2021 USA Climbing National Team Trials – Male Lead & Female Bouldering Semi-Finals

you 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 can only find one place for the rest of my life it would be yosemite since 1966 we have viewed walls not as obstacles close 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 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 uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're 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 launch their 2021 campaign after over a year away from the sports they love welcome to high point climbing and fitness here in music city and all of these athletes are ready to make up for lost time we kicked things off today with the semi-finals of men's lead and women's bouldering with spots on the national team there for the taking i'm megan martin alongside alex johnson and we're so excited to be here back in competition and even though it's the first competition back there is a lot on the line here this week right exactly these athletes have been training hard after a year away looking to secure their spot on the national team we're not crowning a national champion at this event this is only team selection and for a lot of these athletes this is the biggest event of the year right now the men are doing their preview for the semifinals route so let's go ahead and see what's going to happen so excited to be back at a competition venue the men are currently previewing their semifinals route and yesterday during the qualifying round they had two qualifier routes and needless to say they were pretty technical and tricky right i think the route setters are trying to ramp our climbers up for world cup style routes and they're they're really taking to the ifsc style setting and previewing the route today with the route setters we definitely saw that and there are a few changes this year with the switch over to the ifsc rules so one thing to note for the lead event specifically is now for tops it's just that clip you could technically clip off of any hold as long as you get that clip at the top and then starting you can start wherever you want right there's no designated start hold and then clips no longer have a point value and no more usable surface rule it's just that movement so you're going to see a plus in the results when somebody has that upward movement or movement towards a hold i'm a fan of that actually i think that usable surface was incredibly hard to judge and clips don't really mean anything outside you know we skip them outside all the time now we can't skip the clips we still have to clip them it's just you're not rewarded any actual points for the clips anymore but if you tune into other ifsc broadcasts you've seen those rules before it's just something that we are doing now at usa climbing that we haven't done before but now we'll all be doing the same rules all the time which i think will give our athletes a better chance of being successful and not having to worry about the rules when they switch over to an international competition there's a shot right now of a very qualified olympian nathaniel coleman reading the route he had a really good day yesterday in the qualifying round yeah it's super exciting to see how these climbers are approaching this event i know that our olympians are one of the few athletes who are doing all three disciplines um and this they're approaching this as a training event and a practice event and they're not peaking right now and i think that's the difference uh we're going to see with other athletes who are doing single discipline they train to set to peak here to try to make the team and our olympians already have a buy to all the world cups and so they're on a completely different training block and so they're not set to peak here they're approaching this event as training and cracking that's a really good point alex and one thing about this competition for those olympic qualified athletes is they may be completing sorry they may be competing in all of the disciplines today but this is going to be a much are not in them today but this week and it's going to be a much more grueling competition the combined event actually they won't be climbing as much as they would be so this is the perfect way for them to prepare and do something harder so that the combine feels easier exactly and this is the first time that a lot of them have competed in over a year and this is the only time they're going to be able to compete in this format leading into the olympics exactly and really only a few of the competitors competed at pan am colin duffy being one of them and the one who got that olympic spot after that event so it'll be really interesting to see how everything goes right they're going to be tired some days i'm pretty sure some of them are already having skin issues talking to the girls yesterday they were already talking about their skin so that's always a tricky thing to manage yesterday's bouldering round was brutal it was great to be a spectator the entire time we were just like oh i'm so glad i'm not actually climbing but we totally would have flashed all the boulders 100 so in the lead round yesterday we saw a couple of tops but one of the roots actually did not have a top at all which is kind of exactly what the setters wanted i mean it's always great to have one person top each root but to still have people not talk the root and get very close to topping it was pretty exciting sean bailey came very close yeah it's a it's the perfect setter breakdown and kind of exactly what they want is like segregation by one hold yes that's definitely the ideal outcome for them [Music] [Music] the root centers wanted us to make sure to tell you guys that they named this route the hamburglar goes walking in memphis and once we start seeing some climbing we'll let you know if you don't already know where the walking in memphis part really kicks in and the yellow and red holds are supposed to represent ketchup and mustard i always love that they have started trying to make these little names for the roots because it keeps it exciting seeing one of the root twitters earlier brad weaver it was the first thing he wanted to tell us was we got a name for you make sure you tell everyone in the live stream what the name of the root is don't forget so in today's semi-final event for the men you'll see 25 men competing there were only 20 we're going to go to our start list right now i'm sure you see some familiar memes on that list we've got colin duffy on there nathanael coleman sean bailey lots of athletes that you've been seeing the last few years ross fulkerson and dylan barks ben hannon nathaniel coleman all names that we've all recognized in the top six up there also some athletes that are just aging into competition competing here this week which it's kind of interesting because a lot of those athletes would have been competing last year but since we couldn't do any competitions it's interesting to see them here now and this is their first one and it is such a big competition in the first time we're doing a team trials so it's kind of a intimidating first entree into adult competitions for some of these younger athletes we're really excited that you all are joining us today and we're gonna get this going pretty soon here with our first climber coming out lucas odie will be first today and if you watch the combined in 2020 he competed there so this is not his first time in an adult competition but he is one of the younger athletes the men sort of had an easier day yesterday because 26 climbers so we're going to go to a commercial really quickly because we are having some technical difficulties on our side but please stay with us because we're going to get that competition going soon 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 could only find 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 oh here we go 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 ah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back to our coverage of 2021 usa climbing national team trials right now we have one of our belayers pulling the rope getting ready to start the men's semi-finals in lead with our first competitor lucas odie waiting in the wings getting a nice look at our lovely named hamburglar walking in memphis route it's pretty much a vertical angle with a little bit of a kickback at the upper part of the route where it's going to turn on a bit as we have the camera moving towards the top you're going to see these really small crimps at the very top to the left of that yeti sign you can barely see them i don't know alex and i were talking about this earlier but those are some small holds for the end of a route um i honestly couldn't see the farthest one on the right from the ground she was like wait are there three little holes at the top i didn't have my glasses on lucas odie right now taking one last look before getting on this route very interesting start i'm wondering if he's going to try to run and jump looks like he is and he's on we've got our first athlete lucas odie making that first clip on men's semi-final lead route finding a nice rhythm here early on remember there are six minutes to complete the lead route and actually talking to brad weaver earlier he was actually saying that there's a chance that time might be a factor here which isn't usually that something we see all the time no and he the way that he described the route was that he wanted people on their toes i guess literally and metaphorically at the bottom here um it's not extremely physically demanding but it's supposed to be very mentally taxing and so then when you get to the upper section where it kicks back a little steeper your brain is tired and that's when you sort of have to like turn your muscles on and that's a really interesting tactic for setting a root and it's it would break me completely yeah it's not enough to just physically tax the athletes but now we have to mentally tax them as well and lucas is getting up into that walking in memphis section where he has to stand on the small dual text hold and release his hands and that hold he just grabbed with his right hand is actually not as good as it looks though he got to it pretty smoothly but his feet are kind of in the wrong orientation right now his left foot should be where his right foot is so we're going to have to see if you can figure out a nice way to get through this they sort of took a vertical wall angle and were able to make it into a slab which is my nemesis but i believe most people don't prefer slab when it comes to lead climbing specifically um slab bouldering not as scary but nice way of getting through that without having his feet crossed actually so he made that smooth transition gonna get more into the actual climbing section less on his feet more pulling it's looking really good yeah this was an awesome looking route when we sequenced and really reminiscent of like that ifsc world cup style exactly and get up into that undercling moving through this volume section very nicely 345 left on the clock so i mean it is it's a lot of time already through that precarious lower section of the route it's uh pretty rare i think in my opinion that we really see time come into a factor in these u.s lead competitions and much more common in the ifsc style and so i think that's probably something that the root centers also wanted to start trying to make globally homogenous is aligning even with time factor you know angie either was timing out in world cups in the early odds all the time and so making the slip there but really nice climbing from lucas odie he looked pretty good in that heel hook i just i don't think he was expecting that right hand to be as kind of slimpery the mix of crimper and emperor [Laughter] it's just a little too slippery there's some climbing vocabulary for you really nice rock over on that heel hook but just kind of missed that thumb catch actually yeah you can flip this out i'm sliding down so that's our current high point right now with our first climber done with his first attempt really nice climbing from lucas odie as you can see the athletes here are competing with masks on i don't think that's been seen in any of the other climbing competitions internationally but here in memphis we are all masked up everyone's been tested so the venue is completely safe and the climbers are honestly being such good sports keeping the masks on i mean they've been climbing this way in gym so i think they're used to it at this point but i haven't heard one complaint no not at all and i think a lot of them over the past you know 12 13 months have figured out which masks are more conducive to climbing in sometimes it's you start breathing heavy and the fabric gets sucked into your mouth and that's really annoying and a lot of them actually when they're lead climbing when you pull up to clip rope you bite the rope i mean i do and so we've seen several different tactics for when you pull up the clip put the rope in your mouth so nathaniel puts it in his neck crook and other people have been biting it through the mask up next we have thomas pitzl taking a different approach to this start just gonna pistol squat actually that first move nice and controlled and again with ifsc rules you can grab whatever holds you want to start so it might look like you have to run to get on the wall but you can actually grab foot or press on the feet whatever you can reach it's a really insecure first move i really am messing around with it this morning it's one of the most insecure i've seen in a competition actually really nice movement here through this delicate section getting up onto this hole that is kind of masquerading as a volume right now to our walking in memphis section the sequence that brad wanted to force here i think this is it yep the cross through delicate on those dual texts and then you swing your right foot out to that little yellow hold now he's trying to go with his left hand to that red side pull which is he's making it work but a little precarious and kind of risky but it looks like it's going to work out for him regardless i had to take a little bit of extra stress though yeah maybe my bottom half punch a little bit this whole bottom section of the route is my absolute nemesis oh you got a plus this is the new ifsc scoring that when you fall what our coaches have been telling our athletes is fall upward movement exactly you feel like you're going to fall just jump reach fake it till you make it and then you get that plus and that plus can come down between finals and not now it's always at the judge's discretion but watching that i think we would say that that seems like a plus but at the end of the day it is always up to the judge's discretion so we'll have to see what they decide [Applause] but good climbing there from thomas pitzl really really uh smooth and controlled through that bottom section and it looks like maybe that move into the left hand might have been a little strenuous and kind of caught him off guard and got a little flash pump current score there on the right with 10 points up next we have marcotti sanders walking to the wall with his rope in the bag and the blair following him so athletes also were suggested to bring their own ropes to this competition due to the covid safety protocols i think a lot of them did or at least it was either bring your own personal or one for your you and your teammates if you guys are on the same team and then you guys all share insecure start i kind of like this start just because we're going to see so many athletes approach it differently as we've already seen so far and mark marcotti nicely into the start with a more dynamic approach would you run pistol squat or mantle the foot i think i would mantle the foot just because if it wasn't a competition i would totally run but because it's a competition i'd be like uh i gotta go slow i think i would mantle the foot too because i cannot do a pistol squat and you don't want to blow the first move if it was a bowler you get multiple attempts in your four minutes but roots are one and done that is always the difficulty in the lead discipline is knowing that you only have that one shot and over gripping is something we see a lot and especially this lower section i think gives that way to over grip and i think we're seeing that a little bit because though you're on your feet a lot it's really hard to trust your feet right and because it is one and done and there's so much on the line at this event and the start is so insecure i think these climbers are going to be so nervous you know we're selecting our us national team for the entire year for all three disciplines this weekend some that are doing multiple a lot of them are doing bowling and lead and usually when we select our team there are several months between nationals and you have time to sort of recoup your brain if you have an event that doesn't go well oh early fall there for marcotti looks like he just kind of was a little too stretched out maybe going to that red left hand side pole was a little premature if he would have moved his feet over first and then gone into it i think he would have been in a better position but an unfortunate slip there yeah trying to come into that under clang with his feet swinging there just wasn't a chance to be able to hold that tension and his left hand just slips right out and he is one of the shorter competitors at five six so we saw thomas pitzl previously get through that in a similar manner but i think he had a little bit more height on mercati but all in all good effort there from mercotti sanders next up is xander waller who is one that we should definitely keep an eye on he's performed incredibly well in the past oh xander actually we just found out is scratching and so yesterday in the qualifying round he had a pulley incident on qualifier number two so i think it was just a little too risky it was a little worse than he thought it was unfortunately and finger injuries as we all know as climbers are not ideal and you never want to make it worse especially at a competition because competitions they throw everything at you so it makes it really difficult to be able to take care of that during competition up next is cody stevenson from boulder colorado six two with a plus three pretty nice wingspan easy pistol squat being six two i think he just achieved that height actually too yesterday i remember seeing him last year and he was not this tall it's so interesting seeing all these youth athletes who are now graduating to adult events and megan and i both as coaches have known so many of them for so long that we'll we showed up to this event and didn't recognize half of them because they're so tall and they're all taller than me so that feels great cody getting through this lower section choosing to wrap that left-hand pinch kind of getting a little botched up here see the foot being a little high for him but making it through it nicely he's probably gonna have to try to start standing up pretty quickly here just because he is so tall he's cruising yeah looks really smooth going for that intended beta with that left foot crossing through walking in memphis thunder cling on the uh red side pole there brad weaver our root setter described the yellow block hold as soapy so maybe that's why a lot of them don't want to grab it it is slippery and bubbly and you can see that there's a lot of shoe rubber on it which always starts to create that soapy texture and we are in a pretty humid state so it's gonna happen nicely into that gaston just needs to get his foot up it's looking really smooth here i know he was a little disappointed with his performance yesterday fell a little early on one of the roots but looks like he's turning it on today as a youth athlete he's been on the youth national team many years in the lead discipline and he's no stranger to this discipline and doing well in it it's just new for him in terms of being an adult right and i think cody's a very avid ice climber and he's actually on the u.s ice climbing national team as well he's done um several ice climbing world cups so competing at that high level although it's incredibly different is um something i think that's going to come in handy for him yeah he definitely handles the pressure really well totally so this is an interesting approach with that little like foot wrap but worked out nicely really easily into that next hold really nice thing low on that sloper that foot wrap i've seen a lot in several colorado climbers it's like a carlo traversing like italian yeah totally and a slip there for cody stevenson but really nice work and looking smooth the whole way through as you saw a second ago that nice pinch actually has a little jib on it to give them a little something extra to hold on to but man this is turning out to be quite the root quick little replay of cody's maneuvering through this tiny crimp i love how small it is i know and i love the close-up it's so like it really gives the audience and us actually because we can't see an idea of what these holes are that they're grabbing you know 17 points for cody stevenson [Music] quickly untying and kind of move along we'll also see cody and this is our new leader cody stevenson so we'll see if he can hold that top position with 17 points remember we take eight men to the final as long as there are no ties and all of them qualified for semi-finals there were only 25 men in qualifiers and so they had a little bit of a warm-up round yesterday definitely makes today a little more full of pressure and i mean i think though they're performing well it is kind of nice to have that first day not feel so high pressure so got stephen filner stepping up to the wall next taking a quick refresh climbers have about a minute before they need to get on the wall you'll notice that everybody takes a second to just review so far we haven't lost anyone on that first move which is a great great sign we were a little worried about that this wrap section on the pinch hasn't really given anyone any issues i feel like they just take a couple seconds and then move their hips to the right and kind of keep going which has been really good because i think brad was talking about how it might feel a little tricky it's also beneficial in these rounds to go early when you're first second third fourth climber there's not a lot of like excessive chalk on the holds and stuff doesn't start to feel greasy yet and then later in the pack if you're climbing you know 18 19 20 to 26 those holes can start to feel a little slippery there's a little more boot rubber on them not as much texture walking in memphis move up to the soapy block here it does that really nicely you can get a good look at that soapy block there see all that shoe rubber root setters definitely did their job for running looking really comfortable here stephen fellner sinking low into those heels so he doesn't slip smooth that's transitioned into the undercling there that right foot is so key to get into that red undercling without feeling extremely span so does that really nicely gotta rock his weight over into that gaston struggling a little bit just needs to get his foot up and you should be able to relax there we go i can breathe again brad called that a hand foot match when we were sequencing which i guess it's close enough yeah and i was like hand foot match on the red underclaimed what we're like a hand foot step up [Applause] it's got three and a half minutes left just just a little over three and a half minutes so it really is taking quite a bit of time to get through this bottom section you can't really rush it as all the men have taken their time the pace of this route is interesting and it's you can kind of see them you know in a lower gear in the bottom section and then when they start to get into the upper section you'll see the pace increase and they start to rev up the engine a little bit he wanted to put his foot on the uh crimp but the rope was in the way yeah that was a smart decision not to do that really quick reaction so the higher up they go you're definitely going to start seeing them start to get a little snappier as soon as they get into where the holes get a little better and they can pull a little more using the muscles nice move into that right hand goes straight to the jib on top of the pinch so this is where cody stevenson was we'll see stefan but he's moving upwards and cody's score was 17 with no plus so stefan should get the plus there i believe since that number 17 hold is not a match hold it's just for one fan so he should get that plus and be our new leader it almost looked like he hesitated because he wanted to clip and i think this being the first event where clips are not worth points in the past climbers have had to choose between either making a move or making a clip yeah we see stephen here go for that yellow hold but his foot slips just at the last minute on that right foot hold but he still has that upward momentum clearly making a move there's no question about it he should have a 17 plus score and he does and has become our new leader for the men's lead semi-final we just heard the five-minute warning bell for the women's bouldering to start which is really exciting because we will be doing bouldering and lead at the same time a lot to talk about lots to talk about we have four boulders here for the women today and they'll have five minutes on each boulder now one thing to quickly note is you will only see one zone hold per boulder and there is a four point start so four pieces of tape all four limbs need to be on those pieces of tape before you can start in some orientation no specific one but whatever works and here we have colin wills stepping up for the men's lead semi-final route kind of taking a second to figure out what he wanted to do there but he makes every time i don't know why we're so nervous they're all killing it so we should relax every time they walk up i feel a little nauseous and then they stick the first hole and i'm like okay i can breathe again working his way through these precarious feet kind of struggling here to find that position to get over on this pinch but just move those hips to the right so it looks like he should be in the right place choosing the clip this is a section on the bottom like we've been talking about going slow and being technical and like like tippy-toeing across but there are several hand movements that are done on this pinch and a lot of them are nervous and they are over gripping and although a lot of the bottom is balanced and walking over like that he's moved his hands six times that's you're not not getting pumped doing that you know i really i agree with you i think that this is the exact part where people are probably pumping themselves out because once they get their feet up on this next hold the nice big hole with the two screw ons i feel like they can kind of relax a little bit as long as they trust their feet but that other hold you kind of have to be more engaged with your hands and your forearms so it kind of gets you that weird open hand pinch kind of squeezing too it gets you deep in the forearms it's not the crib pump nicely done on that clip and moving his right foot over which we've seen a few of the men do already but not the intended beta oh nice toe hook short-lived both of us got so excited we were very excited something new i think there's something to be said too about having to take your hands completely off hold on a root i feel like that's not something you do a lot unless you're in spain like finding a no hands rest outside fat knee bar and rifle yeah exactly but in a comp you kind of want to be all points on when you're on the lead route so it's definitely risky it's risky and i think you've seen every man slowly move and really be pressed up against the wall because it's just pretty counter-intuitive to calm climbing you don't want to risk having that one foot slip taking your hands off a little bit more dynamic getting into that side pull but does it nicely now this next section we've seen a lot of the men get into that get this cast on and strain a little bit and as long as they can get their foot up they're fine ooh he's choosing to put his foot up first ingenious what a wizard i know that was cool i'm just kidding it also looked easier to reach the right hand side you know that was it was ingenious it's interesting that there's things that can be done so many like even subtleties so many different ways we'll see that a lot more in the bouldering too i think trying to figure out where to put his right foot going with the knee scum really creative climbing there from colin wills probably fell a little earlier than he would have preferred but not i'm saved not the lowest of points he should get a pretty good score i mean our high point right now is 17 plus we've seen the men get barely over halfway um over the route so i mean they meant to set a hard one and i think they've done it yeah they nailed it for sure [Music] maddie dennis stepping up to women's number one in the bouldering remember the women have five minutes and they haven't had a preview so they're gonna take a about 30 seconds sometimes a minute there are some athletes who will take a full minute of their time to meet you and then i time out finishing the boulder so there's some risk there for sure but maddie's getting on the wall gonna get into that four point start looks valid now we were looking at this folder earlier and we were thinking that a lot of the women in this field would like it a lot of them are really good at crimps they like those little blocked volume footholds too yeah this is a lot of stuff nice safe very good save a lot of blockers in this event too these setters like to be really mean when they're putting holes on the wall so they'll give you a great crimp it's basically a jug and then they'll throw a bunch of holes around it so you can't get your little fingers in it and on the left we have palmer larson on the men's lead semi-final so we're going to give you that split screen to see both of the athletes palmer um is an interesting one to watch i think he'd be one to keep an eye on for a possible dark horse finals qualifier he's climbed incredibly hard roots outside and he's the momentum team coach in salt lake and so he's i think he's pulling double duty here as a coach and an athlete and that's always really awesome to see maddie dennis easily working her way up into that left gaston she already got the zone for this climb and this is still her first attempt and it's looking like she should get a top here you see it two hands on it nicely done by maddie dennis with a top successful but also it was really nice to watch her movement seemed to like flow really nicely and very fluid you know looks like she was smearing really accurately on those volumes and now remember with the boulders it'll be tops zones attempts to top attempts to zone so she got the perfect score with her top and zone on her first try i'm going to stay over here go to the palmer moving into this gaston section he's got more time left than a lot of the competitors we've seen come before him i think he looked like he cruised the bottom section yeah a little quicker and walked through his feet faster than the athletes and like you said alex he's had a lot of lead experience and success outdoors and done well inside as well in the competitions and leads specifically so we could definitely see him in the final if everything goes his way six feet with a plus four old he's younger than i thought oh really no offense plumber i feel like we've competed together for so long i thought he was closer to my well i think he's also just very mature he is incredibly mature not to say we're not but palmer about to get out of this volume oh no yeah he's mad i would be mad yeah completely unexpected and that's the thing about this route specifically is it's so subtle any movement off balance and you could be off yeah one little lean out you know it's like um pulling a piece of tape off the wall as soon as you get the corner peeled you the whole piece of tape comes out one one shift in your weight and your momentum and it could pull your whole body off that was really unexpected i think super unfortunate too because he was looking really strong really confident had nice rhythm really precise but tayden looked up takes a second he was not ready to come down i'm gonna have our next competitor on the wall for the women coming up soon ella von duncan from boulder colorado getting her shoes on to the right of my maddie dennis right now and so maddie is going to transition to problem number two and she will then rest there because she got her boulder done very quickly she has all that extra time that's ideal in a round is giving yourselves you know seven eight minute rest if you're finishing your boulder early they get five boulders four minutes in this round this is ella's first adult competition actually she's been a really successful youth competitor and i'm sure she would have been competing a little sooner i think she had signed up for the sport nationals for 2020 but we unfortunately had to cancel that so it's nice to see that she came out for this event and to make a semi-final and her first adult competition is amazing it's the younger athletes are obviously always capable but i think that it's an added pressure coming into that adult realm i think they get kind of nervous so it's so cool to see when they can overcome that and just climb like they know how to climb exactly derek new is up on the men's lead semi final route moving through that pinch section quickly as ella gets established on women's number one just misses that a little different approach than maddie dennis it's interesting to see you know coming out in semifinals you're trying to make finals you're trying to make the national team and the ultimate goal when you come out is do not fall and so there's for me i tend to climb like tentatively and hesitantly because i'm so nervous especially on the first route and you kind of just want to get the jitters out of your system and i was talking to some of the athletes yesterday and it's you're almost relieved when you have your first fall because you get it out of your system oh no very early fall there from derek knew totally unfortunate just didn't have the right body position there i agree with you alex though like there's something about taking that first fall and knowing that the world didn't just end to where you can just relax and then let your body do what it does yeah like you're like oh i fell now i can try hard you know i fell i'm still here everything's okay right let's go like i ideally you want to flash everything and have a perfect flash round but sometimes that first fall is like you can breathe again ella taking a second to look at the boulder again seems like she's having an issue finding that body position is a little tricky with the blocker you kind of don't want to walk your feet but you can't you definitely need to it was interesting also seeing maddie dennis come out first in my opinion i think she she qualified surprisingly low and uh 2020 bouldering nationals she was in finals yeah exactly she was fifth i believe at 2020 bouldering nationals and actually she might have been fourth um but i think she didn't really have her best day yesterday right so her coming out hiking that boulder is not surprising and it might set us up for an interesting uh flip of results exactly anthony lessick on men's semifinal pretty dynamic foot placement to that great technic hold moving through this pinch section he's climbing really confidently which i always love to see especially on a very precarious nice section like that you know someone means business looks like ella's she was gonna walk her feet a little more but then she didn't gets it nicely looks like she got a little bit of a toe jam there gross toe jam needs to get her foot inside and not on that slippery section of the dual text hold to then move to the zone these are all the exact same holds put in a little cluster yeah you can gas stone you can thunder cling you can mono you can cramp having trouble figuring that section out as anthony is trying to figure out if he wants to go straight into that red hole he is on the taller side with six feet in height so he shouldn't be as stretched out but i think making a better decision and crossing that foot through on the soapy block here we go that was the first time we've seen him seem to be like hesitant in his movement otherwise he's been climbing like a boss exactly but that's what the root centers are forcing you know he's still again just like palmer has a little bit more time than we saw a lot of the earlier men have gone so no real time need to rush ella really struggling trying to find that right body position and where exactly she wants to grab the hold only 13 seconds left for her anthony took a good bit of time there to like shake out and regroup which i think would be really smart so ella's not gonna get a zone there which means that she'll have a zero for that boulder and just have some attempts and that's um if you're just tuning in a different scoring format than what we've used in the past usa climbing in the past has done a three zone format 5 10 15 sometimes eliminating the five or the fifteen um and then the top is 25 and so we have completely switched over to ifsc rules to be globally homogeneous and uh better prep our world cup team and our u.s national team for competing abroad and it's tops and zones exactly makes it less tricky when they go and do those international competitions earlier fall for anthony and lasik i expected him to go a little bit further but like we said earlier those slips will happen maddie dennis just got on to women's number two you can see her in the background and we also have cali close on women's number one passing up into those crimps that are all clustered together just so you can barely get anything from them so nice those root centers they're just trying to challenge friendly people them make my sausage fingers really angry maddie dennis taking another look at women's number two it's pretty pretty hard right off the bat there's a really big jump right from the start and maddie's only about five feet tall i actually believe she wrote five feet and an eighth of an inch um she's so she's so funny she's very exact give her that extra eighth her eye her mom was like did maddie literally write five feet and an eighth of an inch that's hysterical this is an incredibly powerful paddle two they want you to go double cali back up on women's number one looks like she found a little yeah a nice gross index finger mono oh that cross through she was so close with her feet maddy getting one hand on that first hold but not getting that momentum she's gonna need to use her momentum to get to that zone hold and for her especially being a lot smaller she's gonna need to jump really hard timothy king is up on the lead semi-final route for the men uh another in my opinion dark horse favorite he could totally come out and make finals yeah he's actually been doing a lot of sport climbing outside since the pandemic usually bouldered a lot but actually started getting on a rope outside which has been really cool to see and i agree with you if all things go according to plan he could get pretty far on this route yeah he's climbed some hard hard things i think in the hurricane in st george utah and then previous to that he did too big to flail in bishop yep he soloed that which is basically a sport so he's got a great head for so this pressure this makeshift slab is not going to deter him in any way shape or form he keeps it together mentally about a minute and a half left for the women so cali closed trying to figure out how to get to that zone your goal is always to get to the zone here because you want to put some points on the board yeah i think her body and her uh hips are too far to the left and when we saw maddie she walked her feet through and then you could lean to the right and so with her lower body being stuck over to the left it's basically like an anchor keeping her from making that like movement to the right nice buddy you'll notice actually that his fingernails are painted and that has been scientifically proven to make you a stronger crimper remember when you used to not want to paint your nails yeah and then i figured out that it makes you crimp harder scientifically proven all those scientists lots of data really smooth through this section that we've seen a lot of the men struggle with callie in a split i think she's having a hard time like you said moving her hips to the right but mainly because i don't think she's trusting herself in that position because she is very tall she is six feet tall she is our tallest competitor yeah we were able to see maddie sort of just like walk right through and i think she's there's a whole foot difference and having that center of gravity lower on those volumes on those feet um might make the transition transition a little easier exactly higher center of gravity it's really hard to sink low and then put your feet in those volumes like that that foot wrap again that we've been seeing a few times it's looking really calm cool and collected over here yeah he's climbing right there oh yeah that i think would be our high point i think over there i think he'll be tied though with stefan because there's no usable surface so that's a that's a really good score for him so he should have 17 plus as well and for the women we've got them on the boulders with campbell serenopolis on women's number one was having some nice movement there right off the bat yeah exactly it'll be an easy fix she had her body in the right position as ella von duggan brushes that first hole that the women are going to have to jump to and continue that momentum into the zone hold megan and i uh i was just talking about that we're uh playing around on some of these boulders last night and when we were four running there was a fat blue jug in the middle of that dino bowler and megan and i uh approached the root centers and we were like you guys this is way too easy it's like v3 and then they were like you guys the jug's not on and you're like well that changes everything oh my gosh they made a huge mistake it's like v3 they were talking about it as if they were worried and we were like what are you talking about i think it might be too hard in fact nice save from campbell saranopoulos just digging into that mono on her index finger she's in a really good position right now to get to that zone hold still plenty of time left on the clock three minutes is a lot of time to get stuff done for sure oh man little slip there but she can get back up there easily and now with the zone she can't just touch it she has to actually make use of it so move her body position to the right or move the foot so it's not until she actually makes that movement that she'll get the credit for the zone brian squire is up on the lead route for the men we saw him at the combined i believe in 2020 trying to figure out this tricky foot section getting that toe hook that we found earlier actually keeping it this one is not short-lived great move into that right foot puts you in a great position to then fully move into that side pole a lot of chalk ending up on that soapy block and i think what we will notice it's different still about this event than ifsc is there's a brush break in the ifsc in there definitely earlier than he wanted to that spot is spitting people this whole route is spitting people off where they're not expecting it and we really have to stay on our game and that's you know that's what brad explained to us exactly it's a mental battle through the whole two-thirds of the root and then the last third is physical do you have enough energy left and mental capacity to keep moving right looks like campbell serenopolis got a top on women's number one so one top in three tries putting her in second right now below maddie dennis nice that's the sequence that's exactly that is the sequence and she still has a minute a little over a minute left so she can hopefully make that work but that's the closest we've seen anybody get to sticking that jump so far and the more you do it the more comfortable you feel on it your your muscle memory kind of like comes into play and all it takes is sticking at one time to go to the top you know exactly nice little close-up here of ella jumping to that hold she gets a pretty good bit of momentum but isn't able to hold a swing on the zone maybe she'll try to go with two hands to the zone this next time i think they're gonna have to keep two hands on either on the first blue or double to the zone we did see some of the root setters able to hang at one hand but meanwhile on the lead wall looks like we have mike bikino up there maybe there's a bit of blood on the hold i'm not exactly sure but if there is blood it means he has to clean it so the men have a little extra break right now in the running just because they need to take care of that technical issue great climbing from eleven dog and getting super close on that second boulder as cali close approaches the second boulder now and maddie dennis is on the third boulder this third boulder i think is going to be a really cool combination of power and technique there's a lot of like trickery to be done with your toes and you're also squeezing those blocks yeah a lot of body tension and biceps i was training specifically for this boulder all winter sitting on my couch doing a lot of bicep curls cali clothes took a different method on women's number two trying to go with a one two with her left hand to the first hold and then immediately with her right hand to the second maddie dennis getting into women's number three she's trying to move into that zone hold reach for the zone like she was going to try to use it just to get points for it and that's that's a strategy that um it's interesting like when i was doing 2020 bouldering nationals because you have to use it you can you can fake like you're using it if that makes sense in a not cheating way like she could have pressed against it and just moved her feet around and that that theoretically is using it even if she's not using the actual part of it um [Music] so i we might see that oh awesome so close to a top for maddie dennis had the right idea and we've got morgan taji on women's number one getting into that zone nicely i believe this is her first attempt looking really comfortable on those volumes oh totally my fault it is she just rushed that last bit of the movement otherwise she was looking great but she has plenty of time to give it another go callie close looking like she's gonna get back on women's number two see if we can see this zone hold stuck [Music] super close a little too much momentum she's really gonna have to activate the biceps in order to kill that swing a lot of swing make it maybe less of a jump yeah it looks like maybe she she landed on her ankle a little weird and uh i almost think it would be better for her to try to go two hands to the first hole to slow it down i think she's moving too fast because she is taller she can go left hand right hand and it's just creating way too much momentum yeah a little too much power and because she is taller she can do more of like a dynamic stand and less of a launch exactly maddie is re-familiarizing herself with how she got to where she was before which especially on a volume boulder like that you kind of don't remember how you got there sometimes and you don't want to waste an attempt trying to figure it out yeah so she was just kind of reviewing it in her mind which is a really smart move so that she's as efficient as possible that's such a good point like you could totally get all the way up to the finish and then not remember how you did it because there's so much tic-tac-y like put together squeezing on something like this if she gets back to the top uh i'll be curious to see if she wants to do the right hand to the finish again with the press down on the left or if she decides to go left hand to the finish it looks like it's set up better for the left hand but i'm sure that she could also hold the right hand with the press morgan taji back into that zone hold now needs to delicately walk her feet up this time she rushes a little on the last or on her first attempt and has one finger on the top and just needs to get the other hand up there and a top for morgan taji just under a minute left as maddie gets back on women's number three seeing if she can get back up to where she was before so close to the top it's so heartbreaking when you know you've already been up there and you see the clock counting down just trying to figure out how to get back up there and make that top happen so close for callie on that zone hold especially maddie getting up to the top on her first try it's got to be frustrating knowing that you flashed you basically flashed the bowler to the finish and then not getting back up there again is maddening exactly and i think it happens more when you do get far on your first try because it happened so quickly and you weren't really expecting it and then it's easy to forget how you got there i i mean i don't know about you but that's happened to me a million times that are you expecting to feel easier because you've done it and then then you second guess yourself right and then on your first try you're it's a flash round this is like you're trying to find the best climber and it's the best flasher and so everyone comes out trying as hard as they can their first try and then maybe even your second third fourth you forget how hard you were trying first go besco is the motto that's usa climbing's new motto it's a trade worked actually first go bus go nikaya sanders taking a second to figure out how she wants to start this boulder we saw her brother marcotti earlier in the men's semi-final for leed they also have another sister silver ray the climbing sanders family it's pretty exciting to watch all of them now nikaya is very good at slab so extremely i would just imagine she doesn't have much of an issue you should not say anything because you're going to jinx her [Applause] oh great i swear it's not my fault next time we'll be like oh this person sucks at slab opposite them up she is really good though at figuring out how to be creative on the boulder and try a lot of different things and not get to put in a box her movement is incredibly fluid on slab she's been incentively flexible yes she's been in salt lake um training at the training center a lot and it's been cool to watch her come out and sort of float up things now we're both drinking it's okay there's still three minutes and 25 seconds left on the clock so plenty of time and with slabs specifically it's all about being patient and finding those body positions campbell serenopolis getting up into the jump two hands up there but not enough momentum so she's gonna need to jump a little bit harder another one of our athletes that's on the shorter side kaya nicely into these crimps now just needs to keep moving those feet oh a little slip there those volumes are um dual techs on the white side and they're like sticky skateboard deck grip tape on the inside and so when they're like you can see that it starts wide and then narrows and at the wide part you can wiggle your toes in to get the texture and i think when it narrows it's harder to squeeze your toe in and you end up standing on a bit of the dual text 100 eleven duggan has been struggling to get into this first hole this this start is very difficult it's all biceps you really have to squeeze and then go into that undercling and kind of hold on for dear life explosive like double undercling into an undercling super bicep b and there's a little jib that she can pinch on the outside but she's not actually finding that and i think that that would be kind of helpful for her so we'll have to see if later on in her time she's able to make that work oh really slick there for campbell's terenopolis which that right-hand starting hole is not very big and you really have to generate a lot and especially as a shorter competitor you really have to focus on being explosive and generating so she just kind of overdid it the harder you have to explode on your feet the more you have to pull on the right hand to also like get you up and right until it could be the reason for that pop come on nakaya ah girl nicely into the stem man her foot just keeps slipping on that slippery part of the dual texture let's see if elegant holds the tension there very good looks finds that jib and gets the knee bar a little reprieve for a second working her way up these volumes tricky body position here has to get into that right hand i believe before the left hand i think it would be better no that does not count as uh it does not uh using you know you have to and but if she had pressed against it and moved her hips or her shoulders or like shifted her momentum a little bit and could have couldn't get it to they're looking for functional movement and usage yeah really surprising that nikaya is not getting into this zone just those feet keep slipping but her body positions look great ella was told she didn't get the zone so she's trying to figure out how she can get back up into there but doesn't have enough time so we're gonna move on to our next round and the men the men are finally back after a quick technical and we have there oh there was actually just a brush break interesting um trying to it's raymond hansen up next for the men nice to see the men climbing again moving into that pinch where we've seen a lot of the men spend a good chunk of time trying to find that right body position especially because it's you know the third move in on the route i think everyone's a little hyper sensitive to finding that specific comfortable position in order to move gradually moving his feet up moving into the no hands area walking in memphis teo wolf is getting high up on uh women's number one for the bouldering reaching out to the zone here in a second her foot placement looks really good she just needs to figure out how to get into that hold with her left hand it looks like she's got maybe two fingers but it kind of looks like one as raymond crosses through on that foothold easily first look at women's number four this pretty interesting overhung climb with a pretty intense start there are three pieces of tape on the left hold which means the women are gonna have to have their one hand and two feet likely on that and they have to kind of pull up and throw it into a tow hook or a bicycle which is really aggressive right off the start and maddie i'm not even sure if she can fully reach she might have to jump into it a little bit this is what we were talking about last night because i could reach the start holds pretty easily from the ground but my hands were up above my head and there are a lot of shorter athletes like having to jump to reach a start hold is always insecure looks like she's having some trouble trying to generate to move out left into the undercling raymond is working his way through the volumes looking nice we've seen a lot of the men here getting ready to approach where our high point is for the men he's just a few holds away but as we've seen this part is actually very insecure as well we've seen a lot of the men fumble here looks like he's second guessing himself a little bit can't quite get comfortable enough to keep moving needs to trust his feet so an interesting thing that just happened in the bouldering with maddie is she tried brushing the start hold um but couldn't quite reach it and so she jumped to brush to start hold and that counts as an attempt and so you saw the judge come up and and tell her you can't jump to russia's start it's an attempt which is a rule that's been around in the ifsc and maddie has competed internationally on the youth side but like we were saying earlier because you're not competing in those competitions all the time it's really easy when the rules were different from one another yeah so it's really nice that we've now switched fully over because then everyone can have just the one set of rules and grains right it might take some getting used to but a minute left with taya going for the finish here really smart to still continue to take her time because we've seen a few of the athletes slip there and she doesn't have too much time left so to start over would be rough but she's not going to have to because there's a top for teo wolf so with the start positions in ifsc there aren't designated hand and foot start holds it's just four pieces of tape and kind of choose your own adventure and so often we'll see different start positions not so much today because it is more straightforward but there being three pieces of tape on one hold and one on the other like someone could totally throw like a high heel on that right start and then have like totally on the other end so it's it's not designated specifically but um you have to choose your own adventure and that that can be part of the hardest part of the route is figuring out time what is a hand and what is a foot to start and like establishing on the wall could be the crux yeah in today's round it is a little more straightforward but that can sometimes like you said it can take like a good chunk of time to just figure out how you want to start this ellis earnsberger is now on the lead route for the men moving through this beginning section pretty quickly also getting on the wall pretty quickly didn't spend too much time reviewing the route and for the women maddie's maddie dennis's round is done and she is in that first place position currently with one top and two zones yes and that top is a flash so that's gonna serve her well ella's trying to figure out how he wants to approach this precarious section nicely with the cross through and that right foot up that seems to be the best method that we've seen in the most efficient one for the men to be stable there campbell serenopolis on women's number three this is her first go i believe and she's having a great one one hand on the top also leads two and a top for campbell serenopolis which puts her in a great position now because having the one top puts you inside first you know second place exactly and sometimes it's a one top round like i've been in world cups where you think you're having an absolutely horrendous round and then like top the fourth boulder and you make finals in fourth place you know like you're like oh i'm doing so terrible and then you figure out that everyone else is also doing terrible it's awesome that's the tricky thing it's you never know what's going on until you're done so that's why you can never give up because it's not over till it's over ellis ernsberger getting ready to approach that high point he's a few holds away looks pretty smooth still very confident in his movements especially on these precarious holds holds it so this is now our new high point and a foot slip i know stuff with a foot slip another difficult move isn't able to make it but you'll get that plus for movement later and he saw him look at the clip and then look at the hole and hesitate with what he wanted to do because in the past clips have been points exactly so he should have a score of 18 plus and we've got campbell serenopolis oh she has two tops so she is actually in first place i was gonna say i thought she had another top the first one yep the first in three and the second in one attempt with that flash so it's really good placement for her in this round and again like i said earlier this is her first adult competition so she's off to a great start totally very uh decorated team abc youth climber exactly ella von duggan struggling with this start which we mentioned was pretty intense kind of taking a step back to look at it again seen a lot of action on the fourth women's boulder yet our new leader alice earns burger with a score of 18 plus on the route see if he can hold that position it's really nice that we've got a new high point this route is proving to be quite difficult and pretty tricky just anything can happen on it yeah it was cool to see someone stick that little yellow crew and with that foot cut it wasn't just an easy stick he still had to fight for it totally up next we have isaac left on the men's semi-final [Music] moving into the first tricky section where you want to avoid getting too pumped as elevon duggan pulls on and struggles to pull on to women's number four pretty brutal start right it's very difficult not only is establishing on the boulder hard a lot of core to get both of your feet up to where your hand is exactly and then it's super powerful to have to pull up into that next undercling it's kind of like far and left away and that start hold is a dual attack should hold too so not only are you trying to squeeze there but it's also a little slippery so there's a lot going on isaac moving smoothly through this balancing section that'll end time for the women's bouldering and we'll have a new fresh face on women's number one quinn mason was uh on number one and i did not see her top from where i'm sitting she did not top but she did get the zone on her second try so she does have a score on the board it can make all the difference i feel like i whenever i looked at a boulder i was always like just get to the zone get to the zone that's your first goal you start thinking too far ahead about getting to the top and flashing and then you forget about the objective in front of you and you can rush or you can slip or you can make a mistake and objective number one is grab the zone and use the thumb right don't just put your pointer finger on it that used to be a rule all you had to do was like gently touch it exactly isaac and his feet up into that volume section i'm gonna clip here from that really small crimp but it is a pretty good crimp as we've seen a lot of the men get there he's choosing the clip a little later morgan taji trying to figure out how to hold that volume on the right really nice and secure for isaac moving into that section loses it on the cross though i feel like they're over gripping so much it's just so hard not to nerves i mean there's so much at stake here this is like the usa climbing national team trials event this is not the national championships those will come later in the year this is only to select the us team in all disciplines for the entire rest of the year these will be our world cup athletes for 2021 and they are like feeling the pressure you know and on top of it there is so much going on with the world cup circuit itself including the fact that there will be two world cups in salt lake back to back so i think that's another big part of it taia wolf sticking the dino first athlete today to get that zone there needs to slow it down a little bit to move into this next section to see if she can get a top really good save super she doesn't want to have to do the jump again no she's a very powerful athlete i've been watching her train at the training center in salt lake a little bit it doesn't surprise me at all that she stuck this jump and the way that we saw the root setters do this was a high right heel on the zone but they brought their left hand back down to the first paddle hole here's another look at that awesome dino that tailwolf was able to stick gets both hands on the first hold and then like we were expecting to see both hands moving to the second to hold that swing and make it less aggressive got a little bit cracked out trying to figure out how to get to that crimp but was doing the right thing just needs to bring that left hand down to create more leverage for her to rock over on her hips more and that'll open her up a little bit more to be able to use that right heel a lot of that um force is going to come on the right heel to get up to that blocked crimp quinno francia on the lead route for the men now out of vertical world in seattle we saw him at the combined invitational in 2020 one of our younger competitors at 16 but started in 2020 doing the adult the two adult competitions that we were able to have coming from the vertical world dynasty you would say okay vertical definitely have a few of those here athlete yeah a lot of vertical world athletes coming in the semi-finals morgan taji is back up in that section again for women's number three she still hasn't quite figured out how to get in the right body position to get into that zone this is an awesome one to watch because not only have each like have the athletes been doing it differently but from each other but they've been doing it differently from themselves [Laughter] it's nice sticking a zone on the dyno again see if she can figure out how to get to the top from there this time she doesn't really have a lot of time taking a second to shake out we saw the um root centers and they were for running they did it with a right heel left hand back down to the first pedal hole they also did it with a left foot on like sandwiched but um it definitely made the move harder and then when i was sequencing it until i just tried this i considered just canvassing to it you know i'm so much longer that high heel would be really hard for me and put me in a small box and i know that crimp is bad and it's blocked but maybe we'll see one of the later competitors just campus quino francia looked like he slipped a little bit before he was ready but he was still up in a one of the higher sections of the route not not to the high point but just below it so he'll be around the same place as a lot of the other men that we've been seeing got another new athlete out on women's number one sienna cop or as her friends call her cece i actually don't know if anyone really calls her sienna no it's so weird her instagram handle is sienna and every time i go to her and something i type out cece and i'm like where is she rocking the pigtails today she's a big fan of the space buns but looks like she's going with the pigtails and i always love seeing what she's gonna wear as well she always has great outfit choices and animal prints and it's really good another very good slab climber i actually went as cc for halloween this year i had leopard print shoes a leopard print jacket and a leopard print top and some super cool tights and space buns you guys are similar in height too i walked in and people actually thought i was cc quino francio with 17 plus which we've seen for quite a few of the men now um we're gonna have a bit of a tie there or not a tie but he's in second place right now because we go back to the day before a little bit of a bottleneck in that section the root setters never really want but can't really control we have three athletes who have that 17 plus score as joe goodacre is now taking his turn at the men's route moving really fast through that bottom section another one i didn't recognize coming back to this event because his hair has grown so much in the last year he also wants us to draw attention to the fact that he has a cool headband on to keep his hair out his face yesterday he was like did you see my headband and i i didn't no because it's cool cool is debatable because it's the same color as his hair if it was leopard print like cece shorts i think we would call it cool last time i saw joe competing awesome really nice movement she's a wicked good slap climber so i'm drinking this kind of missed the hold it was weird her index finger got caught underneath she didn't quite get it nice to see joe able to weight his feet last time i saw him he had a broken toe he was competing at the world championship so they broke her toe a little bit too quick there he was looking really good but too fast you have to still be patient in that section and he has really long legs so to step up like that i think he just like rushed it a little bit and kind of fell off balance definitely not the score he was looking for no it's gonna be interesting to see how the men actually play out a lot of really surprisingly low slips in my opinion yeah it's one of those routes where anything can happen 10 points for joe goodacre and it was so surprising he couldn't even try to fall up he just was shocked that he was falling campbell serenopolis trying something different to move off of this start hold sienna cop don't know why i just said sienna should have just said cece the goal here i think for cece is to try to knock it in her head she knows she's an incredibly talented slab climber and she does not need to flash this boulder to make finals all she has to you know get to the top and even if she doesn't get to the top of this there are three other boulders and so trying to sort of keep it together here even knowing that she has fallen is really important super smooth tension no just rushing it and we just saw quinn mason on the left stick that dino and get the zone and try that campus method to the crimp but it didn't work out for her either so she's gonna have to figure out a different way to do it charlie osborne up on the lead route he did really well in the qualifier got really high on men's number one which didn't have a top but he had the high point for a lot of the day he was also at the combined invitational this past year cece 15 seconds left back on number one 15 seconds if she can move quickly it can be plenty of time she looks a little frazzled on that one she's like you said i think she got a little too in her head and was kind of rushing it when she didn't need to but then ended up having to rush at the end because she rushed earlier and she knows that slab is one of her strengths and what you and i were talking about um last night is in the past for years when you came out for a round historically the first boulder was the easiest boulder and they progressively got harder and so you knew if you botched the first boulder that you were going to have a very hard round and so that's not the case now they're all completely in mixed matched order the first bowler could be the hardest bowler you know and then you get shut down and get in your head and the next three boulders you do or they're more doable and that's sort of something you have to keep in mind and keep together is it's not progressive in difficulty anymore yeah none of there's no plan in terms of how it's gonna go you just have to try the boulder and then forget about it move on to the next one charlie is looking very smooth approaching the the crux of the climb as we've seen most of the men struggle here he also has a lot of time left he's been moving really quick through this another little slip and he i i wouldn't give him the movement up so i'm guessing his score will be 16. as he got control of that other sarah kate ashton or sk as her friends call her attempting that dino her mom i believe has been our uh coveted warrior here she is she's checking everyone's documents to make sure they were negative taking temperatures it's great to have our volunteers here this week we definitely needed them and we don't have an audience at this competition so it's dead silence it's dead silent aside from us talking and a little bit of music in the background so everyone coming into this event had to produce a negative coveted test um very close to the event within 72 hours of showing up to the venue um if you took it a week prior you had to take another one awesome top forever very quick i'm not sure if that was her first try but it may have it may have been super exciting she's a really nice current national champion speed climber and record holder with a time of 8.05 that she did at the qualifying event at pan americans it was not a flash for emma hunt but a top nonetheless on her second try puts her in a really good spot right off the bat yeah she's going to ride that sorry it's such an awesome feeling like doing the first boulder you know it's the best feeling it's that feeling exactly there is there's an immediate relief and the sense that you can totally do everything in the round right it's oh thank god i did one you know you're not like oh god i didn't do it no i got to do the next one and that's exactly what they're they're all thinking that you know sure you all recognize this athlete nathaniel coleman one of our olympic qualifiers for the first ever olympics for climbing that'll be happening in 2021 we know his parents are watching hi roseanne we miss you we do our iso runner and nathaniel's been really working on lead recently and i thought it was quite evident in the qualifying round he looks very calm while he's climbing and i mean we all know he's so strong and so talented but leeds been a discipline that he hadn't you know had as much as success in prior because he'd always focused on bouldering but with the combined he's really stepped it up i mean he even climbed 5 15 this year 5 15 and v 15. i think within the same within 30 days exactly so i mean he's on fire right now and it was nice to see him yesterday and he's off to a great start right now he's climbing really slowly but control really smoothly and he chose to do a little plie here instead of the uh walking in memphis step through see that's an example of someone who really trusts their feet right maybe he's been uh following the adam andra ballet protocol exactly he's literally this is making me sweat the close-ups on his feet are freaking me out but he's he's good turn around and wave hi mom now he has his right foot further out and his left foot on the left hold so he it would be better if he was crossed so he could bring that right foot out to the yellow jib but he is pretty tall he's about 5 11 so he can probably not have too much of an issue coming into that red hole but it might be better to get his right foot out which he's doing smoothly into that side pole one of the most mentally sound competitors i would say he's he practices a lot of um mental technique headspace um and i think he does that with a lot of like breathing and meditation and you can kind of see that in his climbing he's mentally incredibly sound everything is done with intention with nathaniel i feel like the mental fortitude like you were talking about is so strong and i think it's great especially for this olympic qualified team because he's a great example as one of the older athletes on the team and can help everyone together so that hopefully when they go to the olympics everything works out and they're all able to perform and not be bogged down by a mental block i remember i think it was like 2014 when we were still doing world cups we were in canada and he was the only us athlete to make a final and we were going absolutely insane screaming for him and no one else in the entire venue was cheering i don't think they knew who he was no that was his like first adult world cup we were going ballistic and it was obnoxious i'm sure and then the very following weekend um he made finals again in vail both times on the podium both times second place and so he's a seasoned veteran you would most definitely i would say we could say we do say smoothly into this section approaching the high point he needs to control this next hole to have the high point brad weaver described that move as a hard lock off to what is finally a somewhat decent hold on this route the entire move up the entire time up they've been really hard bad small cramps sloppy soapy so nathaniel will be our new leader but unfortunately falling on that next move but that is enough for him to make finals because he qualified in sixth place and currently has the high point exactly and we take eight the worst he could do sixth yep and we take eight to the men's final and he should have a score of 19 plus with that he was looking so strong here he just didn't get fully over his body weight and brad weaver told us earlier that that right hole that he's going to is terrible and that that move itself was going to be very difficult and a lot of tension and body control and he wasn't able to get in there but he made it he made it to the he created a new high point and he's killing it oh a top for cece kopp really fought hard to get into that heel hook and get that crimp i think she kind of knew she had to fight after not doing the first boulder which is something that she excels at the slab so she turned it on on women's number two i'm not talking because i'm cheering [Laughter] silently with my arms really good dino she chose to do what we saw callie close drawing earlier with the left hand to the right hand and then two hands on the zone to catch that swing had no issues getting into this heel hook something she's very good at she's very good hip flexibility really fighting to get on that crimp and rock her hips up desperate to the final hole but luckily that's a good hold he's able to walk away with the top this is a good thing she and i talked about yesterday we had like a really great conversation about grit nathaniel coleman our new leader with 19 plus on the men's lead route now this route tops out at 29 holds so as you can see the route setters really made it difficult and the men are having to work really hard for every point right it's a relatively short route at only 29 points and that's usually we would see in lead world cups halfway was about 25 and so if you got about 25 points you got halfway and that was usually enough to make a semi-final and so here having only 29 points seems like a relatively short route so they really had to put a lot of difficulty into condensed ben hannah on the semi-vental route for the men moving in to the section choosing not to bring that right foot out and going more dynamically which he was able to do but we've seen a few of the men struggle there earlier nicely into that gaston press ben is another athlete residing in salt lake uh frequenting the usc climbing training center along with nathaniel cairo cece taya a lot of these relocated and they get the coaching of our olympic coach josh larson and a lot of world cup style setting boulders and lead and they've done several mock comps throughout the coveted year prepping for this event specifically kylie cullen on women's number one another climber who's very good at slab as you can see as she methodically walks her feet a dark horse for finals honor for me as well she uh competed at the woman up event against top for kylie cullen um it was uh myself puccio chloe and she ended up winning yup so she could totally be an athlete that makes finals yeah i think 2020 bouldering nationals when oh actually i think she ended up not competing she had like an injury ben being dynamic which is fun to see on this route since it is so precarious i almost couldn't breathe there for a second because we've seen so many of the men choose to go very slow and controlled to a lot of the holes but he's just you know sticking to his style right there didn't work there but in the bottleneck like you said ben was really just going for it feeling no fear jumping to that hole and holding the swing really risky but he did it well and he is a very dynamic climber and has a lot of power and finger strength so i was able to make it happen but unfortunately it was a little bit too low trying to go for that yellow crimp a lot of high flying girls on women's number three now cece uh still has the only top of that bowler emma's a powerful boulder a little bit on the taller side too taya trying to figure out how to get to that next hole on hold on problem four we haven't seen any of the women stick the second hold on problem four it's proving to be a problem awesome stick of the zone on women's number three by emma hunt now she's gotta get into this aggressive heel hook and figure out how to pull and move to that top hold it's kind of hard to reach to the crimp with your heel up it kind of pushes your hips out so the women are trying to figure out how to get there looks like she's going to go left hand which would be not the best idea but she figured that out already if you got points per hold going left hand and controlling it would make sense but here it's looks like she's got herself in a better position but she still has a bit of time to figure out and that's right um with cc and her hip flexibility she was able to stay on the zone to do that move and where we saw the route setters drop back down to the first paddle dylan barks is up on the lead route now in an attempt to not jinx him i'm not gonna say anything i was gonna wait until he moved off of this hold i have no high hopes at all for him whatsoever please please i saw dylan uh he was doing the 2019 world cup circuit as a boulder no something we did not want to see and we were trying to not jinx as well but that pinch we were told by the root setters that that might be a very tricky position and we've seen a lot of the men get through it but dylan just lost his balance and instead of rapping he was trying to cross his hands and it just didn't work out and threw him off so unfortunate that is not what he wants to happen but he will be competing in the bouldering this week as well so at least he has another chance but i know he really wanted redemption redemption there 100 tia trying to use every bit of her time on the fourth boulder isn't able to make it happen but so far no women have gotten to the zone a really good round for taya though she's currently in second so she's off to off to a great start for this week and she'll just have to wait and see what happens in the rest of the round absolutely tragic for dylan barks i know he's upset about that one but at least he has the bouldering so we've got sienna cops brushing the holes and number three ross fulkerson in the men's lead taking a second to review the ashley fisher on women's number two ashima out on women's number one yes we have ashima on women's number one and i am so happy that she is competing this week i was unsure if she would be signing up for this competition she's one of the athletes that was part of that couple of years trying to make the olympic team and it was just a grueling couple of years now those athletes went through so much and she didn't compete at 2020 bouldering nationals so i was really excited to see her sign up for this competition super cool yeah i i didn't know what to expect i don't think i expected her to come i know that she took some time off after the like you said grueling attempt at trying to qualify for the olympics and i was also really excited to see her name on the start list and both of our birthdays are coming up soon we share a birthday april 3rd in case anyone wants [Laughter] [Laughter] she did not have the best round yesterday in the qualifier for her but already i feel like she's off to a much better start as she has the zone on her first attempt and this slab climb is something that is definitely in her wheelhouse and she's very good on her feet very flexible just trying to figure out this dead point move she's a one of the i think two or three who did the slab boulder yesterday which was women's number five yes just had a little bit of trouble generating there cece getting really high on women's number three a little mishap there on the zone but she did get the zone which zones are worth so much in this scoring system plenty of time left and a top for her on this boulder would be huge and ross volkerson is starting to get to the difficult section of the men's route sending hard outside really yeah it's been nice to see so many of the athletes getting outside with that break from competition that isn't normally there because of the pandemic a lot of the athletes took advantage of that time off from competition and really pushed themselves outside in a way that they haven't been able to before and we saw a lot of difficult boulders and roots go down in this past year and it's such a different style of climbing outdoor versus indoor and i think you get strong indoor and you learn how to you learn how to climb out or outdoors i agree although i would say that the more competitions and how they've changed in the last 10 years i think they have kind of taught movement better for outdoor as well like they challenge the athletes on these boulders and roots totally and it translates to outdoor more seamless than it ever has right body position balance totally cece wrestling these volumes she figured out that wrap there really put her in a nice position come on girl that looks like it needs to be brushed yeah ross fulkerson sticking the cross he just now became our new leader for the men that'll put him into finals unable to get that last hold he kind of slipped as he was jumping but once he knows the results he'll be happy with that i'm sure a lot of the men are coming down and thinking oh my gosh i i did not do that well but little do they know people are not getting so far on this route so you can almost read it on his face he just he like bent over and was like no just so disappointed and and he's in first place sticking that cross super difficult just not getting enough generation to get out to that next looper on the women's side ashley fisher has stuck the dyno and is trying to figure out how to get into that crimp for women's number two looks like she's in a good body position just needs to reach a little bit more [Music] not going to have enough time to make it happen but that zone is very important especially on that boulder for sure ross volkerson with a score of 20 plus for the men's route becoming our new leader and putting him in the finals which i'm sure he'll be really excited to hear for the women we have our first female qualified olympian out on boulder number one kyra condi taking a second to brush since she's coming out later that is generally the first thing people coming out later want to do and off camera kylie cullen just smashed the dino on women's number two big flash first try to the zone it actually looked so easy too now this part is a little tricky we've seen a lot of the women struggle with it just trying to find that right body position looks like she found it just needs to rock up a little slip there but the way she made that first move look i don't think she'll have any problem getting back up there cairo number one this is something that i know that she's been working really hard on in the training center with josh and let's see if it uh pays off your slab and like slowing down and and being in control trying to find positions that suit her style of climbing looks like we have sean bailey on the men's route trying to get through this tricky bottom bottom section just figuring out where he wants to put his feet nicely done so far with cairo this is actually the slowest i've seen kyra climb yeah really cool so i want to bring attention to that leg thing that she did the flag out left it's we i call it a dangle flag when i coach and it's um you don't always have to flag on the wall it's sort of like the drinky drinky bird and what that did was tip her momentum to the right to wait more on that right foot and create more friction between the grip type of the volume and the rubber of her shoe and that that perfectly balanced her enough to be able to really casually reach the footage it's one of here's a quick look about what alex was just mentioning was one of my favorite moves it's she just drags the toe a little bit on the wall but it's more just about that counter balance that she's getting from bringing that leg out and not actually applying pressure perfect counterweight oh i love it i like the drinky drinky bird shawn bailey looking nice and smooth through this section he's approaching that tricky section that a lot of the men have struggled with five six it's actually 24 years old um but he is definitely five six yeah and one of these you guys are all recognizing he is one of the shoulder shorter men but he does have a good plus he has a plus three so that puts him in a nice position his bio is says age 24 years climbing 23. you know he started climbing as an infant climbing out of his crib [Music] looking really smooth here today he mentioned yesterday that he was quite pumped on both of the qualifiers which i don't think i've ever heard him say that before no he literally referred to his forearms as bricks yeah he said he's been doing a lot of bouldering and not a lot of sport climbing so but he has a natural talent when it comes to sport climbing and his technique is so good and he's been in finals on the podium so many times and is climbing that way right now so he just needs to get through this next section this just really nice finals as well and i was gonna wait to see anything but he's one of my favorite climbers to watch he's so fluid and smooth that was just too small looked like he just dropped off so he got his left foot up nicely as brad was talking to us about how it was really necessary to get that foot up in order to set up to move to that yellow sloper but he did just kind of fall backwards you also just saw a top from kylie cullen on women's number two just our second top on that boulder in this round it didn't surprise me with how quickly she stuck that dino that's usually what that is it takes the time and the skin and the attempts at sticking the dino and she stuck it right away so with that she was able to sort of focus more on the sequence at the end and that put her into first place here's another look at sean working his way through this pinch nicely and popping that foot up with ease but he kind of just lost his balance here it looks like his hips were too turned to the left he kind of needed to open them in order to get to that sloper but nonetheless he'll be in finals which is where i would expect to see him for sure now that he's done we can say that without jinxing him new leader sean bailey with 21 plus on the men's lead route remember the route is a total of 29 points so we're creeping up each each man that comes out gets a little closer and there's only one left so we'll see how that goes miami adair on women's number one also another climber that tends to like the slab climbs maya's one of uh megan and i's favorites for finals um super strong great climber performs usually very well in qualifiers and then is just out of finals from semis and so we've got our fingers crossed for her this weekend to try to make the us team and go to some world cups and on the left we have another one of our olympic qualifiers colin duffy who qualified for the olympics by winning the pan american championships the last competition that took place over a year ago exactly which was it was pretty intense because both sean and sean bailey and colin duffy topped the route and it came down to time so it was really stressful situation that was going on there nice and controlled through the first precarious section of this route he is also on the shorter side when it comes to the men at five six as well but given that he's grown about two feet two feet he's grown like he's really grown like a few inches in the last like couple years five six is a great place to be he's usually a fast climber and so it's interesting having to see him force himself to slow down here in some of these precarious sections yeah he does he is very attuned though to when he needs to slow down even though he is so young and makes it really nicely through that section doesn't rush it at all and he kind of had the wrong foot orientation especially for being smaller there it would have been better to have it crossed but he was able to make it through to that right foot on the yellow jib nicely anyway cece trying to figure out how to start women's number four it's definitely the most difficult boulder of the round so far we haven't seen anyone really make any or score any points on this boulder so hoping that somebody figures it out soon and cece could be the one to do it really nice start close yeah definitely an interesting orientation with their foot out right does seem more natural to go that way though that first move is just so powerful a lot on the right hand tricep lat shoulder and then the tension of like sticking that left hand and the under flange is gonna be really difficult yeah calling duffy into that crimp moving his feet up to this dish but he's going to clip first nice clipping spot drops the rope it's a little harder to pull rope when you can't bite it i mean you can with the mask but it's still a little trickier than when you don't have a mask on so that can happen really solid moving into that next hold interesting thing is your right hand on the he looks comfortable so i think he knows that he has to switch his hands up here i wonder if a little risky because he's the last climber and 25 men have gone before him if the holder just starting to get a little grindy yeah come on buddy it's a better foot position i'm not sure you can early fall for colin duffy definitely not what he meant to do looks like for that he will end up with a score of 17 plus which puts him in that bottleneck high with or tied points not actually tied because of count backs but but i think it'll still be enough to put him into the final right especially he's the top ranked of the 17 plus so it should put him into fifth place just before ben hannah and that's where it um helps to even though the men had a quote easier day yesterday with everyone moving through you heard ben hannah say after the round oh i wanted to place hi people were like you made it everyone made it it didn't matter and he was like well i wanted a place higher and because of this risk of count backs like a bottleneck like that all these men tying colin we haven't qualified in first place puts him ahead of everyone else from that bottleneck exactly and we just saw in that replay just the little mistake he made by matching that hole put him in a weird body position but we'll still see him in finals kyra connie easily sticking the jump on women's number two here comes that campus i wanted and we haven't yet seen one of the women stick it with the campus they actually have been putting their heel up i think she thinks she's going to match after she gets the heel but don't think that will actually work it's interesting that no one has gone back down to the first paddle like the root setters did last night i mean campus oh that was so close i really wanted to figure it out it looked like she was about to do a figure four i would also love to see that she's going to try to match for sure oh using the volume not a bad idea the jump did not look difficult for her at all so i'm sure she'll be back up there in a second as on number one we have brook rabbittue another one of the olympic qualifiers cruising you and when we sequenced this um so the screw holes on the volume are some of brook's specialties she likes to stick her toes in the screw holes and so megan and i were sequencing that and we were like she's gonna stick her toe in that and she's gonna stick her toe in that and they're like tiny little foot chips and she uses them all the time and that was a nice top from brooke rabatu and a flash as well so puts her in a great position not tired has another two minutes and 45 seconds plus five minutes to recover before that second boulder which is very powerful emma hunt trying to figure out the start here on women's number four going with that right heel hook like we saw cc do that was close i do feel like that right heel hook puts you in an off balance position kind of makes you barn door a little bit right off of it it's funny that they're not trying to get out to that flag type volume and then it makes the left hand like if you if you bicycle start hold the left start hold it makes the left hand easier to oppose and with the right heel hook it makes it harder to oppose it kyra connie figuring out what to do she went back down to that lower hold like we were talking about earlier in order to get into the crimp now she just needs to get over her hips a little more to get to the top and isn't able to make it happen she still has a minute 45 though i think she has enough time to totally put it together i if i was her i would rest for about 20 to 30 seconds before getting back on now that she knows what to do the boulder itself is only a couple moves so there's no point in rushing the recovery no and especially if that that much of a powerful boulder and a lot of these seasoned competitors know how much time it takes to send a boulder like that it's not slow it's not a slab you don't have to like you know really balance your way through it's power and it's fast and a lot of them have timed out almost exactly how long it takes to send a boulder like that and then you can time your rest like they're gonna watch the clock count the clock down and then know exactly like maybe i'll give myself an extra eight seconds in case i blow the dyno but um you know how long it takes and so you you watch the clock and wind it down and give yourself ample rest sometimes i do that a little too much emma hunt on her previous attempt just tried some foot first beta which i'm not sure she will try again because it didn't look like it worked that well but it's nice to see some more creativity there since we haven't seen anybody figure out what to do there right and we actually didn't get to watch the root centers on that climb here's our men's leader board with sean bailey in first and rounding out this list right that you can see right now is cody stevenson looks like we won't be seeing a top since the men are done but i wonder if the root centers are gonna possibly tweak the final a little bit more given that the men didn't really get close to the top here we're taking eight to finals so the ones that you would expect to be in there are um we have megan lynch out for bowler number one for the women ashima sussin out boulder number three and maya getting going on hold our number two ashima easily into this bicep section on women's number three getting that knee bar maya's sticking the zone on number two quickly clutch shima looks really comfortable moving through these volumes she's got really good body awareness and her body positioning comes so naturally to her really good with her heels and her toes too being able to squeeze with like talon toes and really flexible open hips maya real quick then second goal i think she's gonna be really happy with that and it will be huge and like we were saying earlier she hasn't made a final in an adult national competition for bouldering so this would be really big for her i think with two tops that will put her into finals unconfirmed it's definitely putting her in a good position megan lynch looking really smooth here it is something i noticed about her climbing yesterday actually she i've never seen her look this confident she looks so in control so confident she's done very well in the past she made finals 2020 bouldering nationals but her she's crushing yeah her demeanor on the wall i've never seen it look this confident and it's really exciting to watch it's it's like she's coming out and she knows what kind of shape she's in and how good she feels and so it's really cool to see her like climb with that confidence ashley fisher taking a second to figure out how she wants to approach women's number four as ashima takes another look at the volume and another thing we were talking about for this climb specifically is the fact that it's hard to remember exactly what you did because you're moving your body position so often and flipping your hands and switching your feet heel hook toe hook there's so much happening that you really want to make sure you know what you're going to do before you get off the ground and that's what she's doing right now as she rests a little bit before taking another attempt and she's currently in 13th place so she does need to get another top in there to keep moving her up though i do i do think she's gonna like number four yes this is um like we've megan and i have said before the team trials event this is not nationals this is only to select the us team and the way that that is being done is um excluding the olympians who already have a buy it's the top three ranked athletes in each discipline here and again not including the olympians so if olympians go one two the u.s team will be three four five exactly um and so eligibility for world cups will go down to the top 16 nationally ranked and that is including the olympians and so from this event it will theoretically be the top 14 and so that's our world cup eligibility and the us team will be top three not including the olympians that was great thanks i think that made perfect sense i hope everybody understood that it is a little confusing but i think you did a great job explaining it nashima finding some momentum here hoping to get back up and get a top she has 25 seconds easily to the zone though she needs to make sure she figures out how really fancy looking heel hooks very nice cool is uh ashima designed the shoes that she's wearing those were her design collaboration and proceeds were donated to organizations that represent marginalized communities so that was really cool so there was a little confusion earlier with the men's leaderboard but this is who will be going to finals and we're taking nine men because of the tie so you'll see sean bailey ross fulkerson nathaniel coleman alice ironsburger colin duffy ben hannah quinoa francia timothy king and stephen fellner tonight in the final for men's lead another new face on the wall chloe cosgoy who placed second at bouldering nationals in 2020 beat me by one hold you're not still holding on to it no not at all not better no just kidding a little bit rushed there coming into those crimps but plenty of time as the clock has just started on women's number three these volumes wrestling right off the bat has good momentum though she needs to confidently stand on that foot looks like she didn't feel too confident there on that foot we have our two qualified olympic athletes side by side on women's number two and three with brick rabbit two on two and kyra connie on three and like you said earlier alex cairo's been training at the training center and brook's kind of been going back and forth from colorado where she lives and then to the training center to train with the olympic team which i think has been so great i mean can you believe that there is a training center like just coming from where we came from where we didn't even have that stuff or a coach let alone a training center exactly when i walked into the training center i was like oh my gosh what a dream coolest thing i've ever seen we were born 10 years too early but it's been really great for the athletes to be able to train there together with josh larson as their coach and that spray wall and all the comp walls and getting them prepped for this world cup setting exactly and giving them the best chance to perform cairo was able to figure out how to get up there that time a little bit further and she kind of keeps looking at her hands it's like she keeps slipping off greasing up too much almost sticking the zone for brooke looks like she just needs a little more momentum a little more snap i think she's warming up to it a little bit yeah angry chloe moving her feet slowly i think as long as she can get out to that stem she should be able to get the zone but i do feel like for some of the taller athletes that transition out right is kind of tricky because your legs are so up into your chest nice move problem four is still proving to be the most difficult problem in the round as the women are struggling and kylie coleman's taking a step back to see if she can figure out something different to do and she is currently in the lead for women [Music] not as high of a jump that time for brooke yet to see a zone on moons over four no not at all let's see if she can figure something out here going with that right heel hook like we've seen a lot of the women do almost holds the swing but again i think it's a little too aggressive to be going left hand with not a good heel hook it's it's basically a flat hold with dual texture actually so it's not going to hold the swing there that well i think with the right heel it forces you to have to pull down on that hold instead of being able to pull in and compress it nice stick for brooke on the zone hold and i actually figured this section would not be so bad for her because that kind of high heel big hip flexibility is really within her wheelhouse so a top there for brook rabbit too awesome with a minute to spare kyrie taking another look at women's number three i think it's a good idea to rest a little bit because it is so powerful and wrestling sticking that left hand now that's the that's the best method high point high point with no point unfortunately kyra's choosing to take a seat down a seat down wow take a seat [Laughter] after women's number three and try to save our energy for women's number four hopefully she can figure something out i have a high expectations i do i think i think a lot of the women coming up to four right now are going to like it look at natalia grossman on women's number one her first boulder of the round also the 2020 bouldering national champion top-ranked qualifier natalia's kind of been unstoppable lately yeah um we had a mock comp i say we like i've been going in salt lake at the training center and natalya did the men's finals boulders so we're expecting her to no pressure do really well in this round but we're also not going to say things like that anymore as to not jinx people so not that we're superstitious or anything no not at all it just has definitely been happening [Music] nice and smooth oh i thought she was going to use a knee for a second i was going to get really excited she was great but i was going to call dab but you can't put your knee on ethical that is not true you can use a knee that gal would disagree yeah but this is a competition anything goes you can use a knee whatever it takes natalya working those feet over overnight skin into that stem position to make it a little more comfortable to get to the zone grizzly looking finger position on the cluster we've seen a lot of two fingers monos i think she's like double monoming with a with a mono and also you can't even get your fingers that far back in there so it's basically just like pinching your skin yeah a lot of like awkward uncomfortable like spock like grips nice save there every attempt does count as she knows it fighting for that just needs to find the right body position smart top one hand just means the two and on top of natalia grossman megan lynch just falling off the top of women's number two still has time to get back up there as miami dear is working her way through the boulders wrestling on these planet volumes um wrestling the volumes looks really comfortable actually nice tension there moving into that wrap on the zone hold with her left hand releasing this heel is going to be a little tricky if she can hold the momentum very nice and controlled no come on girl nice recovery just needs to figure out how to get enough momentum into that top hold a little snap the top hold is good enough if she hits it she should be able to stick it nice little press with her left hand oh it doesn't get high enough though just a little too shallow left yeah got ashima shirarishi over here onward feeling the sequence number four yeah she just needed to hold the tension a little bit more she still has time honestly if she can get the zone on that that would be amazing and i think i think it's actually not as bad at the top of the boulder i think this beginning section is the harder part so if she can get the zone there's a good chance she could go to the top and that was the intended beta of the root setters was either a heel or a toe hook on that bottom spike to get you up to that underclaimed crimp that's on that black volume [Music] here's a quick replay of maya mandir almost getting one hand on the top she just hits a little shallow here and isn't able to get to the good part but she still has plenty of time to get back back up there on women's number four we're actually seeing some progress here ashima is on the zone hold for women's number four which is new territory and she really needs a top here i'm not even sure if that would get her into the final but it actually there's a good chance that it could so she can keep her composure as the season competitor that she is she could put herself in a really good position she she got the zone and now she's moving into the head wall section this is the exact sequence the root centers intended so this is cool to see really nice control of the swing there now she's just gonna need to press up into this top hold and she only has five seconds left can she do it oh unfortunately it's not gonna happen there for ashima not her best round but really great to see her figure out that boulder number four since we hadn't seen anything happen there so unfortunate that we won't see her in the final tonight but great to see her here it's so great to see you here and she stopped with some amazing climbing oh yeah she's definitely doing lead so we'll see her later in a couple of days but oh chloe nice catch right off the bat 30 seconds in she's just she's going for some rest time and some flair one hand stick just needs to find that right hip position to get into the crimp a lot of the women are struggling another look at her stick on this dino gets it with one hand on the right and then the left hand comes off and she holds it right it took so much lap power that's got to be one of the yeti moves of the day yeah i'm putting that i'm putting that in as my suggestion kyra condi on number four moving through the section pretty quickly looks like she has a chance to get a top because she has a lot of time left so even if she isn't able to get through this next section she'll have plenty of time she needs to get into a press i think stem out left yeah so i that was what i thought the sequence was last night when we were watching the the root setters as well and this could be one of those moves that is hard with kyrah's back she's not a big fan usually of like pressing and mantels and getting into a corner because of her back surgery her spine is fused so really good stress though she's got one hand she just needs to get the other one up there this is where i would throw in me you see there's i think there's a jib on the left side of that top hold too so she should she should honestly wait until like two minutes or a minute 30 to then get back up there because she can definitely do it and currently she's in fourth so she doesn't know that but that's good to know i'll go tell her really quick just kidding chloe back up in this top section of women's number two hasn't had any issues with the dyno but this top section is giving her a little bit of a problem but i think she really should just do that just one motion to the crimp i think she should just do it too a little look at kyra up at the top of women's number four really made it smoothly to that point and then just wasn't able to get all the way to the other side on this top hole where that little jib is to then put her in a better position to match the finish hey it's right in the top left corner she was just shy of it and i hope she saw it from the ground because i think she couldn't hit it she was i think she looked like she was reaching for it and that wasn't there last night but i i was getting at this morning yeah brook rabbits you into the zone on women's number three having trouble finding that right body position those holds coming out as the final few competitors with all the build-up of chalk have to be slippery at this point like yeah and it's pretty hard too with those upper holds it's like you're brushing them but the chalk kind of just stays there anyway you can't blow it off so it gets pretty caked on there have been going to the gym brushing hold and then trying to blow the chocolate in a mask and i'm like oh that was pointless like i just blew it you start fanning it with your hands to try to get the chalk off kyra being smart and taking a bit of a longer rest because she did move through that bottom section really quickly so she shouldn't have an issue getting back up there with enough time to finish just needs to be very efficient off camera brook rabbit two on women's number three just fell but she was looking really good into that zone section again let's see if a little bobble there from kyra has enough time to start it again such an aggressive start really heavy on that toe hook which a lot of the women were just trying to do a right heel instead broke is back up on cairo's moving quickly here through the middle section good thing she knows how to do that totally 15 seconds to try to press into the finish here brooke is also fighting for time over here with 10 seconds left extend the right arm it looks like she's sliding she's really got to push press press press press press the knee not gonna happen but she is currently in fourth so we'll have to see if she's able to hold that position but there are some women behind her so i'm gonna have to wait and see what happens one top four zones natalia deciding to take off her chalk bag because that jump is pretty aggressive your chop kind of flies up behind you and it's a shorter boulder when you jump and it swings around and like hits you in the back kind of throws you off balance oh almost held it megan lynch going for the zone here on women's number three moving through this action really quickly i like those heel hooks all about trusting the heels and toes ankle flexibility i've seen like a lot of times when they climb on the slab their heels drop down so much a lot of calf and ankle flexibility to be able to do like drop down heels on slab those really extreme heel hooks maya looking really good in the roof here getting to the zone i think this could possibly be your first try just trying to wrestle through those volumes press into the underpin here and then it's a high left foot on that jib that you can see just in the center of the screen across to that dual tech slopey crimp and then the perfect half to relief on that volume another top for natalia grossman on number two lots of time to recover here maya taking a second to recover as well as she has just under three minutes left megan smoothly moving through number three again just needs to figure out how to get into this slopey crimp on that volume right before the top all about the body position and foot position here very nice looks like she was trying to do a kneeskin but i don't think she needs to good stick should set her up nicely to get pressed up into that top hold went with the right hand holds it just has to get that left hand on you could see how hard she was fighting to hold that move her eyes were closed her teeth were i mean i think she was close i feel like her teeth were clenched you could see the grit and the fight and that's like what it takes to get into finals here is like that sort of blackout focus so maya madera the only woman on the floor right now taking another look at number four made quite a lot of progress but would really do well with the top here because she's currently in seventh so one spot out but if she does get the top it would knock kyra down out of sixth place where she currently is if you are new to climbing climbing shoes are very small so often times everybody sizes down quite a bit so often times you have to take your shoes off between boulders and sometimes it's good to take it off while you're resting as well they're tight for that like really specific precision you know you're standing on like tiny tiny little edges and holds like the size of a a quarter you know and you really want to have like tight precise shoes come on girl moving nicely a minute is plenty of time definitely get a lot done and she is she's good at pressing so this top section she should if she can be patient she should be able to get through it perfectly on that jib yep so kyra did this move dynamically she kind of jumped out and held the volume in the swing and and maya's releasing her hand early awesome nice nice control of that swing so then we gotta kick the left foot back out to the jib that she just released from and then mantel into the corner she has 23 seconds left she's gotta get that foot out there oh too much swing helicopter unfortunately that is not gonna get her into finals it looks like she's gonna end up being a spot or two out which is pretty devastating but still a good round for her bouldering nationals she qualified very high into semis and then did not have a good round at all so at least she she kept the momentum this was just like minor mistakes but would have been great to see her finally make a final break rabbit is stepping up to number four giving it a good brush since there's so many volumes the top hold should be relatively clean yeah look at this really brush to start a lower one have to be grimy a lot of chalky paws on the start right now brooke has two tops and three zones and she's currently in second place so she's in a really good position if she tops here and move her into first easily in fact she could just i think even with just getting the zone that'll move her into first for now but there are still competitors behind her so at top is what she wants one of the shorter athletes like we were talking about earlier had to dynamically start the start and brett kind of did too she did a little swing to a heel which that was really really cool yeah and i'm surprised she just healed she loves toe hooking yeah and she chose to heal already has that zone she's got like amazing footwork she's a wizard with her feet the heels and the toes and how precise her footwork is and a lot of flexibility and so that allows her to be really creative with her sequences too just effortlessly moving through this holder onto that volume nicely controlling the swing just to kick that left foot out you can see how bad that left hand is from this angle that's cool yeah swing the left toe back to the a lot of precision here having to kind of dead point with the foot to a little jib after all that climbing and this being your fourth boulder nice little toe scum on the zone hold to get into that press a little bit better she also does love mantling so this is a place where she's pretty comfortable and what you'll notice here is that brooke took her hand from the top of the triangle and brought well she just put it back but in order to get up in that press what kyra did was she stayed on the top and that press i think maybe held her back to the right and brooke it looked like her position was better when she brought her hand down to the bottom of the volume and flipped her palm up and fingers down but just not enough reach to get up to that ooh is that interesting yeah that's very interesting chloe cosgo on women's number three trying to figure out how to get past this section looks like that was a really good decision to get her body in the right position to now get up smoothly into that crimp oh kind of just slipped off there we've seen that happen a lot with the women today just kind of sliding off the volumes broken that press looks a little bit better now speaking of sliding off it's a little interesting because it it looks like she wants to bring her right foot up where her hand is but she kind of doesn't have enough room to see if she can figure out how to make that happen another replay of brooke getting her foot out onto that jib really efficiently that time and that toe scum to keep her counterbalanced and pressing up into the volume but just slips off that right hand loses her body position and has enough time to try it again but she i mean it is the fourth boulder so she can kind of do whatever she wants she doesn't yet know that she's in finals and so if she knew that she probably stopped she's in first place or she or something she could yeah she's in first right now hold the plug and then save it for tonight and tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day she's doing all the disciplines but she doesn't know it'll only make her stronger anyway this is a practice this is practice and training for our olympians you know this they don't need to qualify here they already have a buy and this is the only time that they're going to be able to do this style of competing before the olympics um in august she's looking like she's a little tired now and still she's definitely going to try again she's that last one kind of zapped her she had to fight really hard and that slip too must have been pretty uncomfortable she was up there for like three minutes that was still her first go [Music] both chloe back on the she wall her finger i don't know exactly what that was but it looks like she she looks like she's stopping yeah she's she's gonna be done you just spotted chloe so close just another slip [Music] so we had a little bit of misinformation for the men's lead round so they actually are only taking the eighth like originally planned there is a tie for that last spot but we are not taking nine we're just going to take the eight to final so there is your men's final that you will see later today and i hope you join us for that really tight scores from eighth to first you know uh 17 18 90 21 4 moves separate the men from first to eighth i had to count on my fingers i swear i'm good at math it was a very close round for sure yeah no no lower scoring scoring round yeah not like a true show of domination on that route natalia getting ready to approach that zone hold no problem getting into it too much walking this boulder currently it's really important to get that right foot up in order to get into that crimp we've seen a lot of the women struggle there but one hand on the top another one and a piece of cake there so easy it was almost anti-climactic [Applause] so far she has done every boulder in the round and very quickly so we will definitely be seeing her in finals tonight megan lynch trying to figure out exactly what to do here to start it's been pretty exciting to see a few of the athletes figure number four out but it still is very tricky so hopefully she figures it out natalya's score is three tops in three zones with six attempts really nice score it's actually putting her in first place before even doing the fourth boulder so she could actually not do anything except she doesn't know that so i'm sure we'll see her get on the fourth boulder to be in the know to be in the know what it would do interesting too in climbing unlike i guess every other sport there's no active coaching so basketball football whatever your coach is yelling out plays yelling time yelling shoot pass dribble kick whatever and the players always know exactly what's going on because your coach is able to tell you and out here it's you don't know the sequence you don't know the moves you know how much time is left and that's basically literally it you can guess how your competitors have done by well not here because there's no crowd usually the crowd gives you some inclination of what's going on but it's completely silent so no one really knows yeah and you're totally in the dark as an athlete like you don't know what place you're in you don't know what you have to do to send you don't know what you have to do as moves on the boulder in so many other sports like imagine if in climbing your coach could be like heel hook and then throw the left and it it would be such a different game you know like it would not be as relatable right right it would take a lot of the fun out of it it's interesting robotic megan is able to get into that left hand pretty easily but she's struggling trying to figure out what to do to get her left foot over to that stalactite volume we've seen most of the women just kind of kick it out and she keeps trying to do like a backwards heel hook on that left-hand start hold and it's not letting her get all the way over so hopefully she figures out how to get past that back up on women's number four just needs to throw that foot over a little bit better getting closer [Music] one minute left for megan lynch on women's number four she is already in the finals so she doesn't need to get the zone here but she doesn't know that so she's gonna definitely try to figure out how to get up there but it looks like she's i don't know she's gonna keep going it's hard to tell sometimes they look like they're gonna walk off the bat and then the next thing that you know they're in their chocolate again and in her mind she doesn't know she's in finals and so this could be her literal last go effort of the entire event and so it's you want to really leave it all out there yeah exactly about 15 seconds left on the clock see if she can get those feet over and start moving towards the zone not going to be able to make it happen but it's still a stellar round for megan lynch she's currently in third i think that would mean the worst that she could do is fifth i think i think that's right yeah the two women that we have oh actually they don't have chloe's score currently up there so she yeah chloe coskoy on women's number four taking a second to figure out what she needs to do here and brush some of those holds unlike the men the women haven't seen these boulders until they turn around another five minutes begin one of chloe's fun facts that she wrote on her bio was i like doing other sports and uh i often see instagram videos of her skateboarding around the park in salt lake with her dog uh her dog pulls her on her skateboard which is pretty cool it's a workout for both people both the dog and her interesting correlation between skateboarding and climbing uh a lot of our like best male climbers um skate are really good at skateboarding and there's you know the balance and coordination and leg strength and stuff and i don't know if that's been scientifically proven but there's something interesting to say about that so chloe's skateboarding can't hurt yeah it's good cross training my dogs pull me on the skateboard too for sure really they're so smart i need all of them together you have a little herd of chihuahuas to pull you chloe trying to figure out how exactly she wants to start this boulder we've seen most of the women he's successful by putting their left foot out i've seen a lot of women try that and not be successful but she actually did look kind of controlled there yeah it's just i just don't think it's good enough to be able to pull down only on i think you have to oppose it and pull in she's currently in 15th place so think she definitely needs to top that would be kind of a crazy upset it would be a crazy upset second right podium last year u.s team last year second yesterday one of the favorites for the us team exactly but that's what's so interesting about bouldering specifically is there's so many variables you just never know if something's going to suit you if you're going to figure it out quick enough right so anything can happen and everyone's always just training for possibilities right trying to like broaden the their quiver of movement you know be able to pull from several different areas of what you've learned not just get stronger but get smarter get more technical make yourself more well-rounded in order to be ready for anything they throw at you working on your weaknesses is the least fun thing to do but the most important thing campus might have been impressive yeah that would have been amazing minute 35 left for chloe i do think if she can figure out how to get on the start she could be really successful with the rest of the boulder she is struggling a bit here and chloe is another one of the athletes that has moved to salt lake in order to train at the training center she's originally from el cerrito california but tc is just so awesome everyone's flocking to it it's kind of a hen house most days too speaking of flocking a lot of women training at the training center in salt lake it's really cool to see them training together a lot of them live together eating together super super togetherness team bonding they're working they've been working hard all year and it's really cool to see 30 seconds left for chloe cosgoy to hopefully figure out a way to get to that zone oh that actually looks like it could work totally oh couldn't generate though maybe a little bit of an anchor like a ball and chain yeah it pulled her hips down looks like that is not going to happen for chloe coss going on women's number four she looked great at the start of the round just wasn't able to put a few things together getting far on boulders but just not able to top and that's what's so important in this round with the different scoring format aligning with ifsc is tops the most important thing is tops and and in the past with our scoring format with three zones being 5 10 15 it was important to get to 15 across the board but the top wasn't always necessary if you could do 4 15s some people would do like some fives and a 25 and here it's tops are the most important tops are key zones matter but it's tops that's what gets you into finals natalia grossman looking at her last boulder of the round can she make it four for four i think so are we are we betting no i don't know we're not betting i'm just saying i think she could have i think she can do all four boulders in the round i think she's going to make it happen i'm not taking that bet i agree interesting though she's doing it differently oh sticks that moved the way no one else was able to impressive cool split section there nicely into the zone securing her first place going in to the final well it was already secured but it's just like adding more points to it secured into i love it inside don't see that as much in bouldering more of a lead thing yeah that's what we should be doing marking every inside flag we see in the boulders one she has one hand on the finish has to figure out how to get into a press though yeah this is definitely a different method but we saw brookie try this and her heel popped and the press i think is the way i'm i'm sure she could get it done with the heel but i think it seems more awkward and also swinging that foot it's like a scary position to slip out of as well like in terms of your body being in an awkward spot and to jerk it that way mean i'm old so that would scare me i think i'm older than you yeah just by like five months that right hand slip that we saw happen to brooke too would be a really you know it is a precarious like scary position natalya's current score with three tops four zones and that's why she's in first place currently because that is the highest score that we've seen in the round and she's looking for that final top i mean i don't think i've ever talked four boulders to going into a final that would be amazing i know i'm trying to say i mean not in like a national or a world cup i don't know that it's super common usually it's three and there's like one boulder that never gets done or yeah also to have all the boulders done in a round is always what the setters want each boulder at least topped one by someone not necessarily but we could see it done by the same person here natalia taken her time to recover before her final attempt on women's number four it doesn't have to be but it will likely be just with a minute strategically yeah yeah she's definitely being strategic here looks like she's going to get on in about 30 seconds or 40. off by 10. it's a perfect amount of time in case you do end up like slipping off the starter and the finish is kind of tricky so you kind of want to have enough time to not rush that section the split looks like it makes the transition into the zone really a little trickier you can't really i thought it was easier but okay never mind i think initially more chill and then a little awkward yeah kind of puts you in a bad position so she actually only has five seconds left so maybe she should have gotten on a little earlier huh she's surprised what took me 40 seconds to do that unfortunately not four tops for natalya but no need to worry we'll see her in the final later as she is the leader going into finals with three tops and four zones [Music] one and two natalie and brookie so here are our final standings for women bouldering with natalia grossman leading the pack brooke rabatu megan lynch kylie cullen campbell saranopoulos and kyra connie rounding out that top six two olympic qualified athletes in the final which will be here later tonight hope you all join us for that and now we are going to show you the yeti move of the day chloe cosgoi sticking this zone and her left hand coming off and holding that swing is one of the yeti moves of the day here's another slo-mo of it so impressive lots of lap strength there and our next yeti move of the day will be sean bailey on the men's weed route really looking smooth throughout the route and sticking this next cross move that's coming up right now the first person to stick this cross move that was really difficult and he does it with ease oh he's gonna he's actually gonna clip first but into that cross making it the yeti move of the day and natalya grossman with a stellar round coming into the final in first place almost doing every boulder in the round and celebrating with her teammate brooke rabatu and we will see them both in the final later on tonight and thank you so much for joining us i hope you join us later tonight we're so excited to be back and on youtube so that everyone can watch finals will be tonight for the men 3 30 central with six for the women join us then [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] 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 climb 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 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 [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: USA Climbing

Views: 65,266

Rating: 4.9047618 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: PZPV8nNAd6M

Length: 182min 45sec (10965 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/NanoKnob]

Anyone know why they disabled comments on the videos? They were there earlier today

[u/nocturnals4]

ross was a nice surprise but what a beast Nathaniel coleman is