more difficulty I think.
942
01:05:04,800 --> 01:05:07,920
So that rule is there for safety and for fairness.
943
01:05:07,920 --> 01:05:08,920
It's very clear.
944
01:05:08,920 --> 01:05:11,960
There are the clearest rules in climbing because we already have quite a lot of things that
945
01:05:11,960 --> 01:05:16,440
are down to the judge's opinion like did they get the plus or not, like did they control
946
01:05:16,440 --> 01:05:19,040
the zone or not, like legit starting positions.
947
01:05:19,040 --> 01:05:22,640
All of those things are already down to discussion.
948
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:28,980
So why on earth would you want to make more rules down to people's personal judgment?
949
01:05:28,980 --> 01:05:35,920
I think it makes no sense at all and of course if your favorite, you know, in a moment of
950
01:05:35,920 --> 01:05:39,640
lack of focus or whatever or just bad luck skips a clip.
951
01:05:39,640 --> 01:05:41,040
I know it's heartbreaking.
952
01:05:41,040 --> 01:05:42,800
Like nobody wants to see it.
953
01:05:42,800 --> 01:05:45,080
That's why everyone got so angry.
954
01:05:45,080 --> 01:05:50,960
The incident that Nikki mentioned when, you know, Ondra stepped on the bolt and, you know,
955
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:54,240
missed his Olympic ticket at that point.
956
01:05:54,240 --> 01:06:00,280
You know, that's exactly why we need bolt covers because that makes the rule much clearer.
957
01:06:00,280 --> 01:06:05,340
It doesn't make it down to the judge's decision of did they use it or not because if you just
958
01:06:05,340 --> 01:06:10,200
brush a bolt it's fine but the judge has to decide whether you use the bolt or not and
959
01:06:10,200 --> 01:06:12,440
whether you got any aid from it.
960
01:06:12,440 --> 01:06:17,400
And then, you know, so that again, it makes it down to people's decision.
961
01:06:17,400 --> 01:06:20,960
If we just have bolt covers then it's easy because anyone can step on the bolt cover
962
01:06:20,960 --> 01:06:24,680
and we've decided that that doesn't help them so they can step on it.
963
01:06:24,680 --> 01:06:29,800
So we need rules like that in climbing where it clarifies things rather than making it
964
01:06:29,800 --> 01:06:30,920
more difficult.
965
01:06:30,920 --> 01:06:35,500
So arguing that the rules are stupid and need to be changed just because your favorite,
966
01:06:35,500 --> 01:06:40,920
you know, lost out on maybe a chance of a gold medal in that competition.
967
01:06:40,920 --> 01:06:44,640
I just think people need to be a little bit more reasonable than that and kind of think
968
01:06:44,640 --> 01:06:48,040
about the actual consequences of what they're proposing.
969
01:06:48,040 --> 01:06:50,640
And so Z clipping is okay then?
970
01:06:50,640 --> 01:06:59,640
Z clipping is okay because it's not dangerous to fix essentially because you just need to
971
01:06:59,640 --> 01:07:05,520
clip the order of things that you did.
972
01:07:05,520 --> 01:07:08,840
And it was at this point that she realized she messed up.
973
01:07:08,840 --> 01:07:13,800
Right, dear viewers, I am just cutting in for myself because I realized I did a bad
974
01:07:13,800 --> 01:07:19,040
job explaining the difference between Z clipping and clipping out of sequence.
975
01:07:19,040 --> 01:07:23,000
So the big difference is when you're clipping out of sequence you need to down climb in
976
01:07:23,000 --> 01:07:26,120
order to fix the clip.
977
01:07:26,120 --> 01:07:31,880
As I said in 99% of cases, if you're Z clipping you don't need to down climb because all you
978
01:07:31,880 --> 01:07:36,280
need to do is unclip the top clip and reclip it with the correct end of the rope.
979
01:07:36,280 --> 01:07:41,160
So it's not the same situation and that's why one is deemed safe by the rules and the
980
01:07:41,160 --> 01:07:42,760
other isn't deemed safe.
981
01:07:42,760 --> 01:07:48,280
One involves down climbing which might involve falling on your own rope which is just really
982
01:07:48,280 --> 01:07:51,040
difficult to do on an 8b plus anyway.
983
01:07:51,040 --> 01:07:55,360
The other one doesn't involve any down climbing at all and can be fixed on the spot.
984
01:07:55,360 --> 01:07:58,280
So that's why you have that difference.
985
01:07:58,280 --> 01:08:02,000
And also it's not as much down to judgement then.
986
01:08:02,000 --> 01:08:04,360
It's immediately clear that you Z clipped in.
987
01:08:04,360 --> 01:08:06,680
So I think the rule makes sense.
988
01:08:06,680 --> 01:08:13,200
I think if you think oh Z clipping versus clipping in order, that's a weird rule, then
989
01:08:13,200 --> 01:08:18,440
I think the rule that needs to change is that Z clipping is allowed, not the other way around.
990
01:08:18,440 --> 01:08:23,840
I kind of think the weird rule in this case is the fact that you're allowed to go and
991
01:08:23,840 --> 01:08:26,440
correct Z clipping.
992
01:08:26,440 --> 01:08:35,600
So I just think if the rules are clear and easy to follow, keep them that way please.
993
01:08:35,600 --> 01:08:38,720
More confusing rules is the last thing we need in climbing.
994
01:08:38,720 --> 01:08:39,720
Yeah, okay.
995
01:08:39,720 --> 01:08:40,720
Totally fair.
996
01:08:40,720 --> 01:08:41,720
That makes sense.
997
01:08:41,720 --> 01:08:47,280
Okay, well let's try to end on a lighter note I guess.
998
01:08:47,280 --> 01:08:55,720
A few questions from the Discord and well first I was wondering if you have any like
999
01:08:55,720 --> 01:08:59,400
insights or anecdotes from Team Japan?
1000
01:08:59,400 --> 01:09:04,080
Any like athlete quirks that you can think of?
1001
01:09:04,080 --> 01:09:09,080
Or one time I think you had mentioned that there's this like pull up guy in Team Japan?
1002
01:09:09,080 --> 01:09:14,360
I don't really know what that means but if you know what that means.
1003
01:09:14,360 --> 01:09:15,920
No.
1004
01:09:15,920 --> 01:09:23,760
I don't know, again everyone is different, everyone has different ways that they approach
1005
01:09:23,760 --> 01:09:28,920
warming up and I think this is one for me is one of the interesting things of being
1006
01:09:28,920 --> 01:09:34,720
in athlete management at these World Cups is you get to see what goes on behind the
1007
01:09:34,720 --> 01:09:41,760
scenes, you get to see how an isolation zone works, you get to see how athletes warm up,
1008
01:09:41,760 --> 01:09:46,600
how they mentally approach a competition, you know some of them are very boisterous
1009
01:09:46,600 --> 01:09:51,000
and outgoing, some of them really sort of just sit in a corner.
1010
01:09:51,000 --> 01:09:56,720
Aymori for example tends to read manga when, because usually she climbs last because she's
1011
01:09:56,720 --> 01:10:00,800
you know the strongest so she has to wait in isolation for a very long time and very
1012
01:10:00,800 --> 01:10:05,600
often she's in the corner reading manga because obviously in isolation you know athletes don't
1013
01:10:05,600 --> 01:10:07,760
have access to the internet.
1014
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:13,880
So yeah, how do people keep themselves busy, stuff like that, that's quite interesting
1015
01:10:13,880 --> 01:10:18,240
to see and you know some of them are surprisingly nervous.
1016
01:10:18,240 --> 01:10:23,800
Tomo Narasaki is always surprisingly nervous even though he's so experienced and you know
1017
01:10:23,800 --> 01:10:30,040
he sort of has this image of being you know tough guy maybe but he's always like pacing
1018
01:10:30,040 --> 01:10:35,280
about in isolation zone and like if there's other Japanese athletes there sort of trying
1019
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:40,440
to make conversation and so those kinds of things are really interesting to watch.
1020
01:10:40,440 --> 01:10:43,240
Obviously the downside of being in athlete management is you don't actually get to see
1021
01:10:43,240 --> 01:10:51,720
the climbing because you're behind the stage but yeah it's fun to see people sort of and
1022
01:10:51,720 --> 01:10:54,000
see how their personalities come out.
1023
01:10:54,000 --> 01:11:01,840
For example as well Ayala Kurem from Team Israel, she's really really funny when she's
1024
01:11:01,840 --> 01:11:09,360
in ISO so at the Hachioji finals she was constantly listening to music and she was like air drumming
1025
01:11:09,360 --> 01:11:15,640
and dancing and just like rocking out which I guess is her way of channeling her nerves
1026
01:11:15,640 --> 01:11:21,000
and you know right up until she would have to go out on stage she'd be like just vibing
1027
01:11:21,000 --> 01:11:24,400
and then you know go on and come back and just start.
1028
01:11:24,400 --> 01:11:31,560
So because with these things because especially in finals as athlete management you're guided
1029
01:11:31,560 --> 01:11:37,000
by the broadcasting schedule so there'll be one person there with a radio who gets told
1030
01:11:37,000 --> 01:11:41,640
the timing of when athletes have to go out they'll get like a 10 second warning and a
1031
01:11:41,640 --> 01:11:46,680
five second warning things like that and so our job is to make sure athletes are ready
1032
01:11:46,680 --> 01:11:54,080
at the right time and of course you don't want to be late you don't want to you know
1033
01:11:54,080 --> 01:11:59,640
run the risk of getting behind schedule so you try to ask athletes to you know when the
1034
01:11:59,640 --> 01:12:04,200
previous person goes out on stage please already put your shoes on and get yourself ready but
1035
01:12:04,200 --> 01:12:08,720
there's like a balance and you know everyone has their own style and some people really
1036
01:12:08,720 --> 01:12:11,960
want to stay in their own world.
1037
01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:16,040
Natalia Grossman for example does the same she's just she has music on and she doesn't
1038
01:12:16,040 --> 01:12:19,600
like she usually has her eyes closed so sometimes you have to go and tap her and be like sorry
1039
01:12:19,600 --> 01:12:25,000
you need to come up and stand by the door for me but yeah with Ayala after a while I
1040
01:12:25,000 --> 01:12:29,440
was like you know just keep your headphones on and right before you go on stage give them
1041
01:12:29,440 --> 01:12:33,880
to me I'll make sure to put them with your luggage so you can keep vibing and so you
1042
01:12:33,880 --> 01:12:39,280
do stuff like that and that's quite fun and then at the Hachioji sort of after party reception
1043
01:12:39,280 --> 01:12:45,960
thing she came up to me and she was like did you like my airdropping so here is yeah it's
1044
01:12:45,960 --> 01:12:46,960
just really funny.
1045
01:12:46,960 --> 01:12:53,680
Oh that's cute yeah it's interesting to hear about how different athletes manage their
1046
01:12:53,680 --> 01:13:01,280
nerves especially I mean I think for Tomoa like he has a lot riding on his performance
1047
01:13:01,280 --> 01:13:04,000
people are always watching him no matter what.
1048
01:13:04,000 --> 01:13:07,960
I think I also heard that Yoshiuki is also very nervous.
1049
01:13:07,960 --> 01:13:16,280
Yeah I think I don't think I've experienced him in a in a World Cup final recently but
1050
01:13:16,280 --> 01:13:26,200
yeah I think he's a bit nervous but not quite as sort of excited nervous as Tomoa.
1051
01:13:26,200 --> 01:13:30,640
Tomoa really he like walks around like this with his arms folded across his chest and
1052
01:13:30,640 --> 01:13:33,160
like I could see that yeah yeah yeah.
1053
01:13:33,160 --> 01:13:39,840
Awesome and so a couple discord questions just quick ones who's your favorite climber?
1054
01:13:39,840 --> 01:13:48,840
Boom I'm Maurice definitely up there I've really enjoyed watching Toby Roberts this
1055
01:13:48,840 --> 01:13:55,760
season for sure just absolutely crush it and I think you know part of what helps with Toby
1056
01:13:55,760 --> 01:14:01,160
is you can see his personality come out and he has his YouTube channel which you know
1057
01:14:01,160 --> 01:14:08,480
helps people have some insight into how he trains and how he thinks so I think things
1058
01:14:08,480 --> 01:14:16,480
like that are really helpful as a viewer to have more of a relationship with the climbers
1059
01:14:16,480 --> 01:14:22,680
as well so again that's where there's work to be done by the IFSC also I think by national
1060
01:14:22,680 --> 01:14:28,400
federations I feel like this season we've seen a lot more national federations get on
1061
01:14:28,400 --> 01:14:34,800
Instagram for example there's a fair few more national federations now that have Instagram
1062
01:14:34,800 --> 01:14:40,480
accounts that post about their climbers I think that also helps with this sort of creating
1063
01:14:40,480 --> 01:14:45,040
a story I think with Aymori she doesn't have to create a story for herself she's so strong
1064
01:14:45,040 --> 01:14:51,360
that and and she always seems slightly like the underdog you know people like supporting
1065
01:14:51,360 --> 01:15:00,280
the underdog because she's so small and and you know I think that just inspires people
1066
01:15:00,280 --> 01:15:07,720
to want to root for her so that's always helpful as well but yeah again I think I think it's
1067
01:15:07,720 --> 01:15:14,400
just easier to get inspired by climbers where there's a bit of a story to be had and I think
1068
01:15:14,400 --> 01:15:21,280
this season you know one of the things that could have been played out a lot more is like
1069
01:15:21,280 --> 01:15:30,440
Toby Roberts and Sorato and Raku both young guns both super strong like it could have
1070
01:15:30,440 --> 01:15:36,560
you know played around a lot more with you know not necessarily rivalry but sort of comparing
1071
01:15:36,560 --> 01:15:42,360
them and seeing how how you know they view each other whether they view each other as
1072
01:15:42,360 --> 01:15:49,440
you know direct competition or so that kind of stuff I think would be good and interesting
1073
01:15:49,440 --> 01:15:53,400
to from a communication standpoint.
1074
01:15:53,400 --> 01:15:58,960
Yeah I wish we could hear more from them I've I've just heard that they talked to each other
1075
01:15:58,960 --> 01:16:04,520
a bit they competed together in the youth cups as well but would love to learn more
1076
01:16:04,520 --> 01:16:06,160
about that.
1077
01:16:06,160 --> 01:16:13,440
Yeah that's always also with you know non-english speaking climbers there's always that point
1078
01:16:13,440 --> 01:16:20,160
of how do we communicate and I've actually just been doing some English interview training
1079
01:16:20,160 --> 01:16:27,440
with the Japanese youth team so they're they're on a training camp at the moment and I've
1080
01:16:27,440 --> 01:16:35,640
been kind of testing how well they do in an English interview after their simulation competition
1081
01:16:35,640 --> 01:16:40,240
so that you know the coaches know who they need to interpret for and who they can even
1082
01:16:40,240 --> 01:16:46,040
know when they go to the youth world championships next month basically so I think you know there's
1083
01:16:46,040 --> 01:16:52,280
there's a lot of room for stuff like that as well I think team Japan can do with some
1084
01:16:52,280 --> 01:16:57,480
English communication training also the adult team to be honest but it's always a question
1085
01:16:57,480 --> 01:17:02,840
of you know is there a budget like within the federation almost everything is volunteer
1086
01:17:02,840 --> 01:17:08,880
run so you have the coaches obviously are paid the physios for the team are paid but
1087
01:17:08,880 --> 01:17:13,640
other than that there seems to be very very little budget even in a highly professionalized
1088
01:17:13,640 --> 01:17:21,160
federation like the Japanese one to pay anyone so the judges as well they don't get paid
1089
01:17:21,160 --> 01:17:25,800
for what they do but at least they get like transport and hotel costs when they go to
1090
01:17:25,800 --> 01:17:32,600
competitions everyone else it's just you know pay out of your own pocket except for obviously
1091
01:17:32,600 --> 01:17:36,800
like you know the competition manager you know the local technical delegate they they
1092
01:17:36,800 --> 01:17:42,520
all have their costs paid but almost everything is just volunteer run there is just isn't
1093
01:17:42,520 --> 01:17:52,000
money within federations for stuff like this so that's another thing you know with professionalization
1094
01:17:52,000 --> 01:17:56,280
you have to at some point also be able to make more money so there's a question of how
1095
01:17:56,280 --> 01:18:01,980
do we do that how do we attract bigger sponsorship to climbing how do we you know manage those
1096
01:18:01,980 --> 01:18:13,000
budgets where does the money need to go
1097
01:18:13,000 --> 01:18:18,320
it's impossible to organize events like this you know without a substantial amount of money
1098
01:18:18,320 --> 01:18:25,640
and you know if you want sport to be professional then people need to be able to sustain themselves
1099
01:18:25,640 --> 01:18:34,120
from it so if it runs entirely on volunteers that doesn't necessarily need to mean the
1100
01:18:34,120 --> 01:18:39,840
quality is not good because again we've seen that Japan is very good at organizing these
1101
01:18:39,840 --> 01:18:49,200
things and they do it all volunteer run but you know you need some level of investment
1102
01:18:49,200 --> 01:18:54,820
in order to grow yeah all right okay one more light question
1103
01:18:54,820 --> 01:19:02,240
um I actually I don't know if you'll know this one because I'm not super familiar but
1104
01:19:02,240 --> 01:19:08,120
one person asked where's Kai Harada he was my favorite I miss seeing him compete with
1105
01:19:08,120 --> 01:19:16,600
his flowy effortless climbing style yeah he I think maybe already before the Olympics
1106
01:19:16,600 --> 01:19:24,160
or right after the Olympics he got sick and I have no details on the nature of this but
1107
01:19:24,160 --> 01:19:29,800
it seems to be some sort of chronic thing that he's been really struggling with and
1108
01:19:29,800 --> 01:19:36,520
he's from the communication I've heard which is basically only his own social media you
1109
01:19:36,520 --> 01:19:41,260
know he had a he tried to come back this year at the Boulder Japan Cup and he had a an awful
1110
01:19:41,260 --> 01:19:47,160
performance unfortunately so I don't think that inspired confidence but yeah lately what
1111
01:19:47,160 --> 01:19:52,480
I've heard is that he's training hard and and like working hard to you know get on top
1112
01:19:52,480 --> 01:19:57,480
of whatever the medical issue is and you know hoping to make that come back in the next
1113
01:19:57,480 --> 01:20:02,240
season okay damn it well that was not a light question
1114
01:20:02,240 --> 01:20:09,440
um I hope I hope he can get better I hope that um he can overcome whatever illness he's
1115
01:20:09,440 --> 01:20:15,680
going through um you know I don't I don't want this to feel like it's all been you know
1116
01:20:15,680 --> 01:20:21,120
disaster talk and and and just criticism as I've said I do think the IFC has been improving
1117
01:20:21,120 --> 01:20:27,400
on on certain points um including some of their you know social media communication
1118
01:20:27,400 --> 01:20:34,360
in this past season um and you know we we are a sport that's growing and with that is
1119
01:20:34,360 --> 01:20:41,760
gonna come you know friction and and issues and I just hope that you know through initiatives
1120
01:20:41,760 --> 01:20:47,800
like this podcast and and other things we can open up that discussion and hopefully
1121
01:20:47,800 --> 01:20:53,480
get people to have more insights into how comp climbing works and you know ultimately
1122
01:20:53,480 --> 01:21:00,800
have that sort of permeate through to the top and to the IFC and and you know maybe
1123
01:21:00,800 --> 01:21:06,260
this isn't something that's gonna be anywhere near perfect in the next you know five or
1124
01:21:06,260 --> 01:21:12,600
ten years or whatever but as long as we can keep that development going and hopefully
1125
01:21:12,600 --> 01:21:16,080
you know keep the discussions open rather than just everyone criticizing each other
1126
01:21:16,080 --> 01:21:23,760
and and shutting down discussions then I think you know this sport is going to go to really
1127
01:21:23,760 --> 01:21:28,080
interesting places and and I hope to be part of it and I hope you know everyone who enjoys
1128
01:21:28,080 --> 01:21:34,280
watching it now is going to continue to enjoy that and I would really encourage people if
1129
01:21:34,280 --> 01:21:39,360
you know they like watching comp climbing to see if you can maybe volunteer at a local
1130
01:21:39,360 --> 01:21:44,580
comp um it you know it doesn't have to be a massive national or international thing
1131
01:21:44,580 --> 01:21:49,960
but just start you know with your local climbing gyms competition see if they need any help
1132
01:21:49,960 --> 01:21:55,580
running it if they need any judges and and just you know see how things are organized
1133
01:21:55,580 --> 01:22:00,360
for yourself and I think for me it's been really interesting and eye-opening and I hope
1134
01:22:00,360 --> 01:22:06,380
to be able to continue to also develop in this world and and you know get to go to many
1135
01:22:06,380 --> 01:22:15,440
more comps and you know if if you feel like something is not going well I think or if
1136
01:22:15,440 --> 01:22:19,960
you feel like you know there's problems with sport climbing or whatever the best thing
1137
01:22:19,960 --> 01:22:27,440
you can do is get involved and see what little impact you can have by getting involved and
1138
01:22:27,440 --> 01:22:33,240
by putting in some effort and and you know you'll get to know people you'll get to see
1139
01:22:33,240 --> 01:22:39,520
places you didn't know existed maybe and um I think that's just the best way to go about
1140
01:22:39,520 --> 01:22:40,520
it.
1141
01:22:40,520 --> 01:22:46,560
Well yeah I think that was a perfect amazing point to end on um and I think that was everything
1142
01:22:46,560 --> 01:22:52,640
I wanted to cover so thanks for joining me today um would you like to let everyone know
1143
01:22:52,640 --> 01:22:56,800
yeah um do you want to let everyone know where they can find you if they want to learn more
1144
01:22:56,800 --> 01:23:02,520
about behind the scenes of world cups or if maybe they have complaints yeah unfortunately
1145
01:23:02,520 --> 01:23:07,960
it's things like everything just comes down to the money okay that's what we've kept coming
1146
01:23:07,960 --> 01:23:08,960
back to today.
1147
01:23:08,960 --> 01:23:12,000
If you're watching on YouTube I'm sure I'll be in in the YouTube comments as well I'll
1148
01:23:12,000 --> 01:23:16,480
be happy to answer more questions there so if anyone has any maybe you know head to um
1149
01:23:16,480 --> 01:23:21,440
that's not real climbing YouTube channel and I'll respond to some stuff there and you can
1150
01:23:21,440 --> 01:23:24,520
also find me on Instagram it's at Maya Sounds.
1151
01:23:24,520 --> 01:23:29,000
Awesome well thank you again it was amazing to talk to you.
1152
01:23:29,000 --> 01:23:31,200
Yeah thank you so much for having me.
1153
01:23:31,200 --> 01:23:34,440
Thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast.
1154
01:23:34,440 --> 01:23:39,360
If you're watching on YouTube I would love to hear your discussion and thoughts in the
1155
01:23:39,360 --> 01:23:44,080
comments below and don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed.
1156
01:23:44,080 --> 01:23:49,920
If you're listening through a podcasting platform I'd appreciate if you rated it five stars
1157
01:23:49,920 --> 01:23:54,720
and you can continue the discussion through my competition climbing discord server linked
1158
01:23:54,720 --> 01:23:58,720
in the description through all of the podcasting platforms.
1159
01:23:58,720 --> 01:24:03,200
Thanks again for listening.

Jinni Xia

2: Maya Witters, World Cup Judge

Show Notes

Timestamps

Full Transcript

3: Jonathan Sin, Aspiring Pro Climber

1: Niklas Wiechmann, parkour-style routesetter