2021 USA Climbing National Team Trials – Male Bouldering Final

i think winter has become my favorite season here that's when you get those dramatic views brings out all the colors and the gray pops and it just i feel like it's kind of like mecca or the center of the universe it's not a fluffy place to come it's not a feel good boost your ego it's just like you get a beating yeah if i can only find one place for the rest of my life it would be yosemite since 1966 we have viewed walls not as obstacles but as opportunities from the big walls of yosemite to the high peaks of the himalaya we were searching for a personal kind of freedom in this pursuit we found a community strengthened by different stories experiences and perspectives this community has shown us that the only way forward is together we fight the battles no one hears about we drop into the middle of firefights to rescue others and act as one man air traffic control towers we're the ones who go before all others join the fight so [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to the usa climbing national team trials presented by yeti we are in memphis tennessee where the best climbers in the country have gathered to compete for a national team spot after over a year away from competitions we are at the beautiful high point climbing in fitness here in the birthplace of rock and roll following an exciting semifinals round these athletes are preparing to give it their all we're back for the men's bouldering finals and the athletes are currently out there for their preview of the boulders i'm megan martin alongside alex johnson and alex this semi-final round was brutal not a lot of tops only one top to get in the finals exactly and it was almost enough to make finals with no tops four zones so that really gives you an idea of how hard these boulders were so let's take a quick look at who we're gonna see out there tonight let's look at our running order so remember the person going first is the one who qualified in sixth place so that'll be ross fulkerson followed by sean bailey colin duffy ben hannah john brock and nathaniel coleman now aj who is your pick to take it all tonight so we have two olympians in finals tonight and sean bailey who has consistently been on the podium but i'm gonna have to go with dark horse ross fulkerson here he is topping boulder number three in semifinals uh one of maybe three to top and he also had a hand on the finish of boulder number two which only saw one top the entire round and i'm excited to see what he can pull out in finals here and i'm gonna have to go with nathaniel coleman i think it'd be hard not to as he was the only person to top this boulder not only top it but flash it he also had three tops total and after looking at the round here tonight it looks like the boulders will suit him really well and if you saw with that replay that was quite the move that he was able to stick we saw so many men jump to that hold and not be able to make it happen but right now the men are behind us they're doing their preview they have two minutes per boulder to preview so we're gonna go ahead sit down and take you all through the boulder problem problems a little bit uh the men taking a look at the number two boulder here in the finals now you'll see they're taking a second to touch those starting holes that is allowed they can't touch any of the other holes they can't pull on in any manner but they can feel the starting holds it's a-okay now this to me looks like one of the most challenging boulders of the round actually and we're not gonna oh i can get into it a little bit there is a palm press in this boulder that'll be really exciting their left hand should be on that zone hold and have to then put the right hand pressed into that black hole on the volume and it's gonna be interesting to see how everyone reads this one and this would be a specific boulder where if you don't read it properly early enough you only have the four minutes so it could come down to just basic root reading here in order to be successful on such a difficult boulder like that that was the one that uh you and i had the hardest time sequencing megan it's very true we were we were walking around with flannery one of the route setters here and we kept saying things she and she was like nope that other hand other foot there's a press and we're like oh i feel like i'm usually not terrible yeah usually we're good at it sequences that one kind of got me and this is another one that looks pretty challenging and low percentage specifically like the movements are going to be a little slippery a little off balance getting through those yellow volumes that she referred to as slices lemon slices which i think is accurate it's going to be kind of tricky because you're coming from a position above them and then going to have to go down onto them and try to use them while you have dual textured footholds that have a pretty big surface area of the slippery texture small percentage slab boulder here they're going to walk across really trusting the dual text which no one ever wants to do definitely not remember they have two minutes per boulder to look at them and only touch those start holds it's a great advantage to be able to touch the start holes in the preview because you can kind of feel what they feel like obviously and then be sort of get yourself into the position and feel the position and then when you do come out you're not really wasting time trying to figure that out and it's kind of like a muscle memory thing that's already logged into your bank and the preview part really makes sense when you drop that minute off of the round because four minutes is just not a lot of time it's really difficult to finish boulders in four minutes if you have to do more than a couple tries you could find yourself with no time very quickly now up to that fourth boulder problem one that we thought actually looked like probably the most doable for the field one of the most really the first and the fourth were what we were thinking this is very dynamic at the beginning with a cool coordination move they'll have to catch a tow hook and then they get into that nice zone hole that's gonna be really good and then it's kind of campusing on crimps which for most people you'd be like oh not not something i want to do but for these guys not as challenging to do they all have a lot of upper body strength and as we saw colin duffy in the semi-final just one arm right and part of the sequence at the end of this is like a forced campus to the finish so we're gonna get a taste of that total strength that these guys have here and we think that they're likely to do really well on this one although it is at the end of the round that's something to think about it does look the most fun i agree the most showy yeah just wrong like to end on a showy boulder you know it is a performance still work we've got the live feed going here and it's we're trying to make our team selection but also we want to end on a cool boulder exactly and bringing up that team selection the athletes here are fighting for a spot on the us bouldering team to then compete in the world cups and having those two back-to-back world cups in salt lake is something really exciting and so colin duffy and nathaniel coleman are already on the team but that means there's three more spots so [Applause] there are three athletes in here that could possibly make it on the team through this final let's take a look at problem one so this is a boulder that we both thought looks pretty doable though it's interesting because the start with those four pieces of tape you have to have an all point start before you can even move you have to establish that way so likely they'll put two hands in that top hold and one foot in each and then have to kind of rock over but what's interesting about it is it's kind of a small box so a lot of the athletes might feel a little scrunched yeah flynn was saying that it might be harder for some of the taller athletes as you were saying it is a bit of a smaller box and it's a really tenuous and strenuous start position sort of having your hands and your feet kind of all in the same spot you really have to you know flex everything and tense your muscles and then stand up and get out of it which is a difficult move as well to go from like tension to like loose and then at the end of it there's this pistol squat that you kind of have to do i'm gonna finish see how this goes megan and i definitely might be eating our words but when we were sequencing we were like really this this might be a little light for the boys it looks a little easy but yeah we we could definitely be wrong um it's hard to know sometimes when you don't actually get on the boulder so you have an idea about how things might feel and it's refreshing if you were wrong in the sense that you thought it was going to be really hard and it feels easy but it's pretty annoying when it goes the other way yeah so here is ross fulkerson 20 years old and one of the taller athletes so it'll we'll find out pretty soon how that start feels for someone that's around six feet tall absolutely coming out and brushing the holds right away so they aren't allowed to touch the start holes in their preview but they're not able to touch any other holds and so for me when i come out and around and i brush the holes the brush becomes sort of an extension of my hands and if the brush is sensitive enough you can kind of feel where the good part of the holds are those really high holes you can't reach and it's definitely a strategy that plays in favor of like getting a feel for the holds but also if you take too much time to like ju russ is already down to 320 here and that's a lot of time to brush and i've run out of time before spending you know a minute on brushing but sometimes it plays in a factor interesting approach that's not exactly what we were told we thought we the roots that are intended to have them palm where ross threw his foot but that looked like a great plan and here's that pistol squat that we were talking about and it looks like he's gonna get a flash most likely as long as he can get that right hand on inside flag and it's gonna be a flash there's the inside flag they were trying to force on uh semifinal boulder number three ross fulkerson wow out of the gate that's gonna feel great moving in to that second boulder and we didn't get a list of the names from the root setters but i think we should call this the bowling ball yeah those those first ones definitely look like what you would get with a bowling ball awesome great ghost star of course yeah right we pick i think we might have called her right i'm one for one another look at those starting holds that we are now referring to as the bowling ball problem i feel like shiny glossy like a bowling ball i really liked his approach by throwing the foot like that i it seemed really efficient put him in a great position right away to then just stand up nicely into that zone hold so we'll have to see what sean bailey does here we'll see what and you know what now that i think about it i wouldn't be surprised if we see all the men do that because they did get a chance to talk about it that and it might seem like you're eliminating a move like if they go right hand to the first gas stone and palm the bigger volume then you're kind of stuck in this half iron cross position and have to really hold and flex that tension to get the left foot up and so jumping into it sort of eliminates that move and sean's gonna know that whatever ross did he did it quickly because he got pulled out of isolation so fast so he's gonna know that there's pressure to top here because that definitely didn't take ross five minutes so it took longer to brush than it did it really did interesting going for the facing uh right sequence i don't know about this which just seems a little too risky to me he is established now definitely an interesting approach i think it'll still set him up nicely in a similar position without having to be dynamic like frosted but definitely risky because that start hold is much better on the coming from the other side in that orientation grabbing it from the right so risky in different ways like the jump move is set up as a risk move that's the term they use in setting to force force something that's insecure but the way that sean started is risky because the position is so much harder to get into this is where ross did a nice inside flag here looks like sean's trying to go for that drinky bird position a little bit a little shaky on the left foot he looks like he wants to reposition it a little bit just to get set up that looks a lot better right there's a drinky drinky bird inside flag oh gonna actually push himself off the wall with that but plenty of times to get back up there yeah trying to trying to bring that leg through sort of push his hips out from the from the wall a little too much you see his foot is just shaking doing an elvis shake there on that tiny jib just can't get it to stay this is kind of one of those situations where if your shoes are too soft too like it could be really hard to be able to rock over confidently and i'm pretty sure that is a softer shoe so it might be a little difficult but i'm sure you can make it happen yeah with a softer shoe it's usually really beneficial on volumes because they can be really sensitive and you get a lot of bend and flex in the shoe and you can smear but a stiffer shoe for standing on something like that the rubber doesn't bend and it's not as much strength in the foot you can sort of just rely on the edge of the shoe to keep you on a hold like that exactly and you'll see some athletes bring multiple pairs of shoes out and especially for a final when you get to see the boulders ahead of time then you can know okay i need this shoe for this boulder and this shoe for that boulder exactly adam andra shauna coxy like world cup veterans you see them do that all the time if it's a slab shauna will be in a flat stiffer flat shoe and if it's a steep she'll put on like a downturn velcro and and adam under does the same thing it depends on maybe it's even a newer shoe versus an older shoe but the same the same model like the older shoes they can get really specific yeah totally sean going back to his original beta he tried that intended beta that the setters were talking about but quickly decided to go back to what worked the first time for him it does look like the easier method yeah i wonder if it's a it's a smaller box like he's able to start in that position a little better not have to do the jump ross kind of he's taller so fitting in the jump i was also thinking about this position it was a little bit easier for ross to get his hand on a better part of the hold here because he is a little taller and i think shawn's a little insecure with the standing there and not being able to get much from that top hold i think if he leaned a little bit more forward on that left foot every time he tries to bring his left or his right foot through it pushes him out a little bit but i think he's still leaning a little bit too far back on that screw on foot and if he were to lean a little more forward it might help his balance a little bit just over that knee and a little bit more over that foot man it's hard to say just because that part of the hold that he's able to reach is not really anything right so if he does reach over he might not have anything to really push against but not gonna have enough time to figure out what he can do there but colin duffy is a similar height to sean so we'll see if he has the same issue here at the top i'm also really interested to see how he approaches the start here yeah we had two wildly different start positions i honestly was not expecting someone to come out facing to the right like shawn did because that start hand is so bad so bad and it's a jug the other way yeah it's definitely counter-intuitive to what you would want to do oh the setters try to force it and someone's gonna find a way around it no matter what i'm guessing he's gonna do something more similar to what ross did but maybe he'll do the intended beta trying that intended baited method but didn't quite work it does look more strenuous that way yeah it's they're they're losing their right foot and that momentum really opens them up and i think they're gonna have to press press way harder on the left hand or he's gonna have to do the job nicely done by colin duffy one of our olympic qualified athletes let's see if he can figure out how to rock over enough on this foothold he's generally quite confident on holds like this and he has crazy ankle flexibility if you can see how flexible his ankles are which is really helpful sounds like a really weird thing but honestly it's it's huge and it's key you see it in natalya too and cece and kylie colin like those athletes who are really good at slab it's really important on slab to drop your heels down because that gets more surface to the bottom of the shoe and rubber connecting to the hold and the texture and so ankle flexibility is huge and you really notice that and athletes who are good at slab nice attempt there by colin duffy he tried to go a little more dynamically and he just slipped at the last second and i do think in order for him to stick the part of the the part of the top hole that's actually going to be able to keep him on the wall he will have to go kind of dynamic ross just seemed so secure on that foot you just yeah he was i mean like glue i do think part of it is his height being closer to that hold but what's great about these rounds is the route setters are thinking about the variety of athletes they have and the variety of heights so you see something that might be a little better for a taller person but then maybe on the next boulder something that's better for the shorter and you can see the same things on one singular boulder yeah absolutely so you and i talking about this boulder looking light and then ross coming out and smashing it i was i was worried our fears were coming true and then seeing sean and colin on this who are amazing boulders and amazing competitors [Music] really nice attempt there trying to rock over on the left side of the volume a little more by pulling himself with his left hand i almost thought for a second that he was gonna try to hop his foot off of the screw on and hop it on to the volume yeah like the left foot i think if he did that that actually could be an option because unfortunately trying to inside flag without having a hand on the top doesn't put you in a great position as we saw from sean bailey so it's a weird move to do but i could see colin trying to hop his left foot up maybe still really interesting too the difference in how colin's doing this jump it's the same jump rosted but he's throwing his right foot onto the hole instead of his left little slip there he doesn't have enough time though yeah that's the cool thing about some of these like low percentage jumps you don't waste a lot of time climbing a boulder you know it's just a quick hop and then you're on the start again these athletes know that and they know they can kind of wind the clock down a little more and still have a good go left in them trying to get back up into that position oh another foot slip doesn't look like he's going to be able to make it happen he does know which boulders are coming next as they had a preview so hopefully he's able to put some more points on the board on the next boulder really interesting result so far though i i am glad we weren't right and people are just slashing it but it's cool i'm interested very interested for my dark horse another dark horse of ours ben and colin almost in the same outfit colin just walked back past me and ben came out and i was like he must have forgot something which one was like wait nope that's been making a really good decision of grabbing that brush right away i actually was thinking colin might have wanted to brush a little more near the end of the time period for him but i think it it's definitely hard when you get down to about a minute you're not really thinking about brushing anymore right you're panicking your time is counting down and you think any second wasted a second that you're spending not on the wall but that brushing even for four seconds might be worth it you know exactly and it is so hard just not to go rapid fire on moves like this you kind of want to it's like you want to fall somewhere in between it's like that goldilocks complex right you don't want to do too much you don't want to do too little but you only have four minutes and you blink and they're gone so you want everyone to count you don't exactly going for the intended beta there then hannah and now this is interesting he's kind of in between the height of ross right and sean and colin so we'll see see if that plays a role up top as well [Music] definitely getting creative right off the start trying two different betas back to back i think he'll go with that second one again it looked pretty good yeah he just missed the done see if he can rock up over his toe that's the position i think that that chunky drinky bird it does seem to be a little better if you're taller and that's how ross did it with an inside flag heel hook and but that has been at the training center practicing specifically these moves these weird finishes these no no no hands like pancake shadow finishes like he's this is literally what he's been working on for weeks is these awkward funky slabby foot like no hands finishes and so i expect him to finish this one i do too and what he was doing is right it's just when we saw ross fulkerson do it he did already have one hand on the finish just giving him a little bit more opposition there now there is a chance that this way could work for ben but i also think he should try to get his hand over at least one or two more times before he just commits to going straight to that inside flag because it is really unbalanced [Music] nice rock over going straight to that inside flag again really shaky there oh nice little tow hook uh yeah definitely has to get over that foot more and lean more towards the finish hold with probably a hand on it before throwing that leg through he's just doing it a little prematurely and it's keeping his weight too far to the right let's take a look back at what ross volkerson did so he had one hand on the finish in a really good spot and then he pulled his right leg in through an inside flag and a heel hook on that volume giving him the perfect stability to match that finishing hold so i still think it's possible to maybe do it without that hand first but it's going to be far more efficient if you can get your hand in that better part on the finish hold right foot here yes this is new this could be nope come on i don't know i think if he had a little more generation into that he might have been able to 25 seconds that's good for at least one more go he's so close and this is like one of those boulders where it you know he'll go back into ice and it might haunt him like you have a hold on the finish repeatedly and you just can't lock that sequence in you're gonna go back into iso and think what if i had like what if i had finished what could i have done i literally touched it man that that that was brilliant i guess he would have tried that earlier yeah a tiny bit more momentum over that foot and i think his balance would have been perfect he just didn't have quite enough gusto in that direction it pulled his head up and then started to make him peel back and he lost it but that was rad that was awesome i'm so glad he tried it that way and he does have a zone though it did take him three tries to get to the zone so of the other athletes that have a zone lower than or more tries than it took them now we have john brock one of the or actually the tallest athlete in the competition six two plus four now i think for him it might be interesting to see how getting on the start will be because he is so tall it might feel a little awkward but it didn't look too bad for ross yeah ross was able to sort of get into it really nicely and and that was something that flann was explaining to us when we were walking through was that it is a strenuous position and then hard to jump out of and i think that's why they thought the athletes would do the right hand gaston left-handed press because it's hard to be explosive in that in that position but they're proving them wrong daily and it's still so interesting to see already you can see it's a little awkward for him to pull on the start he's got much longer legs he's actually gonna have to sit down in order to establish full value sds in case you don't know that stands for sit down start going for that intended beta with that right hand gassed on into a palm press on the other hold the other dual texture the other blue hole yeah i know right things all blue holds but the other half moon blue dual text hold he's got to grab that blue grip and then go for the summit and pick up another two blue grips on the way it is really interesting to watch him start this i think the sit-down start was the way honestly like it was successful in it and he was able to get up and get in that position we don't see this often especially in a competition like having having to sit down on the ground and pull on that i don't think i've ever seen that that was awesome no pad stack either it's valid [Laughter] two minutes and 18 seconds left and john is one of the athletes that is really looking for a good finish here to hopefully be eligible to make that u.s team he's not already on it so he needs to do well here in order to be able to compete in the world cups and with those two back-to-back salt lake city world cups it's on everybody's mind so he'll be trying really hard here back on the start and doing it a different way again choosing to go to the left side kind of like we saw earlier from sean bailey but still somewhat of a different orientation and moving into that zone we've seen him take advantage of his reach a little bit maybe not so much take advantage but you know everybody has a different body type so you have to figure out what might work for you and your skill set or your stature trying to figure out how to rock up on to that volume again kind of a scrunchy position for him little slip there and we just we're lucky enough to have zach galas sit down with us at the booth welcome zach it was so excited to see you in the semi-final today i'm not to see you out here but we do know you are recovering from a shoulder injury shoulder shoulder surgery i mean so yeah that's hard to say shoulder surgery or surgery say that five times fast yeah no i've been psyched to just be able to come out here and do this competition i was lucky enough to feel healthy enough to come and compete um i've been training for like the past two months and i really had like no problems but i really i felt decently strong through the whole semifinal round but i just didn't really have the fitness to keep it going through such a heinous round of boulders you looked really strong and i mean maybe we were speculating but we thought we saw you a few times make really smart decisions to keep your shoulder from re-injuring it like keeping it safe and being really smart about how you were approaching each boulder yeah i tried to protect my shoulder on a few there wasn't anything that was like too shouldery i was pretty lucky through the competition there wasn't anything i really had to worry about um but uh yeah no i i was i was lucky to not have any super heinous moves comp fitness is like a totally different kind of fitness too like you can be at the strongest you've ever been and rip outside and you come into a comp and it's four minutes on four minutes off and that's like something that you can only prepare for by doing exactly that in training yeah i was trying to do that coming in and i felt decently fit but that extra tryhard that you have to give and the comps got me so much extra work i woke up this morning so sore from the qualifier so i bet and here is nathaniel coleman one of the olympic qualified athletes taking a second to brush the holds before he does his first attempt zach what do you think about problem number one looking at the boulder i didn't expect this first move to be so dynamic i think ross might have done it statically i kind of got a good look no he went dynamic as well he threw his left foot out he actually right we were shocked that he just jumped out left through his left foot and he seemed to do it like without a second thought like a lot of these guys are looking at the start and they're like do i wanna and then rush just got on pulled on and like exploded out of it and it was like no hesitation okay but i agree with you i didn't when like sequencing it i didn't think oh they're gonna jump to it and throw their foot i thought this was the intended beta what nathaniel just did but still not super dynamic yeah i thought that uh that left foot was gonna be good enough to be able to like completely balance and reach over statically left hand but i think this wall is a little bit more vertical than i thought it was it's not it's not a slab did you get a chance to go around and sequence the boulders before i did yeah i looked at the starts and and scoped the sequences really nicely done by nathaniel like catching that swing and avoiding the barn door lots of tension and body control there and this rock over move has been giving people a lot of trouble what are your thoughts on that zach definitely it's just all about like standing up and trusting that foot as best as you can it's like feels super secure getting or insecure getting over it but i think once you're on top and you find the right balancing point it's not super bad i kind of like how this is forced here once you get one hand on you really have no other option but to bring in that inside flag he was in a great position like pretty stable in a good spot on the finish hold ross had his left hand on it which he did sort of like allows you to open up a little bit more towards the wall to bring that foot in and nathaniel crossing to have his right hand on it sort of made him face out a little too far to bring the foot in and that's gonna push his hips out yeah it seems like when your right hip is super close turned into the wall your momentum kind of is pushing you off it's hard to stay i saw that a lot with sean bailey kept trying to get that inside flag in ahead of time in his hip every time would just like knock him off the wall looks like he's going to get back on relatively soon for him for another attempt he's one that kind of winds down the clock getting rest in but maybe he's a little concerned that it's not going to just take one more go you know and with four minutes you know you have to kind of think about it differently yeah and this boulder too does it once you get it figured out it doesn't look too taxing it looks like you can kind of give it some rapid fire goes and not be too worked from it see if he makes that adjustment and tries to go with his left hand very nice i figured it out that's such a cool sequence because it's almost like you need the opposition of pushing on the heel and pushing on the hand to sort of lock you in you're like in the elevator door you know that's what keeps you on the wall that's a cool good root center that's a really good route setting we were so we underestimated it so much we were so wrong it looks too easy it was far more complex than we originally thought and nathaniel coleman figuring out the right body position to get into and nicely walking away with the top of number one putting him currently in second place moving into boulder number two this boulder looked nails did you sequence this one this one looked like the hardest to me the going to the finish hold and matching it just i couldn't really imagine right especially i really like how they decided to use the the wrong side like the non-usable side of the hold and like make you pinch the volume they're really like oh you know what there's no wrong side megan the not obviously usable side my bad my least favorite side the wrong side whatever [Laughter] ross just waiting for his four minutes to start so he can turn around and get on the boulder surprised he doesn't already well i guess i have a brush well the brush is it's so close to the wall they might not let him walk over to it they really should have put it on gandalf positions i guess for safety though maybe it makes sense that you shall not brush it's out there you shoveled a brush for all you lord of the rings fans out there i'm not even a lord of the rings it's weird because i am all three extended versions got them god i would way rather watch harry potter i also love those going straight for the brush just as we assumed it'll be interesting to see if there is a way to do this out of sequence i feel like it's likely that that's not possible yeah and this is the one that we kept getting the sequence wrong when we walked through with the center like right left hand and then right hand and flynn was like no wrong i'm just like oh crap it seems straightforward but it does but yeah it's clearly not and also i wonder how many times i wonder how many times people will slip catching that palm press it it does look a little scary um kind of dead pointy you know i definitely didn't read this one right i did not know if it was a prom press no i thought it was a foot i thought it was like meet him to the zone and then swing the right foot which doesn't need the game room might end up doing that oh he didn't he didn't jump into it but he's still using it which is awesome wow he is on fire [Music] yes means two hands on the top oh man this is like crazy crazy he's crippling the blade and the bubbles oh man wow that was exciting stuff there from ross fulkerson i really wish that would have worked i've never wanted to cheer so much that was nuts here are the current standings after boulder number run one ross fulkerson in first nathaniel coleman second sean bailey third colin w fourth john brock fifth fan hannah six only two tops so far from ross fulkerson and nathaniel coleman and ross is on number two narrowly missing or narrowly flashing again that would have been two flashes that would have been it's insane i think even if ross doesn't end up doing this boulder getting the zone on his first try is gonna help him out a lot because that finish matching that finish hold looks heinous i don't know i totally agree athletes are gonna be able to do that i do think if he just put his left foot where his right foot was though so like i don't think i think it's possible he does it on his second drive yeah he he was like totally improvising what am i going to do here so i'm going to face out it was like he was just reaching his foot out and was like oh hold let me just put it there yeah i think the left foot definitely you need that to get left hand up to the top but then you have to do that little finicky foot match and i think he was just trying to avoid doing that i wonder if you could technically toe hook the volume could you reach that right volume with like if you have your left foot up put your toe underneath that volume with your right foot just for some opposition there maybe it could be possible it might be too far but just a thought it's hard to tell from the ground rode the clock down to about 40 which wow see four minutes goes so fast so fast saving that energy and knowing sort of that he has maybe one more good go this is a really hard powerful boulder he really wants to finish it he he is looking tired like this is one of the hardest bowlers so far the hardest bowler i think in this round and even one go on it probably zapped a lot out of him really nicely done getting the hips in there gonna try to don't go right here oh no he clearly can't don't do it don't do it [Applause] wonderful climbing there by ross fulkerson zone on his first try which will be really big for him still in the lead currently one top two zones it's it's huge to get zone on your first try but when you're trying to match the finish like that and you don't get it it's with this scoring format it is frustrating because then you all you get is one point for getting halfway up the wall you know it's like you don't you don't get a lot to show for like all of this work that you put into like narrowly falling off the finish and with our old scoring format you were more rewarded for doing more moves but aligning with the ifsc it's like two points for boulder and you get one no matter how high you get it it can be really frustrating because of that because i mean the same goes for the lead even with usable surface and clipping those extra points when you do make those action moves it completely changes your strategy exactly so like you get to zone first try and if you think there's absolutely no way you have a shot at finishing the boulder why would you get back on yeah there's really no point yeah especially with an early zone and you climb like do a lot of climbing past it it just feels like you're just a lot of wasted energy totally not quite able to make it to that zone hold for sean bailey kind of didn't have his hips in enough to cross is quite the powerful move as well i think once sean is able to figure out the subtleties and body positions of this boulder i imagine this one's suiting him pretty well yeah it's like he's great rushing in a little bit and just like doing the grab and pull thing which he's good at but he also is so good at finding the subtleties that it's surprising me that he's not sort of sinking into those you know he's he's really good with his feet and his toes and like moving his hips i know that sounds really weird but like watching him climb in a comp and outside he's the way that he sort of sinks into positions like that it's surprising that he's not finding those this weekend yeah he has struggled a bit in the bouldering round all of them really and i i mean not getting that top and number one and really almost every boulder that was on that wall this week he was you know close to the top and then falling so i wonder if it's getting in his head a little bit even trying to set up better for this move this time nice i was actually worried for a second that his right foot might pop unsure about that i mean i think he could have held the swing but looks like a really strenuous press it's hard to it seems weird to move your foot out right when you're pushing your body the opposite way yeah it's like it seems like a place where you'd really want to be pulling with your right hand to get the foot over that and do you think that there and he should drop his left foot in order to like move his entire lower half that way i know that's a ton of weight on that left crimp but it also seems like his left foot is kind of keeping him anchored yeah i think that it would be much better you know if he moved if he dropped his left foot for sure i think taking the left foot off is gonna not allow you to push into the palm at all though your right hand's just gonna be floating so i mean that was close yeah maybe if you can kind of try to more dynamically swing it over i feel like that's something we would see the women do actually right going to run down the clock a little bit which probably isn't a terrible idea since this folder is so strenuous i also wonder if it could be beneficial to try and match that downhold yeah i think if you're able to get like a couple fingers on each hand on you might be able to just swing the foot out exactly you'd have a little more leverage that way yeah which he's good at that kind of stuff so maybe maybe he can make it happen i imagine that if you keep the left foot on you probably it's going to be hard to force yourself to do but you want to like push your as much weight as you can into this palm to move the right foot over and it's hard to like take the weight off that crown that was it yeah i think it's a that's kind of about flexibility there you really have to press into the palm and then throw your foot over he did it nicely but kind of his hip flexibility holding him back he kept trying to swing that foot over and he has to do it dynamically because maybe he's not as flexible in his hips and he was right on it for a second but then wasn't able to make it stay so i think if it hadn't slid so much he would have been able to stick it but that's this is another call you know he had like 30 seconds on the clock which theoretically is plenty of time to do a boulder and he called it because he got zoned and there's no point like going to the finish with that really good strategy there yeah these more powerful boulders it's hard to like use your attempts sparingly because you know you only have like so much energy for the rest of the round and you are in being the final he's already seen the other boulders in this round so might as well save it colin duffy brush in hand ready to go you really shall not pass [Laughter] you definitely could have got around ross [Laughter] taking a moment to brush off all that shoe rubber on that yellow hole specifically man it's getting worked just winding back and forth on that left foot trying to throw that right foot out yeah i'd get those start holds a little bit more i put my sweaty hands on those earlier so oh man so did i i had a total total unethical party fell here yeah i couldn't help myself touch your balloon with your greasy snot paws i did it i'm sorry i think he might have to keeping the foot both sean and colin narrowly coming off with that right foot his shoes unbuckled he's been having some issues [Music] [Laughter] [Music] the sequence is intended to be a pinch but that hold is so bad i don't know nope oh okay so the top the top tape is actually it's not the volume it's pointed straight at the hold and so he's gonna have to have at least one finger on the yellow hold to get the top when you saw him come in to pinch the blue hole so a lot of times this weekend like you see them grab grab the oh you've got the shoe adjust here this was cool a lot of times this weekend the tape will be just on the volume and so you grab a crimp on top of the volume and you just kind of smack the volume and that's the finish but the the finish hold here is precisely the yellow hold so you need two hands on that and so he came in to match the finish and put his thumb on it and that's a good strategy you know you know people talk about how young colin is all the time but honestly his way of gaining experience is kind of sped up like even though he's so young he's gained a lot of experience and makes a lot of smart decisions that you wouldn't even know he's 17. yeah just like that's a that's a season world cup competitor kind of move that he just tried to pull yeah he's been competing for such a long time he really does have the experience even though he's he's so young let's see if he can figure out a better way to go about this sequence there oh i feel like it's so hard to watch people's feet just pick i i know it's annoying when it happens to you but there's something about watching someone have to deal with that it kind of drives me crazy yeah it's such a bummer like ah it's like you didn't even get a full try taking a longer rest than he did previously you see his foot just kind of slip here as he's ready to get into that top hole just at the last minute he's trying to turn into it a little more and it just kind of picked off there it's really important to stay so present in every movement that you make losing tension a little bit here on the start this is his third attempt i think so he's probably powering down a little bit this is a hard boulder such a hard barn door that he held there and also like three fingers on only of course the drag he's good at that it's like really good at it going back to that wrapped method oh nice nice squeeze there see if he can hold attention oh that is very questionable that'll have to be oh we're gonna give it to him i think they are [Applause] let's see oh yeah oh i think i would give it to it that's just as good as ross is finished yeah sammy's number three he was controlling it for a significant amount of time it's like at least three seconds for sure i i give it to him 100 god i love these replays i mean they gave that exact same thing to ross oh my god he's still the joy there is so amazing he's like oh my gosh i can't believe it it's hard to because when you're on the wall like it kind of feels like you're holding on forever and then if you ever do slip you then question right away wait was i right so it's the same kind of confirmation he needs it as much as we do absolutely and i it's a really hard judge call and you don't want to be the judge who does that and i had a really similar experience in a world cup with a finish like that that got me into finals and it was like one of those questionable like did she hold it for long enough and i ended up getting it and i was like oh my god i went to finals and it's it's a close call ben hannah is setting up just on his first attempt and i wonder if he's going to be just i've never seen him just drop off of a boulder in a competition yeah it looks like when he moved that left-hand end he was surprised at how how uncomfortable that position was so he wasn't able to generate enough to go to the zone yeah i think he want to stay out on that left pinch and coming in sort of made him too close to be like explosive enough to go to zone i think you kind of want to stay open honestly can be a smart decision if you know you're kind of not in the right position why have to fight for the zone and possibly still not get it when you know you could set yourself up better it's a good conserving of energy tactic you were seventh place gala how do you think you would have done on these boulders yeah i mean i'm not sure it looks like a pretty powerful round especially the second boulder i think if i wasn't able to find luck on my early attempts it would have been really hard for me to conserve energy for the rest of the round but i mean it looks very challenging yeah ben's really struggling to generate here there's a very powerful move and really specific you have to hit exactly the right part on the zone so easy to fumble it a little bit yeah even these straightforward power boulders have like a lot of subtleties that can make it the moves a lot more efficient and finding those is what really helps you figure these out in four minutes it's hard to just burrow through them sometimes and almost it's kind of like a little bit of luck sometimes to just like sink into the right position early on in your four minutes i mean i feel like that's a lot of the whole thing with these competitions is being able to read things or find the right position quickly because if you don't do that it doesn't matter how strong you are it doesn't matter how good your technique is if you can't read it properly or find that position early enough you just might run out of time and just exhaust yourself right i think my injury and being a little bit weaker has helped me work on that a lot too because a lot of times i just get into positions where i felt like i can just yard through and i get locked into a sequence and now like since i'm not as strong right now i have to really like wait and find the right body position before i make the next move so we've been asked gala for you to define yard for us yard just pulling as hard as you can like your yard i think any time i've taken like a significant break or time off coming back weaker has always improved my phone [Music] there pausing on the volume that's big for him getting the zone yeah he definitely needed to get it since the other men have gotten it much quicker could have put him fully out of a podium spot without getting that zone just needs to swing that foot over really forcing the men to use some flexibility here sounds a little bit like our no cheering band has been lifted but this is the finals of men's bouldering man it's hard not also the last event of the competition everyone's going home after this so ben hannah will walk away with a zone from problem number two currently in fifth place but without a zona he would have been kind of knocked out of the runner running turns out that colin did not get the top so they're bringing him back out for a two minute technical he'll have two minutes to attempt the boulder again oh interesting yes very i mean i really did i thought it was long enough definitely close but long enough quick overview look at our root setters we've actually got the combination of the lead and bouldering root setters there here's another look at that finish one two three i'm sorry that seems i mean yeah like his hips are coming out those are slow-mo though i guess we need to have a faster maybe we can see a faster look at it in real time it looks like he's holding it with his upper body but his hips are slowly coming out and then that's not control i mean he knows exactly what he needs to do he can correct this as long as he has enough energy to do so right which i mean he does train really hard he's hungry he's likely to have enough energy to make this happen and as we're seeing him get one hand on the finish let's see if he can hold this finish for enough time easy money [Applause] no dispute at all he definitely got the top there so he will secure the top of number two wow very impressive actually cruising that bottom section he had a pretty dumb he's like wait i actually figured out a much better way to approach this hang on let me just go again just really committing more to the rap that time getting it all the way down to his forearm and not even trying to pinch with his right hand just touching it's all left hand his right hand is just up there for show like for the matching finish you know his left hand is taking all the weight nicely done by colin duffy getting a top puts him in a really great place moving forward in this round john brock stepping out for his attempts at boulder number two six two with that plus four wingspan tallest competitor in the competition for how tall john is i'm very uh impressed by how strong his fingers are yeah he's like even though he's pretty big he really can hang on some small holes so i like i'm interested to see how he does on this boulder yeah i do wonder about how he's going to fit in the box as well the press yeah getting that foot over could be challenging i almost feel like for him it might be better not to use the press and just try to bring the foot over and go straight to that yellow side pole slide pull under clean i could definitely see that working for him and he is pretty flexible he's one of the more flexible men in the field i believe i feel like nathaniel works on a lot as well right it's definitely something that you have to pay attention to as a taller athlete like when i was doing the circuit in 2019 try to qualify or whatever i was stretching a lot more than i've ever stretched before it was like coming back a little older and knowing i was a little taller like flexibility and mobility had held me back in the past on the world cup circuit and it's something i paid a lot of attention to this time around helped a lot i've lost all of it since then you mean you're not stretching every day anymore just 15 minutes a day that's it i feel like that's what like bowflex says how much you have to work out 15 minutes you got to work out more than that but if you stretch like 15 minutes every morning hey i got my i got my left leg split back that way [Laughter] so 15 minutes interesting the way that john did go about this he kind of did what we thought i mean i didn't think he would choose to use that press hold for a foot he was bringing it up to that black hole versus keeping it down low but he was still trying to go straight to the yellow undercling which will probably be better suited for him all the athletes here this weekend are vying for a spot on the u.s national team this is not a national championship event our nationals are in november this is the usa climbing national team trials so there's no this isn't champ we don't crown a champion this is only to select the team and nathaniel and colin tonight are our olympians and so they're already on the team and so we are taking the top three ranked athletes not including nathaniel and colin regardless of how they place and that will make up our us team to go overseas and compete in world cups and we have two local world cups in salt lake in may the 22nd and then the following week in the 28th if you guys want to come see some sick olympic level climbing come check out the world cups in salt lake there's no longer a world cup in vail it's all salt lake and then if you come be sure to show your support for your favorite athletes there's usa climbing and u.s team merch on the website and in addition to that in tokyo they're not allowing spectators so this will be your only chance to see not only the olympic qualified athletes that the us has but we're really hoping that some of those other olympic qualified athletes are able to get over here to compete as well so right you can see a little bit of what you would see at the olympics in salt lake exactly yanya's coming i asked her yeah 100 he's got only 30 seconds left and still taking his time again this kind of goes back to that whole idea of is it really worth it you don't have a lot of time left you already have the zone you don't gain anything unless you 100 know you can get to the top so right is there really a point to keep trying probably not which i think that's the decision he's making right now is to rest for those next two boulders because unless you are so sure or like you know 85 percent sure that you're gonna get to the top you gotta save that energy and there's like you know points per hold like one more hold or like with our old scoring format sort of encourage you to fight for the top but this is this scoring format creates a really interesting strategy strategy for sure it doesn't encourage like that one last go mentality that we've sort of grown up with for the last 20 years like put on one more oh you know and it's like why i feel like you only see that in the fourth boulder when they know that they get to lay down take their shoes off they can rest after that they have to lay it all out they're on the fourth boulder but until then there's tops to be had and you gotta save your energy for them nathaniel quickly hopping on to men's boulder number two [Applause] i also do think this undercling move for the taller athletes is a little more in your chest making a little harder to go for sure the longer your arms are wow that could be the yeti mood of the day that is a great save ugh my shoulder hurt just watch i know dude i've been like grabbing mine and pinching mine like gal is sitting here with an actual injured shoulder and i've been like man interesting pressing it out now he'll just need to get that left foot up by his hand for some opposition to then get a match are we gonna see a flash here oh no now it's funny because from that overhead angle it almost looks like he's in a slab but this wall is very overhanging you really can't even tell oh man that slipped there helicopter scorpion just a little slip of the heel there nice beta though trying to get that heel hook underneath but good thing he has strong shoulders because oh that could have been bad that was like one of the gnarliest moves of of the whole event how does your shoulder feel watching i don't know watching him try to grab the finish right hand that hurt my shoulder a little more you can get a nice clear look at what this overhanging angle looks like so from that overhead view it almost does look like it's not as kicked back as it is so you can kind of see why matching in that position on the top hold was a little more difficult because he is on quite an overhang pressed between those two volumes i wonder if he will try to go more like colin did to the right and like wrap with the left hand i don't know about the press unless he can get his left foot onto the zone crimp i think the angle of the volume with the steepness of the wall is not i don't think it's too steep yeah i don't know it's going to push it rips out so aggressively or his foot will just slip like that the angle of the volume is pretty shallow it's like a super strenuous position trying to match like that i would be surprised if he didn't try to go left hand on this mexico yeah that's a good point in general just knowing nathaniel and the way he operates it would be really surprising to see him try the same beta again yeah he's super good at adapting when he when something doesn't work he's really good at either changing his beta completely or finding those subtleties to make the moves a lot easier and as everyone's seeing right now really good at resting and kind of letting that clock run down a little bit knowing that every try counts and that he needs his energy in order to have a shot at setting this boulder this is that position where it's like okay i've been to the top once a hundred percent it's worth it for me to keep trying but i need to conserve and be as efficient as possible because you don't want to keep building your attempts either see if he can be a little more efficient getting into that press worked a lot better that time oh thank goodness so painful to watch the first time yep you can really see his flexibility there not so difficult for him to get to that foothold going more like colin did but not quite figuring out that rap this pinch i think flynn said was the intended sequence but the wrap crimped it was really nice i don't know it's just such a sh it's a wide shallow pinch man and still like from the single i feel like you can't see how kicked back it is oh no i'm not gonna make it happen but really great efforts from nathaniel coleman another one of the olympia qualified athletes it's been so cool to see him become such a dominant competitor like he kind of for us in the adult scene like jumped onto the scene and was it like 2014 yeah making finals at that world cup in canada like you and i were at and we were all going crazy cheering for him and then the very next weekend he made finals at the us world cup podium both times and then he's kind of been like pretty dominant in the us since it has been incredible and just really good for usa in general to see so many of these athletes start to be successful at the world cups and want to be on the circuit and really take the time to put the training in and not just physically but the mindset training as well i think this is the most prepared the us has ever been quick look at our current standings right now one top will get you in the top three ross fulkerson colin duffy nathaniel coleman all have one top two zones just varying in tries there and then sean bailey john brock ben hannah rounding out the top six in our final no tops but two zones it is actually interesting that half of them have one top two zones and the other half just have two zones i've never seen it split up that way actually yeah there's really good separation in this round so far even just the attempts to the zones yeah yeah nobody nobody's flashing everything it's i mean we have one flat standard round you know yeah that's the perfect round he wants to come out and flash every boulder but he also wants to be prepared for world cups so that's what's happening yeah even last year i think i remember him making a post that said this was cool it was super fun and we like flashing boulders but we want to be prepared for world cups and the setters were like all right cool here eat some of these wheaties i think you made one of those posts as well right i did yeah sean and nathaniel all made a post like that so what are your regrets what are your thoughts here no i'm psyched i really like climbing on harder boulders in the competition i think especially for this event it being qualification for the world cups i think it should be as close as it can be for what you're going to see out there and i think they've done a really good job with this whole round especially the semifinal felt like i was at a world cup because i didn't do anything so you got zones yeah i got i got zones that's something ross fulkerson you showing us our first sight zones on men's number three going right into a thunder cling which i'm i mean i've only ever met one person who was a fan of the thunder cling tommy caldwell paige glassen or actually paige de these days nicely into that first volume um we i remember flannery mentioning that that was gonna be a little more difficult for the taller climbers yeah but ross just went through it very smoothly he is right here he is not taking this finals lightly he's ross fulkerson ready to be on the podium gonna have to move that right hand he's also actually really flexible so the second flash of the round and it goes to roswell fulgerson again two flashes in a final hello first your first adult bouldering final and you flash i know right at this point who knows ross give me that jacket everybody wants a jacket i'm doing world cups he smoothly gets into that first volume and then nicely into the press he just read it perfectly executed perfectly climbed confidently i boy i've always been really impressed by his flow and his level of technique and for one of the taller climbers he is quite flexible he has a lot of mobility and i think he does work on all of that a lot he's also like climbing outside a lot lately too and i wonder if that has a lot to do with it sean bailey brushing those holes up all those dual text holes damn i know i'm impressed right now i'm just replaying that sound that was crazy and what's interesting too is like i don't know about you zach but when alex and i were sequencing the boulders we were thinking that the fourth boulder looked like one of the ones that could be done by almost every one of the men because it's kind of in that wheelhouse of raw power some campusing on crimps you know it's kind of like straightforward yeah i agree i thought that this slab this lab right here was hard for me to tell um it looked like it could really go either way it looked like it might be an easy boulder that you'd need to top and it also looked like it wouldn't have very many tops it was hard for me to read with all those dual text holds yeah but yeah the fourth boulder looks like uh if the boys still have some energy left they'll be able to tug on those crimps and make it happen yeah so really there's a possibility that things could be decided on that third boulder taking a quick look at that fourth boulder we'll we're talking about though it looks difficult just knowing the athletes in this round it seems like something that they would put down so easily because it's kind of it's kind of what everybody's good at yeah it's definitely that's an easy style to train it's a lot of just it's a lot easier to train than it is to practice and i think like these slab and more technical boulders you have to like really put in the time to practice and for training you just gotta get stronger i have to be honest um i called ross as my favorite at the start of this event and that actually came from bree our official photographer she was like it's gonna be ross you know it and so that got the idea in my mind and when we were calling our our favorites for tonight and i was like yeah i'll go with ross like sean bailey is my idea i have to admit well i'm glad you got that off your channel i did i've really been sitting here you tell you folks you knew bree was going to be like on the live stream the whole time you just retain credit she's going to listen to it back and be like oh really your idea [Laughter] shawn really having trouble figuring out how to get down to this flat hole that flannery called the lemon slice which we didn't see any issue for ross trying to kind of jump into it he's not finding a way to like sink his hips down into it which is a huge part of the problem has just over a minute left oh it's not been his week on the boulders i mean he was the lead champion so he's got that going for him and he will be doing or he's on the lead us team and can do the lead world cups but you know he definitely wants to be on this team as well absolutely able to do the bouldering world cups so it's got to be really frustrating for him right now he's been climbing outside a lot his focus much like a lot of these athletes focuses have been outside with a like year of comps being canceled and he's been having a you know good a really good outdoor season i think just maybe he doesn't realize the toll it took on these subtle slabby comp folders yeah and i was gonna say specifically this style of boulder and that's something that you really have to keep training because you're always gonna see them and that learned movement is something that i feel like does disappear faster than some of the other skills that you need for climbing absolutely i've been asked several times while i'm not competing this weekend and i've been predominantly climbing outside as well and so to go from outdoor back into this style where it's you got like run across volume steppy jumpy like parkour style hard comp folders i think it would have been really hard for me to adjust coming from the more like kind of static straight down pulling yeah you get outside colin duffy probably itching to get on the wall after coming back out and sending the second boulder again quickly brushing to know what the technical was flag flag on field nice clean start from colin duffy now this style of climbing is something that he has been working on a lot recently unlike a lot of the men in this competition i don't think he's been climbing outside as much granted he is an olympic qualified athlete so kind of have to spend time inside right now to prepare since it's only a few months away really nice method but a little painful yeah that high right foot made it look easy to match the yellow hold but getting out of that position is gonna be a little tough i think he's gonna be better off if he just keeps the foot low and rocks over yeah it's a little too aggressive of a swing it looked like he almost was able to hold it though yeah with the rub if he if he gets the wrap right he could hold it it's just he could also take off half of his forearm with skin but whatever whatever works to get through a boulder right he's gonna go for it again nicely done really good fix there he always does have a unique approach to boulder problems i think having been on the shorter side and 5'6 for colin is tall because he was really small as a youth climber and so he was constantly having to get creative with his climbing at such an early age and you've really seen it translate well into him coming into his adult climbing career it's like this extra skill set that just by happenstance he was able to work on for the last 10 years yeah really being able to think like critically and creatively for his body like his height and spine and starting at such a young age right so it's like second nature to him now just at the ripe young age of 17. minute 40 left plenty of time to get this boulder done i've already seen a top here by ross fulkerson who is definitely the front runner right now currently in first place and looking to earn a spot on the national team for bouldering both nathaniel coleman and colin duffy already qualified olympic athletes so they don't need to place on the podium here but obviously they want to be on the podium but a little less pressure for these two because they are qualified for the olympics and by that also qualified for all of the world cups so this is more of a training competition for them where to look at kind of where they're at in terms of their olympic preparation that's really nice how he does that i actually at some point love to see a slow-mo of that i feel like when he drops his foot he just flips his left hand into the wrap a little more this is where ross oh colin was able to fit into that position i was gonna say this is where ross had to move his right foot to finish but i think they're tough for colin duffy really nice adjustment there yeah like you were saying alex ross was able to just bump that right hand up and then bring his foot up for colin it kind of made more sense being a little shorter to just go ahead and bring that left foot up nice little replay of colin sticking that cool drop down move that he made dynamically and then getting his left foot up onto that volume making him in a great position to put two hands on the top and walk away with his second top of the night still in second place though because ross fulkerson only has three attempts period for zones and two attempts for tops so ross is on fire yeah ross has been making really good work of his first goes very impressive and it is interesting i think there's something to be said about that there are some athletes that are much better flashers and some athletes that are much better projectors right i see it all the time absolutely we see it all the time what's that phrase at killing fisher i feel like he always said he said it all the time it was like world club served to find the greatest flasher like it's not not the greatest climber or the greatest flasher in it i'll never forget that i mean it makes a lot of sense it is a different skill set and one that's necessary to have to be successful in these competitions ben hanna working his way into the thunder clings i remember when this was a new move yeah like about three or four years ago now it's like you were like what see it all the time been going for that high right foot like colin as well see if he cuts feet on this drop down or i was wondering if anyone was gonna try to use that foothold because when i was looking at the boulder it does have a little bite on it oh coming back into the thumbnail get it on top [Laughter] it's really all you can say it does kind of look like that high foot might be the better way of doing it for ben just because he looked so strained trying to drop down without that foot do you remember how ross did it he did it that way but i think the drop down wasn't so bad for him like ben looks kind of extended in his right leg to try to drop down like that and i don't think it was the same for ross so it seems like maybe that high flip could be better like or if he could get his left foot over more i mean his right foot over more on that start hold yeah or the top of the red or switch feet here let's take a quick look back at how ross fulkerson did it see if my memory was right yeah he kind of just kept his foot low and was able to wrap a little bit like a little toe scum yeah riding up the start of that red fin yeah i think i think people are getting sucked into the thumb press and they don't want to lose it before they go down to yellow but i think you have to get your left hand on and then slowly move off of that thumb to get the weight over the left foot yeah it's kind of tricking them into thinking that that's the better position to be in but sometimes you gotta let go you gotta let go to be successful sometimes that's my go-to karaoke song my best friend's a three-year-old just under a minute under the clock under the clock on the clock under the clock plenty of time to get at least to the zone if not at the top for sure i'm so i'm surprised that he's getting stuck in this sequence here very nice oh no 37 seconds as shocked as he is come on man just needs to figure out how to hold that swing a little bit better yeah that's coming back oh man it totally looked like it was gonna work not gonna happen there for ben hannah so no zone on this boulder definitely not the best spot for him currently but there is one more boulder that he's gonna be able to get on and remember he is looking to get on the national team so he's not going to want to be finishing any lower than fifth in order to have a shot at that obviously he wants to finish higher but with those olympic athletes already qualified if he ends up in fifth he he would be fine yeah basically it's a fight for fifth place at this competition tonight in order to get on the team because of the olympic being qualified athletes and they're ranked two three currently and which is i don't think they can really go down whoever ends up in sixth it's basically like we're gonna no it's all the finalists except six yeah heartbreakers a little bit of a heartbreaker but we've really got to fight for it here the one of the coveted spots there's still still boulders to be climbed oh yeah so it's still possible john brock getting ready to take his first attempt really been interesting to watch how he approaches each boulder kind of doing them all very differently than anyone else in the round so far and i feel like over the years i've seen that happen with him a lot but maybe not so much in a single round you know like it's been very apparent in this round specifically yeah john definitely has a super unique style i never seen somebody have the same strengths as him and also be his size see what approach he'll take to getting down into this looks like kind of going more so in the manner that ross fulkerson did kind of losing it at the end there tension just giving out hips pulling him out of out from the wall i think walking through with flan talking about the bowlers this the slower descent onto that first lemon slice was sort of how the root setters were anticipating the athletes would do it not so much like the call and dino but that worked i mean i think for those shorter athletes that is probably the best way they could have done it yeah i mean and we've seen so many different like the root centers are like this is how it goes and the climbers come out and they're like nope watch this i mean you never know at the end of the day how somebody's going to do something but you hope that you can force a certain kind of beta on each boulder at least that's what the route setters are trying to do but it's crazy sometimes the climbers can come up like you know like root setters are climb really good and so they're like trying every possible outcome that you could think of and then the climbers are still just like do or die but come up with something crazy the root centers also work for like two weeks here's a little view of some of the root setters but they're working for a couple weeks setting up the boulders tweaking them for running them and then they they reform run them every round so they're they're exhausted by the time they get to the final round and then on top of that it's so hard to account for the adrenaline that an athlete has it's like you know which which they do account for but at the end of the day there's just never know how much is going to be there so there's a much they do a wonderful job we love our root sitters i'm gonna make a sticker yeah it's just some mindset you can't get into unless you're competing and i have to say i've four ran these competitions a lot as well like normally when i do commentate i do for run as well and even for running there's this there's this feeling that you don't have when you're forerunning it's like at the end of the day this doesn't count for anything so it's kind of hard to really lay it all out there before run john nicely into the zone this time figured out a better way to rock over kept the tension a little bit better most likely he will go ahead and bump to the top the way we saw ross fulkerson do it just because with those long legs it would be really hard to bring that left foot up first buzzer beating he's gonna do it just in time another top for john brock or sorry the first half for john brock my bad but now he is in a great position all the zones one top moving him up into third currently bumping nathaniel coleman down to fourth but he has yet to get on that third boulder problem down to the wire here for john brock one hand on the finish with just two seconds left on the clock gets both hands on confirmed in control with about one second left pretty exciting buzzy buzzy buzzer beater there [Music] i'm excited to see nathaniel on this slab it looks like this the first boulder and this lab as well are very tc-esque i feel like i've seen both of these climbs new term everyone tcs and can you tell us what that means for those who don't know what the pc is the tc is the training center in salt lake and all a lot of the climbers competing here tonight have been out there training um and the boulders that have been set in there have been like super similar to what we've seen tonight and i think it's really benefited the athletes who've been able to make it out really interesting beta there from nathaniel coleman bringing his left arm down that is super so smart taking kind of what we were talking about earlier sometimes you have to let go with one hand to release that anchor and let your body sink into those positions pressing against the wall just allowing yourself to open up like that and be able to get in that position i i mean i've been saying this thing all the whole weekend but he's such a seasoned smart competitor and this is this is why and just understanding movement is so high in his skill set and it makes it so much fun to watch him climb he's going to make a great coach one day oh yeah whoever gets him as a coach is going to be lucky a nice top for nathaniel and not only a top but a flash of the third boulder and with that we will be moving into num boulder number four and i can't believe we're almost done i know with the whole week i know that went fast at some points it went really slow but overall it really feels like we just got here yesterday not even tired a really real quick replay of nathaniel coleman there with that top and flash nodding his head like he knows what's up i flashed that really nice understanding of the boulder reading reading it really well and executing very nicely it almost feels like he can see himself in third person while he climbs right is he going back in time like an out-of-body experience he's over here doing time travel quick look with at the fourth boulder problem here that zone that zone hold is honestly compared to the rest of the zones on this or in this round the best zone hold we've seen for sure a nice jug there but it's gonna start with a rock over toe catch and here's a quick look at the results so far ross fulkerson in first nathaniel coleman second colin duffy third john brock fourth sean bailey fifth ben hannah sixth now nathaniel and ross and colin all having two tops and three zones and now we're seeing a little switch up with john brock getting that one top three zones and sean bailey and ben ben hannah down with the two zones there i almost just said banana how do you say ben hannah fast but hannah really really tight race here for the gentleman um ross kind of sitting comfortably on the podium here maybe regardless of what happens but those fourth fifth and sixth positions they're trying to get on the team kind of them they're really the most important spots right now right so someone tops a bowler and and someone else does it and there could be another change up in the results and and a change up in who makes the team and goes to myron in a couple weeks i have no idea whose hand print this is does anybody else have a guess at whose hand print this could be on ross's chest chloe she has a bigger hand i don't know it's a congratulatory you know i don't think she's i don't think she's up on the pads with them but maybe it's like instead of a pat on the back it's a pat on the front he walked by and she's like yeah and she still has shock on her hands from lead like five hours ago that makes sense ros taking a second to brush these holds i hope we read this right and it it you know goes the way i think it's going to go i feel like it's a boulder that i could see a lot of success on from the men we absolutely read it right i'm never wrong um but i would be really sweet yeah i'm excited it's straightforward like there's a little tow hook catch at the start but like that's still relatively straightforward for them this this in my opinion looks like the most fun boulder of the round maybe the most fun boulder at the con yeah this this looks amazing which is what we kind of saw with the women too with their number four and finals it was kind of like the most fun most exciting boulder we had seen throughout the whole round it's almost like the root setters are rewarded rewarding them for having to deal with some grueling difficult nasty beat down boulders and they're like here number four and finals you're welcome swing have fun camping really hard so here's something fun ooh he's not gonna do the swinging touhou catch interesting wow i do think that made that move a little bit harder though less risk definitely less risk and he's still you can hear him growling from the commentator table here i don't know if you guys can hear that online but ross wants it he is fighting for it i was gonna say clearly he wants to win first place and he's not going to settle for anything but another flash just let's see if he can make it happen tonight i hope everyone saw the jib on the very on the other side of this top come on dude needs to figure out how to get into it oh my gosh that's shoulder power he wants it so bad i don't know if i've ever seen anybody hold it so much good effort there by ross fulgerson plenty of time to get back up there hopefully he's not too exhausted from that but wow i want to first go if i can't remember if flynn said that they wanted them to bump around the corner to the jib on the right side of that volume on the finish and then come in with the left hand to match i'm pretty sure she did say they were gonna end up that way but i'm not sure exactly how they were supposed to get there what do you think zach i read it as grabbing the pinch right hand like he did and then just squaring up and bumping again but that move is extremely blind it looks a little scary yeah i also wonder if you could do it dynamic blind and wide yeah super wide uh flynn was wondering if they would campus because that that left yellow crimp that his last foot was on is like pretty bad we just saw it pick off and it's the good part of it's kind of facing the wrong way i think flynn said that it might be like a campus blind campus this route is awesome it's awesome and the other thing is this might be a little crazy but i wonder if you could throw your heel around the corner i was just thinking i'm glad you were thinking the same thing because that could maybe put you in a good position to then come in i mean it might be right here it might be one of those ideas where it's like oh it's a great idea on the ground but like total no go but it could possibly work like my mom giving me betta what what moves the hardest can you skip it 30 seconds left on the clock for ross fulkerson will be not able to do that first same beta he did the first time i if i were him i'd honestly try the tow hook beta now it's going to be less exertion that's a lot of tension the way he did it oh and it looks like he's too tired but great climbing here tonight from ross fulkerson and he doesn't know but he will soon find out that he is at the head of the leaderboard currently with two tops four zones flash to all yeah great what a great round for him so amazing and to come in in that sixth spot this is the perfect outcome for someone coming into a final it's their first national adult final and to move from sixth to first yeah i mean you can't you can't have a story better than that sean bailey getting ready to turn around and get on men's number four really rough round for him basically all of the bouldering rounds were not necessarily as great as we would have expected for him kind of off on in them but you know it happens it's hard to always be on your game in every round and he's for sure had many successful bouldering rounds he's been on the podium in a world cup and trying that tow hook method right from the start it's a little riskier of a move but i was off definitely energy conserving if you're if you're going to go from like lock off tension sort of trying to move out of it as opposed to kind of like a more flowy sort of dynamic catch move it's riskier but you do conserve energy but i also was going to say it actually looked a little harder than i thought it was going to look to be honest like i thought the toe catch was going to be a little more um friendly but deep it's kind of yeah it's kind of going to you're going to need a lot of tension to hold it after you're gonna make yourself did have a better idea trying to go with the heel and go more static and honestly like ross bumping his hand down to the aret is really smart so smart that stuff like even veterans of 10 years forget to grab the rat sometimes you know and so ross sort of sequencing that like he probably knew it was a tow hook and he looked at it and it was like too risky i'm going to go for a flash how can i do that and he looked at the auret and reaching down to use the red is like pretty advanced yeah definitely very advanced and something you would see from someone who's been on the circuit for a long time and ross has competed in youth world competitions and some adults but not as many as a lot of the athletes out here i mean that being said if he's sort of thinking outside the box this much and just in our team trials event i can't wait to see i know i can't wait to see what he does in salt lake and internationally speaking of salt lake when's it happening may 21 back to back bouldering second world cup may 22nd and may 28th may 28th will also be the bouldering and speed world cup may 22nd just a bouldering world cup outside salt lake city gonna be a huge show that's what everyone's fighting for to get on the team to be able to compete in those world cups we've never had back-to-back u.s members before we've been to a few in china we zach and i went to china we were there for three weeks i think we had back-to-back world cups in china a couple years ago and back-to-back u.s world cups is awesome because that sort of brings the cream of the crop international athletes to come it's not they don't have to travel all the way to the us for one world cup you know if there's two here it's more incentive to them to come over stay over and get the experience of two world cups and so it'll be a really awesome show and i'm i'm local i live in salt lake i'm going to stay with aj i'm really excited to see it i can't wait it's definitely going to be a show oh so close really close he does have enough time if i were him i would keep going he one thing about sean we talked about this a little earlier he's another climber who definitely shows emotion and you can tell he's getting really frustrated here but hopefully he keeps trying because he does need to do well in order to make it onto that national team so we don't want him to give up we want him to keep trying yeah absolutely because he's a very talented athlete we want and he would be beneficial for the national team so so much experience and so much strength getting to that zone could be really helpful maybe not to move him up but we don't know what's going to happen afterwards so doesn't look like it's going to happen here for sean bailey today still a great week of climbing from him he did win the men's lead event and he's on the national team for a lead and we'll have to see how it plays out in the boulders this is our last event that we're commentating and i i'm honestly having so much fun megan and i have known each other for 20 temporary tattoo on oh the seagull come what a fun time that's the time where i helped you get up the top of the wall yeah yeah oh yes this is fantastic fantastic content adventure sport challenge both aj and i tied for first at this event actually that was 2003 that was the first pro comp that we won and we co-won it 13 and 14 years old killing it and here we are here we are the joke keeps getting made those who can't do talk about it while others do it but megan and i had done it we done done it i will never live down those photos you look the same eh somewhat puka shells and board shorts and braces over here killing me i think we've grown up nicely late bloomer bring the poop shells back though colin duffy stepping up and going for that oh she's throwing the heels inside of the toe that might work but as one of the shorter athletes i think the heel cuts off like six or seven inches whatever the length of a foot is a foot on a human not a foot i know that a foot is 12 inches yeah if he is able to throw the toe hook it'll elongate him and give him a better chance of holding that tension leader and getting out of the actual toe hook a little more reach up to that crimp too i think the heel would hold him back and he knows that he just made that adjustment wow i'm i am really surprised if we we underestimated this coordination yeah with the tow hook i did not expect it to be needing so much tension and for it to be this difficult [Music] really nicely done full extension you see he really caught that he pops his foot up too and on that other side of the volume is actually that slippery texture so there is a hole there so he's gonna leave it on that part of the hole but if he is trying to inch his way up he has to be really aware that he doesn't land on that slippery texture and again struggling with those straps colin and nathaniel both of our olympians actually are tied right now with tops and attempts to top so colin has to top to win he does not know that we do we're privy but at the end of the day they are olympic qualified athletes so they already have the pleasure of being able to compete on the world cup circus so a little less pressure but exciting in terms of tokyo to see how close they are in this event yeah absolutely it's really cool to see how all four of our olympians have shown up here not even needing to come but um shown up like really ready to showcase where they're at i'd say they're doing a really nice job training what do you think gala i think it's impressive they've been able to climb for five days straight because i just climbed for two and i'm so wrecked there's that as well yeah well when you're training for that combined event you kind of have to get used to many many days in a row and or just many events sorry many disciplines and just kind of being exhausted and having to perform so all of that practice is paying off up in the corner you guys just saw our current leader ross fulkerson sitting in the chris and kiss kissing kissing which chris and kai which for the women it was more of a kiss and not a cry but it's looking pretty quiet over there no crying but yeah not a lot of talking either really nice keeping the left hand on with just two fingers just gonna have to jump oh he can do that he just needs to generate a little bit more kind of like i was saying earlier he might have to scooch his foot up a little bit on the volume in order to generate a little bit better he might yeah like leave the foot um which is a little less secure but at least he's pushing off the volume so he did already do that but it might need to go a little bit higher or maybe i would hate for him to have to go on to the slippery side but just because it's slippery doesn't mean your foot won't stay so it could maybe be a little bit of a better angle looking at his hands looks like it looks like he's wrapped a little bit in the skin we saw him tugging on his hamstring a little bit after one of these goes and he does not need to be at this event so there's definitely no need to get hurt doing it very good point and you see here me is wrapped up right there so really smart to conserve his body because like we've been saying this is not the event he needs to worry about it's the olympics right but this is the event hannah needs to worry about this is definitely the event the event the event that ben hannah needs to worry about he's kind of he's got a shot place yeah if he could talk even he doesn't even need a top he could just get his own and that would have put it that would put him ahead of sean bailey wow really nicely done just needs to get to that zone strong cool tension nicely done by ben hannah that's well in with that that puts him in that fifth place position which puts you on not even all fingers on there really cool view that camera angle really was able to like nav how small and like insecure that crimp was and how kind of gnarly he had to like get on it i almost said grip but i told myself i would never say grip really nice first go from ben hannah getting into that zone hold which moved him into fifth place which is where he needs to be if he wants to have a shot of getting on that national team cut that with the back three yeah that hurts on the inside for me a little bit oh my goodness got it there once let's see if he has enough energy to get there again you know what's funny when we were sequencing you walked up and your first thought was heel yeah we've seen a couple people successfully go with that heel and no one successfully stick the toe yeah it looks like in that position you can place the heel before you go out it's a little too close to put the tow hook in before you go and then it's sort of just like a tip over instead of like a yeah exactly like a semi drinking bird drinking bird that's a drinky chick have you been drinking were you in here with this when we were talking about the truth i was watching i was on the live stream i was watching so you've heard all about our new mascot the drinky drinking bread drinky drinky bird that's a good method this is a drinky drinky chick i think it's really smart that ben is taking the time to let the clock run out a bit i think he's definitely capable of getting a top here yeah he's strong right now and he doesn't know it but he's already on the national team which i'm really stoked about super stoked he's going to myron in two weeks and he's he's another athlete who podiumed at nationals and in 2020 and didn't get a shot at going to the world cup so that was the first time he made a final exactly didn't get to showcase what exactly he's been working for so he's been waiting for this moment to show it out there again he's fighting so hard here he's he's literally trying so hard you can see him shaking oh again with the back three why oh but such a rad rad round for him uh he's been working so hard in the training center he's one of the hardest working athletes i've seen so i'm really excited to see him on the whole world cup circuit this year oh the face the grimace you can tell he's fighting for it he wants it oh i love that slow-mo when you like go to grab a hold and your head you your head gets thrown back and you know that they're exerting like maximum all of the effort ben's gonna take another moment before he gets back on the wall with what will be most likely his last try with only 30 seconds left on the clock but i do still think there's enough time for him to get to the top it's just gonna come down to if he has enough energy to do so he's been really good at being efficient each time he gets back on the boulder and remembering his beta really well because we see that a lot we see athletes get through something and forget their beta and have to spend time trying to re-figure it out but looks like it's not going to happen here for ben hannah but that zone hole did move him into that fifth place spot which should should secure him a spot on the national team which means he'll definitely be doing those boulder world cups in salt lake but then also be able to do the rest of them internationally i'm really stoked super excited he wants it bad and making the team last year and then having all the world cups get cancelled this is this is really cool redemption for ben up next we have john brock getting ready for his final climb of the night i'm predicting just a far lock off for john brock for the stove i was gonna say something like that yeah he should be able to do something similar to what ross volkerson did but probably with even more ease having that extra wingspan going for him for sure so since we have those two back-to-back world cups in salt lake the athletes that placed well at this competition so not the ones that are actually on the national team but because we have extra quota spots at the events that the us hosts they'll be able to compete so everyone in this final will still be eligible for the salt lake world cups and our gala man and our gala mansion right here top 10 i think we get to bring salt lake out salt lakes [Music] interesting early slip not quite finding that right position initially you really just i don't think he's so he doesn't yeah he doesn't see that a rat that really helped ross ross get into that and both being taller competitors i wonder if ross sort of saw that being an issue that was fancy though going with the fast method throw the heel quick flip to the toe a little too much swing there didn't quite get engaged in his bicep enough in order to hold that swing he was completely in like a dead hanging position yeah also the climbers who made this look easy move their heel to a toe down on the start hole and i think that's it makes you be able to push your hips over the right a little bit make the swing not as gnarly yeah yeah propel you up a little more so you can catch that hold with a little bit of bend in your arm and then all that weight it's not just on your fingers you get to like absorb that momentum with your biceps too let's see if he's able to make the right adjustments here looks like he's gonna go with a pretty similar method not moving and what that was quite the barn door and his leg went out really far in the back really nice save there for john brock really powerful move to the clips he is like you were saying earlier zach his fingers are really strong so those crimp moves are pretty comfortable for him now we haven't seen anybody get onto that gym able to do it now he just has to come in and then he will have a top this is where flames are the camp is finished oh that's nice he has plenty of time to get back up there and it honestly the most energy he seemed to exert was at the beginning he was chilling through those crimps kind of higher up in his skill set than that opening move so if he can just figure out how to camp is in or to make room on that crimp i don't i mean maybe you could kind of piano match-esque your fingers off of it and get it through the heel scoot it up a little bit i think a left foot on that uh gas stone crimp too could be good to push up into the undercling i don't know if it would stay but i think it'd push you in the right direction yeah it could be enough to get you there because that holder coming into is pretty good as long as you can get over on it enough looks like he's gonna have to call it a little too exhausted but wow really exciting to see john brock get that far up on that finish the farthest we've seen on this boulder ross fulkerson wasn't able to get over to that screw on earlier so if there's gonna be a top we have two more people to try to get it oh that's not right one more person if they know coleman to try to get it so cool if there were two the same well like we said there might right be time traveling he's like having an out of body it's not it's not 100 confirmed that there aren't two whispering beta in his ear his own ear so nathaniel coleman must top this boulder in order to win this team trials event in bouldering and again for him it's just about the win being on the podium because he is already qualified for all of the world cups as he is a little olympic qualified athlete but that being said walking away with a win here will set him up even better for his training moving forward that confidence of competing in this round and him and colin being the only two athletes in this round that did all three disciplines and then to walk away with a win would have to be confirmation of what he's doing back at the training center nice that was a solid method yeah yeah floating through this kind of as i assumed he would i was wondering if anyone was going to use that high foot because it did seem like a better position to go into he goes at the left i thought he was going to maybe just come in really quick but really going for the bump high heel yeah maybe a little look that move being so blind that the end of the ball is so evil yeah for a second i thought he might just try to keep his foot on and come in left hand to the pinch and not even worry about that screw-on yeah he looked really strong on it i think that definitely is possible for him really smooth through this bottom section wasn't able to figure out how to get to the right spot of that screw-on i mean sick camera angle this is it's really cool being able to see like the moves and the holes from above like that we get to see like how bad the screw on is on top of the finish volume and how steep the wall is and sort of how hard they're bearing down on that left-hand blue crimp too cool ross volkerson thinking about the fact that if nathaniel tops then he loses that first place position although luckily for him he wouldn't lose his spot on the national team but winning any big national competition is always everyone's goal and for this to be the first final bouldering final in an adult circuit competition that ross has been in he's going to be wanting to walk away with that gold medal on the podium so absolutely he just his fingers are sweating yes he's watching the samuel that's what's happening right now he kind of dominated the round too he really did yeah first go bus go on everything that's great that's what you want that's what you train for daniel stein not choosing that high foot that time for that cross move he's so this is a nice play he just needs to figure out how to match and he's gonna do it a top for nathaniel coleman and with that he secures his position in first place and winning the national team trials in bouldering wow that was really exciting also just so exciting to see all of these men fight in a bouldering final especially like we were talking about earlier after a few years of there being flashes and not so much a back and forth between the athletes this was one of the most exciting bouldering finals i've ever watched that back step on that crimp being the right method in order for him to bump out to the screw-on and easily jumping into the pinch-hole to walk away with the top tucked in on that foundation all biceps yeah jumped and didn't let himself extend his arms at all because that would have pulled him right off but sort of curling up into a ball to really absorb that momentum well that was an awesome men's final round and thank you so much zach it was a joy to have you in the booth with us thanks for all of your insight and best of luck healing up even more to be prepped for the bouldering world cup thank you thank you salt lake city yeah thanks for having me really looking forward to seeing you compete again yeah yeah i'm super stoked just a little bit more training and i think my uh schroeder will be feeling good by then so i'm excited to see where i'm at awesome well thank you hopefully we'll have you in here again sometime soon stick around everyone go and uh we're setting up for the interview megan will interview nathaniel your champion and then after the interview we're gonna pop over to awards see your podium and then get a first look at the men's national team here are the final standings of the evening a really close close race here between nathaniel and ross kind of going back and forth russ having a great round super dominant flashes on all his attempts as zach said frisco besco and then nathaniel coming in and finishing the last round [Music] last climb here perfectly and that's kind of what you want to see in one of these rounds three boulders got done uh all the bowlers got done actually so it was really cool to see the difference in who did what boulder and and the scores broke down almost perfectly if i was a root setter i would be stoked kind of a heartbreaker finish for ross only in terms of winning versus getting second he had a hand on the finish of both the second and the fourth boulder but you need two hands on the finish and so for him he almost had the perfect round flashing all four boulders but really close call for him not getting uh his second hand on the finish there and then nathaniel came in and swooped it up but um ross will be representing the u.s team on the national team here nathaniel is already qualified he's one of our olympians and so ross even though he got second place by just barely he has to be really stoked on his performance here really confidence inspiring whatever he's doing and however he's training is working and it's been really cool to see i've known ross since he was a young kid and it's been really cool to like see him grow up he's a really really cool guy and really stoked for him here along with the rest of our us team athletes that'll be ben hannah and john brock who will join uh our olympians on the team here so let's uh take a look at our yeti move of the day this is going to be one of my favorite moves of the whole comp uh boulder number two nathaniel reaching out to do the press and his foot unexpectedly slipped and the strength that it took to sort of stop his momentum from coming out like that let's all like left hand left fingers and then that right shoulder and the palm press um really really impressive holding that scorpion swing there we saw a lot of scorpions this weekend and a lot of scorpions today but that was by far the baddest scorpion really awesome view of our gym here as we get set up for awards i don't know if you can see me but uh here i am sitting in my little booth it's funny because when we're megan and i are commentating um a lot of these roots we're not watching it live uh we're watching hi where's the camera here we're watching it on the screen so the roots and the climbing and a lot of the competing is happening behind us and so what we're watching is on the screen so it's it's really fun all right we're gonna toss it over to megan here soon as she's gonna interview our winner nathaniel nathaniel that was such an exciting round i've never seen you have to fight so hard in a finals round how does it feel to walk away with a win here it feels good um there was a lot of doubt going through my head back in isolation uh it seemed like a lot of the a few of the other competitors were like pulling ahead so i knew that the last boulder was my last chance and uh pretty satisfying to have it come together and although you didn't need to win here in order to be eligible for the world cup event since you're already an olympic qualified athlete what does it mean to you to have one i mean it's kind of like my re uh re-initiation into competition so to come off a long break from organized competition and still be able to like find a mental space to compete especially for five days in a row over the course of eight rounds um i was really feeling the mental exhaustion so you know to persevere over that it it's satisfying but boy am i done competing and ross was really bringing it out there today what was going through your mind every time he came back into the isolation area because he was really on fire and you you really had to keep it together he was on fire um i felt like i was chasing him the whole round it was it was tough because on the first boulder he goes out and it sounds like he flashes and then none of the other competitors do it so i'm like holy cow this thing's like not a gimme but somehow ross flashed it um i don't know it was uh it was just about trying to focus more on myself and uh what the things that i have control over which is obviously really good practice for you going into tokyo right it's a good trainer for you and i was just thinking about men's number two you had a save on your first attempt with your shoulder how to first of all your reaction time amazing but kind of a precarious like situation for your like shoulders what was that it's kind of a precarious situation for your shoulders there that's a lot of stress and you were able to yeah and i when i was in that position i recognized that and um you know maybe with like a louder crowd i i could have tried a little harder but as it was i thought this isn't this isn't worth blowing my shoulder out so i'm going to go i'm going to air on the side of caution a really nice correction but it was a pretty awesome move anyway we were all really in the booth we were like whoa oh we were so excited well thank you so much for taking the time to do an interview we're so excited for you and we can't wait to see what else you do in tokyo in just a few minutes we're gonna have our awards and get a first look at our men's bouldering national team here there's our official photographer bree walking off the mat um hey on camera i'm here with kyra condi one of our qualified olympians um winner of the lead round second place and very narrowly not a world record in speed national record and speed dude world record would be sick though um and also second place in the bouldering and this is your last big event leading up to the olympics in august and you were a little hesitant about coming but you did end up showing up um let's talk about that yeah i was uh definitely pretty nervous to compete again but was also really excited for the opportunity to compete again obviously uh it was gonna be a really rugged competition just like nathaniel just said it was five days eight rounds ideally if you make each round you know right um and that was just intimidating to come into because a lot of the competitors were not going to be doing the whole uh combined of the event because there isn't a combined of the event um and so you know i kind of had to change my mindset coming in and uh focus on the experience and you know kind of testing my training uh for the olympics instead of um focusing on performing at this event but it obviously ended up working out as both which is really sick and uh kind of a dream come true as far as for this event yeah and what are the next four months look like for you leading up to tokyo um let's see we have some world cups coming up uh i think we're going to be able to go to myrengen switzerland the first bouldering world cup um and then obviously the two back-to-back world cups in salt lake and hopefully at least one lead world cup in there so we get an experience at at least one world cup um of each discipline before the olympics just because that world cup setting is just different and so uh getting as any experience we can before we go will be really important and where are you at with your training block and your fitness and and you had a really really great event here in all disciplines and so what sort of what happens from here with your training like you just want to get bigger faster stronger you know honestly that's kind of the idea um let's see we've been doing a lot of strength training which i've never done before um but uh that's been the main difference honestly uh focusing on bouldering awesome well thank you so much and uh we're gonna pass it back to megan for awards it's now time for the awards part of the evening everybody presenting the awards are mark norman ceo of usa climbing bruce mitchell board president of usa climbing and j.j greer sports market with the memphis sports council winning the bronze medal and already having a spot as a qualified olympic athlete on the u.s team colin duffy winning the silver medal and gaining a spot on the u.s national team ross fulkerson and winning the gold medal and the 2021 national team trials and bouldering and already being on the u.s team as an olympic qualified athlete nathaniel coleman [Music] uh [Applause] [Music] congratulations to the podium go ahead and take a step down as we announce the other national team members that will be joining you all also gaining position on the national team john brock and ben hannah congratulations to all of you we cannot wait to see you compete at the back-to-back salt lake world cups and all of the other world cups thanks everyone for joining us we'll be back again soon we're back in competition [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] congratulations i think winter has become my favorite season here that's when you get those dramatic views brings out all the colors and the gray pops and it just i feel like it's kind of like mecca or the center of the universe it's not a fluffy place to come it's not a feel good boost your ego it's just like you get eating yeah if i could only climb one place for the rest of my life it would be 70. since 1966 we have viewed walls not as obstacles but as opportunities from the big walls of yosemite to the high peaks of the himalaya we were searching for a personal kind of freedom in this pursuit we found a community strengthened by different stories experiences and perspectives this community has shown us that the only way forward is together [Music] we fight the battles no one hears about we drop into the middle of firefights to rescue others and act as one-man air traffic control towers we're the ones who go before all others [Music] join the fight [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: USA Climbing

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Length: 135min 5sec (8105 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 30 2021