IFSC World Cup Salt Lake City 2021 || Boulder finals

again and already me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] hello and welcome to the finals of the ifsc boulder world cup in salt lake city this is the second of our back-to-back world cup weekends pete woods here with megan martin we had 20 semi-finalists this morning we got down to six in a tough semi-final round megan let's have a look at some of the highlights from our semifinal round and find out how we got from 20 of the best down to six of the best and it was such a difficult semi-final round there we have maximilian milne and his very first semi-final absolutely crushing the boulders as kokoro fuji at the very last minute on this boulder was able to get a top which put him into the final and knocked out manu cornu so that we had yoshiyuki ogata who has been in i mean 35 plus events over here and making that knee bar on boulder one look really really good to get his ticket in there and then zach gala young american climbed really really well in front of the home crowd to qualify in third place and with zach is another teammate of his sean bailey this is his second final in his career his first one was in vail a few years ago and he ended up in second place there so i'm sure he'll be gunning for a podium spot here but really great climbing from sean bailey looking very strong and technically sound today in the semi-final as timon narasaki was in great form today it was nice to see him it's his first bouldering world cup of the season so nice to see him back and it's showing no signs of slowing down that's for sure no there's a man with 19 podiums to his credit at only 24 years of age really really great climbing to see him back we had natalia grossman on the left-hand side topping that first boulder climbing very very well uh following up her performance last weekend um we're uh i'm sure she's looking to climb just as well as she did then and on the right you see yanya ganbre trying to figure out men's women's number three which was a little tricky as sasha gayo seeing her back in the final since not being able to compete in 2019 and only having one shot to make an olympic team at european continentals as brooke brabatu quickly fight or barely figuring out the beta for women's number three and putting her in the final just a really nice piece of climbing right at the end of that time frame as well and then young orian berton from france 16 year old sensation who's uh back in the finals again after a wonderful performance last weekend here in salt lake city uh super super excited young phenom and miho nanaka looking very strong here on the second boulder from the round and just showing you that composure that comes from such a successful career and she is always psyched to be in a final and then i would say the story of the weekend yanya ganbred is back she is back and she is looking to find her way to a podium climb very well in the semis did not top all four bowlers which is very rare so i'm sure she'll be even more informed tonight being even more present and we're excited to see what she brings for us yeah as i'm sure she is excited to come and throw down in the finals for the first time in a little while so a quick look at the crowd here we haven't seen lake city we have a crowd the sun is out and beaming down there i mean there's a there's a lot of people in salt lake city and it brings up the ambiance in the venue an outdoor venue can feel a bit empty but here it feels very very full a quick look at our calendar so we are here on the second of back-to-back weekends we had speed go down on friday and we're into our boulder final quick look at the rest of the schedule across the season we're hoping to get as much of this season in remember the olympics drops in here as well really excited to see a full world cup schedule hoping to see a lot of these athletes out there at all of them and except for obviously some of the olympic qualified athletes we might not see them as much but it'll be great to see so many athletes testing themselves in boulder speed and lead in our first boulder lead world cup in innsbruck that's never happened before so that'll be really exciting that's exciting there are quite a few firsts jumping around this year for sure and we are just about ready to go so finals if you watch the semifinal if you're not super super familiar finals is going to look a lot different than the semifinal finals is all of the athletes as we see maximilian out pumping the crowd up all of the climbers will climb each boulder one after another so they're all gonna be boulder number one but they're all gonna be boulder number two and then three and then four we're gonna watch the men climb first a quick transition and then the women will climb when they're finished the difference here in this round is that they have previewed the boulders so they have gone around as a group uh not that long ago 15 minutes ago they get two minutes to look at each boulder work out their sequencing and now they come back and clap yep exactly and one other difference if you haven't watched the climbing competition before or you didn't join us in the semi-finals is that there's only four minutes to do these boulders and part of that reason is because they get that preview time they don't necessarily need the full five minutes to attack the boulder exactly and they will come out in the as always in the reverse order that they qualified so we'll go from sixth place up to first place it's also interesting to note that the climbers are together so they're after their preview they are not in isolation from each other they don't see each other climb the boulders but they are behind the wall they can hear the crowd you have a little bit of that knowledge of you know how long it took for that climber before the crowd erupted or before they come back behind the wall so they all sit together in isolation they climb the boulders and then they rejoin each other in a secondary isolation so the climber that just finished the boulder doesn't go back to the climbers that haven't climbed it yet but they do join the other climbers that have sent the boulders so you have this sort of slow building knowledge of how the other athletes are doing and often they do know what it takes uh as you come down to the third and fourth boulder if they have the ability to top a boulder yeah and having a crowd makes it easier to kind of try to decide whether or not someone did something out in front of the wall because in the other events this year we haven't had a crowd so it was it wasn't as easy to be like oh did someone get zoned did they double boulder you have no idea but when the crowd erupts with roars of excitement you generally think oh such and such might have talked about something exciting has happened so we have uh four brand new boulders if you're not super familiar they reset new boulder problems on every single round so we've come through a whole round of qualification and this is a good look at the athletes and their time observing the boulders so they're allowed to touch the start holes you'll see them grab it that's useful information that shaves a few seconds off the the time you need to start and think about a boulder you watch some of the mimo they'll talk to each other especially the teammates yeah oftentimes teammates will communicate with with each other and then you will also see athletes from different countries especially if they train together in the past they will maybe try to sequence together as well and it might seem silly to you all at home to actually touch those start holds but when you walk up to the wall and can feel the start hold you can start to get a sense of in what position you want your body before you pull onto the ground and in this sport attempts you don't want to give attempts away especially when establishing on a problem so it's important to kind of have a better idea of what you're going to do before before you actually go out there yeah and it also time is one of the other components that you need to keep in mind when you're climbing into finals you want to make sure you're making the best use of your time so the least amount of time you can spend thinking about the start of a boulder the farther ahead you're going to be when it comes to when it comes time to pull on so here's a look at your start list we're going to go from the top one to six natalia grossman sasha gayo brook rabatu orian berton miho nanaka and janya garnbret it's uh it's every final this is a stacked field and this one is no exception [Music] and for the men first out will be maximilian milne kokoro fuji then yoshiyuki ogata zak gala sean bailey and then tomoa narasaki will come out last on each boulder because he is qualified in that number one spot and again for the men a very stacked field it's really cool to see just the level of climbing continue to get like more and more difficult each time every every year the fields get deeper and deeper and it gets more and more difficult to be consistent in these competitions so it's so cool to see how talented everyone has become and we have some potential for some firsts zach you know has never podiumed in a file and max has never podiumed in a final so we have this a few undercurrent stories running through both sides of the field is that there are some people running through their first major world cup season and they are uh getting a feel for what it's like to step out to your first finals boulder profit and i uh i don't care how many youth competitions you've got megan your first open world cup is an open world cup fun it's a big deal i mean obviously if you can get a world youth world championship title under your belt that's great but there is nothing like being in an open world cup and getting in a final and ending up on a podium right out the gate maximilian showing the power that needs to be there to attack this with this three paddle move i was talking to one of the route setters earlier and he described it as one two three four five throw the foot so maybe not as easy as just one two three we'll see count with us as it comes through max this kind of boulder it tests your coordination it tests your ability to have your brain do a couple things at once and it absolutely steals attempts uh this is something that gets in your head you try boulder you you want to be conservative but on a boulder like this it doesn't take any power so you kind of you tried and you tried and you tried and you tried you need to learn the movement so you need a few attempts but you have to be careful not to let it get in your cycle yeah with the learn movements it takes a different kind of power right that rather than just after like grappling fighting so it's more of a cardio power and you get tired in a different manner but it is a type of movement that you can just repeat more and more and with that attempt maximilian just solved a little bit of the puzzle he still definitely needs to generate a bit more if he's gonna continue to move but he's got the right idea and what is tricky about this start too is to generate off of that right volume one of the starting foot holds it can be slippery so it's kind of a fine line of how much pressure and how much power to put on it before without your foot yeah it's possible to push too hard which seems like it wouldn't be a thing but it is so that's closer closer just have a look on the bottom of your screen you're gonna see this graphic come up the bars represent the four boulder problems uh the bar that's highlighted is the boulder problem we're on so on men's boulder problem number one number of attempts matters so we're counting attempts half a bar shows up when they get to the zone hold and that's this the hole marked in the middle ish of the boulder to be in pink tape and let's say zone and then a full bar when they top the boulder it's important to have a look at those attempts that is what's going to split climbers out top two or three boulders each it's gonna matter how many tries [Applause] just sort of inching towards that would be the zone hold in this case you earn the zone on most boulders and it's uh it's something that it will matter tops are king we want to get tops the person with the most tops and the least number of tribes will win the event if push comes to shove we need to look at zones to see what happens if two people top the same number of boulders in the same number of tries [Music] it did used to be tops and attempts but now it's tops and then two people at the same top we'd go to see how many zones they have and then how many attempts the tops how many attempted zones and that's a quick look at that paddle and what he is doing is so great he just needs to generate a little bit more and you see them swinging each time a little oh a little dry fire there yeah it's funny too because as you're paddling what's interesting about that paddle movement is you can't just paddle you have to like a pull-up and then continue paddling sideways you do have to have a pull-up motion but not too much pull up because you don't want to stop your momentum fully right right you don't want you're not aiming to stop on each one catch a swing [Applause] a strong effort up against a hard boulder i mean the way he came out how powerful and confident he was was totally awesome he just didn't find that right speed and right amount of power that's necessary to continuously propel him to that last panhold so we'll have to see if kokoro can figure that out and i mean that's a good look at 85 overall competitions uh through his career and that's across all disciplines [Applause] seven gold medals this is a climber who knows how to get into finals and then put the work in they often think that you just have doesn't matter if you come into finals in sixth or in first you still have to climb the finals boulder so you punch your ticket in and then you're faced with the same boulders as everybody else and the clock resets essentially at zero it's great having each round start over and you get to fight for your position in each round on his first attempt he kind of looked like he smeared on the wall a little bit too much it kind of slowed down his momentum did it again that time so let's see if he can maybe get more upper body momentum and kind of limit that lower body a bit more he needs more of like a swing with his lower body to keep telling to keep moving through yeah it's almost i mean the swing is the perfect description you want to be able to get that momentum and then just let it slide through you have to be strong enough in your core in a move like this that you're not dangling uh but you have to let it come through enough to spot something you could probably spend an hour talking about the complexity of boulders like this in which you have multiple movements before you really get to put your feet back on the moving in two different planes upwards and sideways this wall has a bit of a kickback so it angles uh less than vertical at the start and then immediately tips back to greater than vertical right where that seam is just above the start hole so it does change the angles of travel one thing that's interesting that kokoro is doing as well is he is placing his right foot kind of in the just above the middle of the volume and then his left foot at the very top when i think he'd be better off kind of just throwing his right foot higher that's what maximilian was doing and it looked like it gave him more generation to the right whereas when koko kokoro does it this way he kind of ends up more vertical as he's hitting the paddle let's see if he changes it but it's kind of keeping him back a little bit he's almost too vertical i wonder if he can adjust that and throw that right foot higher and not do that double step at the bottom i think it's slowing him down yeah i think it feels to him like he's getting more time spent moving in that direction a few more running steps but more power and less tiptoes yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] and world cup climbers in general are used to this kind of problem it'll show up in various forms in various competitions but there's always going to be a subtlety somewhere that means that you can train all you like for this type of movement but as soon as you add in these feet on this angle it's a brand new movement every single time so that the point that megan brought up earlier about needing to learn movement in a short amount of time a day they would send [Music] it but i wish he would adjust his feet a bit so he did manage to slow it down and does he have time i think he does to finish here what was so interesting about that is i kept saying he's landing so vertical right with that little foot placement but this time he kind of instead of trying to continue it he was like you know what i'm not i'm going to stop it because he was slow enough to be able to stop and that made all the difference so nice adjustment there by kokoro fuji see right here he just kind of one two and then just stop not even really try wow actually in the slow-mo it looks like he didn't really stop but when it was in a faster pace he like paused for a long time yes wow that's really really good work and uh and what's what's really great about the climbing he did here at the end specifically is he has such good mobility and hip flexibility to be confident enough to move over quickly and be able to get his foot high enough on that last hole in order to be comfortable to press into the top with just a few seconds to go like so confident in that part of his skill set nice first goal yeah good first go from yoshi yoga and you you will see different if we see more than one climber get up to that finish you will see different choices in the footwork to get established into that uh position in order to hold there are no holds on the final hole you need to be solid in your feet and then press up into it similar to the women's boulder from the semifinal round if you're watching that only saw a couple of tops where you need to get really comfortable if you're going to just press above your head yoshiyuki's footwork on this opening move is well it was the same previous try to kokoro's but that time it was the same as maxwillian's beta single hop it's interesting i just when i was gonna say he did it again he did a different beta the best part about uh climate competitions is that the climbers are wholly unpredictable oh yeah you can get a pretty good idea of what athletes are gonna do and then they'll surprise you from one attempt to another from one climber to the next so there is that there is a process when you are competing and standing in front of a final boulder yes you've talked about it with your teammate uh you've worked out some sequence but when you're standing on the mat it's just you on the boulder and you have to decide if you have a couple of options in front of you you're the one that has to decide do i need to stay with option a and try harder or do i need to try something different so there's always those decisions to be made you can see that now he's back to original foot placement so you have to have really really really confident decision-making abilities to for both to move away and to stick with exactly it's all about weighing your options appropriately and it's easier said than done that's for sure yeah absolutely one thing that would also be helpful that kokoro did as well when he hit that second volume hold he kind of wrapped with his left hand on top and if yoshiyuki can get in a position like that as well it should make it a little easier to continue to that third paddle or the third one that's part of the paddle yeah super close now he's got the feeling yeah he's got he's got close now he's touched his own holy things all right i can get there now a minute and a half on a boulder like this is enough time i think uh for sure we saw kokodo did it with maybe 30 seconds on the clock when he pulled on so lots of time slows down oh the wrap was even better that time so he was kind of wrapping his left hand around that second volume that's a fun climbing term if you are not as familiar with climbing and just think about he's wrapping his hand around it kind of like cupping it in a sense nice sort of pinky towards the wall trying to get around on top there's so many different ways to approach every hold this is oh he didn't bring the left hand in that time he thought he's looking for that foot you see his right foot is thinking that he'll be able to stop his momentum with that stab and now we go to this moment does he go back to foot first or does he try to slow down with both hands on the second of these three a little bit of both ten attempts probably not taking its toll physically but we start to get a bit panicked here [Music] [Applause] but he knows how important he almost gave away an attempt there by not establishing her saying he's so close he's gonna keep going he knows the zone is important this is how you know the zone is so important not able to make it happen but he gave it all he has and that i mean you love to see that out of a competitor trying to the bitter end really great attempts he got close multiple times just not able to fully keep it together that was probably the closest great attempt it's always frustrating when you're you know you're right there just couldn't hold that tension i just needed to make a decision there and i'd as you say i can't remember the last time i saw a climber try a boulder six times in ten seconds that's really fast here's our first look at zach gala from the usa the crowd absolutely excited to see a u.s climber in the finals and lucky for them there's two in the men's finals and two in the women's finals to have we haven't seen that since 2009 yeah it's been a while just a little bit too excited he kind of jumped the gun there on his foot placement had the right momentum but wasn't as um present with the actual placement of his feet and kind of slipped see if he can nice much better on that momentum and zach galla is an extremely strong talented climber here from the usa been in multiple bouldering nationals finals hasn't ever this is his first time really putting it together in a world cup event but he's always been capable so it's nice to see him have that moment click yeah he's been on the tour before he's he's climbed in all disciplines in 2019 he did put a full season in but his best result was maybe it was uh 27th so it it was and that season as well he did get a chance to try to qualify for the olympics and he ended up second at pnm so he just missed out which was definitely devastating for him so i know he's happy to be in this final here tonight and ready to show everybody what he's made of exactly the hometown crowd is something not to be discounted this crowd has been great they've been cheering for everyone yes but they do get a little bit louder when the usa jerseys come out as you say we're going to have a few opportunities with a couple of americans in each round coming up this afternoon so zach learning the move he's he's definitely moving both hands very quickly so a little bit of a contrast from yoshiyugi who is leaving his left hand behind and coming through a little bit slower with that second paddle through zach is going one two one two on each of the first two and he seems to be sticking with it and that was the intended beta i think or way in which one would want to try to do the climb but i think he's not getting high enough on the hold like he's still kind of hanging a little low he needs to be able to engage with his shoulders a bit more that was much better and he got more momentum gonna ask for a brush there which i actually was gonna mention that during yoshiyuki's four minutes he might might have wanted to ask for a brush because i felt like it was getting a little grimy up there yeah it starts to make a difference the the the chalk build up there's a couple things that go in play and you know chalking brushing chalk off holds slows you down a little bit allows you to stop and process the boulder and it takes the chalk off which although some people will tell you great effort uh that it's mental oh i brushed the chalk off and then i sent it you know when you're talking about this kind of margin of error having the hold as clean as you can get it will make a difference most definitely and on that last attempt you saw him nodding at the boulder a little he's like oh i feel it i think we'll see him hopefully get to that film this time and now i think he's got to start thinking about what happens with that right foot yeah it doesn't seem like he's kind of noticed that part of the method yet but see if he can put it together still a little bit too to the left honestly he's not finding that like swinging motion between each hole so much but i mean so much power so much power [Applause] that looks much better again a strong effort and you you you can feel the progression oh yeah and you just you will the climbers just if you can get your right hand moving just a little bit quicker maybe you'll stick this one in this 10 seconds running out of time to get to this zone [Applause] really close but not going to be able to make it happen great effort by zach gala it's just a tough tough learned move there there's uh so many moving parts he definitely has the height here in terms of explosiveness from his legs and on this attempt too like he was in a better shoulder position but his hips are just propelling him out from the wall and he kind of never figured out that throwing that foot would be helpful and yeah his trajectory is just a little off it's a little out instead of more sideways hips closer to the wall but all in all great first effort zach gala 100 next we're going to have sean bailey second of our two american climbers on the men's side of the final shaun has had quite a bit of uh more experience on the lead side of things but in the last couple of seasons has really dialed in his bouldering success yeah he's always been a very talented boulder to folder or two but yes especially on the world cup circuit hadn't put it together so many times but that that silver medal in veil was definitely a great confidence booster for him to i mean he always knew he was capable but there's something about having it all actually come together that really solidifies that you can do this so i think that really helped just make him a little more consistent in general and he makes more semi-finals now than he had prior so it's nice to see him getting into that flow yeah absolutely that confidence comes from lots of different places and you get a lot you can get confidence working with your coaches and working in training at home but when you manage to put it together when it matters in competition it's one of the the the things about climbing competitions versus climbing in a session in your home gym is just watch sean's next attempt here a little closer to that middle hold competitions have the element of you must do it now so we alluded to earlier that given an entire day all of these climbers would work this boulder out in a session and be successful on it but you need to be able to stand in front of a boulder and put everything else out of your mind and say that today right now in these four minutes i'm gonna be the best version of myself that's uh it's a taller it's a tall order and [Applause] [Music] [Applause] like a little dip in the momentum that kind of propelled him up a bit more to get to the zone with the one hand and put him in a better position to actually secure it maybe on an attempt or two we'll see what happens but definitely found that nice momentum it's like a nice level of it yeah because it's possible to go too fast it can be really difficult to slow yourself back down again so it's the balance of momentum is uh it's after you've gone too far and then you've come too short you get into the it of slipped there definitely plenty of time left for him to get back to that position he was in that previous try it's also i feel like that's so common too right after you have a try that was so good and you're like oh i finally felt it to have a little slip because you're honestly overexcited to get back to that position and i feel like that's kind of what just happened there i just want to repeat it as quickly as possible just a little out on that second one it was almost like he held the first hold a little too long again even though it is a learned movement it's one of those little movements that's a little more difficult to kind of remember wonderful completely stopping just so he held his butt out to create a little stall in the momentum that was ingenious [Applause] that is fantastic top that is going to be really really important uh right off the bat sean bailey wakes this crowd up with a top of boulder one in the last 30 seconds so watch here in the middle of the three holds and the right leg just kind of pops it out and then uses the left leg on the wall to kind of hold him in as well real really nice adaptation there and it's not over here you do have to be careful yeah don't rush it don't rush the finish trust how flexible your hips are as well that's a really really good time from sean bailey so that leaves us with tamo and narasaki out for our first look in the finals from the perennial podium athlete from japan 24 years old boulder competitions over his career uh and an incredible success rate 19 times on the podium it's i don't know i mean it's just so incredible that you can even say those words but i mean when you watch them climb you you you know when it comes to these kind of movements too i feel like he does some surprising things every now and then in terms of really kind of breaking the beta or the intended sequence that the root setters actually have and he's just so powerful he can make it happen so it's cool to see when he does that kind of stuff but it looks like he's gonna fall back and maybe use that middle hole i almost wonder if he was just measuring it yeah just to see just to see where it was and how much momentum he could get off the first paddle because as soon as he looked on the ground he did the one two three four he did mime it with his hands so it's uh without asking you we're guessing at what's in his head but when you're this successful you're making adjustments and you are you are you know this is unlikely to be a flash boulder especially by five other climbers you know you've got a couple of attempts to burn so why not just find out how much power you can generate off the start of it and then dial back from there and he's also noticed that every other man has taken the full four minutes to be out in front of the crowd before they come back into isolation so through some good critical thinking he pretty much knows this boulder hasn't been flashed so why not throw something a little different on your first attempt just to see a little too it almost looked like a little too fast there like kind of too high again there's that little swing motion that you kind of want to get that we've seen both kokoro and sean bailey find nicely and i mean yoshiyuki was so close to finding that perfect move a couple of attempts away from from putting that one down maybe just like one more minute yes give me one more [Applause] [Music] kind of trying to slow it down and it does seem like slowing it down in that middle section is ideal if you can if you can and that's where that a little bit of that extra hand strength the ability to these holes we call them open-handed holes so you there's nothing to to wrap your fingers around and grab it it's it's like grabbing a sloping edge and you need to be able to hold that hand shape and not everybody can slow down dynamic momentum uh on holds like this but when you can you need to be able to apply it uh this would be the time for tomo narasaki to take his oh kind of just slipped on that he was trying to re-grip and he just kind of slipped for a second a minute in a bit time to spy fairly quickly trying to stop on the first one and at this point now too he's getting down to a minute and through some reasonable deduction he knows that the boulder has been done probably from the crowd and he didn't want to get down to him so he's getting a little more frantic at this point yeah he hasn't been taking as much time in between and when you top as many boulders as he tops through rounds uh you you can get into a little bit of an expectation trap something to be wary of is don't expect to do all the boulders that was as close as he's been still just a little too fast and he's not really even trying to swing the foot right now either at the end of that so let's see if he makes a good adjustment there almost definitely a little frustrated at this point as he's trying to stall on that second volume hold oh very close it doesn't look like he's gonna have enough time to move on to the next one and try to forget about that boulder yeah you need to take your confidence into the next three boulders so this would be a frustration for him but uh you gotta expect that there will be boulders in the final round that you're not gonna top and you just because you topped one doesn't mean you're gonna top two three and four and that's just the nature of the game and his experience will tell him that of course a couple you've heard the crowd a couple of the climbers probably topped it but uh that doesn't mean they're gonna top the rest in the round so as it stands right now uh sean bailey ahead of kokoro fuji based on attempts to the top so seven versus nine and then three four five and six are gonna walk away without a zone so it stays fairly even at that point with uh the lack of zone connection then that this is the kind of boulder where once you've got the zone you're likely going to finish it unless you run out of time or unless something until really silly happens a little slip maybe not being present enough but definitely a boulder where it's just that first section that is the crux or most difficult part of the boulder maximilian milne is going to start brushing the holes on his second boulder now this one far more technical we went really fast on the first boulder for the men's now we're gonna kind of slow it down into more of a technical footwork intensive boulder with the oh and the cross here is quite difficult that hold specifically has the tiniest bit of friction on it now that tow hook is a nice way to get into it but kind of tricky to get out of holding that tension without barn dooring possible it's worth noting you can see the top of the red hole reflecting the light of day that's dual textured holes we call that so that is shiny shiny shiny on top the texture is underneath and what that does is it protects the hole from being used as a good foothold later in the boulder and it makes it a little bit difficult in this instance your fingers are you know forced into this crimp that they've put on the underside so you you can force your choices as much it's through the start nicely done that's really much better that tow hook release is holding that tension nicely now this is where the boulder will start to pick up a big jump into a screw-on hold on a volume with another screw-on on top and then blocked by another hole so you have to be precise have to have a lot of power in the legs and then hold on to a small small crimp hold that swing it's it's asking a lot there's a lot going on it is you're right it is asking a lot that's a foothold for later in or actually we're going to have to i'm going to need a they might further apart look from that yeah they might need that um to sort of to think about set before the jump set up for the jump maximilian taking a quick breather also choosing to take off his chalk bank which so you'll see athletes take their track bags on and off sometimes when there's a jump athletes will take their chalk bags off but just because there's a jump doesn't mean they will because maybe sometimes they need it later on in the boulder i've always noticed that the women tend to climb with the chalk bag more often than the men like men do as well but you'll see more of the women keep that track bag on [Music] the accuracy required is going to be the difference maker here quick look at that zone hold the brushes there are brushes out there that can assist the athletes in brushing and the athletes are also allowed to brush with the designated brush and brushes sorry on the mask they cannot use their own brushes their own personal brushes but the designated brushes on the mats if they want to they can rush also maximilian's right hand heavily taped up here we're gonna get a good look at the hole that they're trying to go to so this is what we're aiming for is uh about about half the width of your fingertip close on that one very close but the accuracy is getting in between in the slot between the what we call that a guarded hold where the root setters have forced the climbers to be accurate by having them get in that space between the crimp you're aiming for and that top hold is interesting too because it is shiny like a lot of those dual textured holes except it has only the shiny texture so it's a single textured hole and it's only slippery only bad yeah so that's a fun little uh gift at the end of the boulder for the so tophold closer a lot closer also throwing the thumb underneath is really smart as you see the people in the crowd noticing as well a great way to add some opposition once you do stick that hold you know she's saying to her neighbor i would have just thrown my thumb under there get me up on this finals boulder oh man so a strong effort from maximilian that boulder is going to turn away of a few of these finalists no doubt they got they got men with uh coordination punch in the face and now they're getting what you're called accurate dynamic punch in the nose one-handed test your fingers strengthen your shoulder strength and your like one arm ability the root setters will see across these four boulders and then you want to go backwards through the semi-final and through the qualifiers the root letters are aiming to test climbers and ask a lot of them over the entirety of a competition weekend so they're putting boulders in front of them and saying are you capable of doing this do you want to do this are you capable of doing this and do you want this bad enough so sometimes um it's the question of kokoro fuji choosing not to do that tow hook which actually to me looked a lot better because i mean he didn't have to worry about that he just kind of fell into the position so close great first attempt for him should be able to find that body position well he has great contact strength great body control one arm power so all those things i mean you're immediately you need to do this boulder so having that first attempt look like that is a very good sign for him now this is one of those boulders where you could jump too far and if you generate too much momentum and you can't control the swing that pendulum effect as you grab this a great look at this hole as you grab that hold as your body your lower body starts to swing away it gets harder and harder and harder that's uh that's how small they're looking at binoculars are required but that pendulum out becomes part of the intricacy of sticking all of it so you have to jump with just enough energy to get there and not so much that you uh you swing around like a helicopter helicopter in the breeze and i also wonder if you can like bring his left hand it looks like he's more so trying to just catch the one hand it would be hard on that volume but you never know you never know sometimes people it's so crazy in competitions especially with all the adrenaline the way people save movements at times it's incredible so it's hard to say if it wouldn't work because we yeah you could absolutely see it at the as a last second stabilization catch making the difference you're talking about very very very finite differences between falling off and staying on sometimes all it takes is a palm against the wall exactly we've seen that so many times so i know i wonder if that could be the way i just really like the way he's starting this border though it looks so much better than that tow hook method just because it's such a hard it's also worth pointing out and this is just i mean root setters know where they're looking you can see there as he's brushing it it's a triangle he's not jumping off of a flat surface he's jumping off of the wrong side of the triangle the triangle is essentially upside down to how you and i in the climbing gym would prefer to step on a triangle so the point is at the top which means you're trying to generate momentum off of a more sideways facing hole than you would rather it just adds to the complexity if it wasn't hard enough they've just made the foot really awkward yeah the orientation of that volume is not in the most efficient way almost brought that left hand in too it's almost like it's going to be a balance counterbalance there just having your hand up there with you just getting so close each time [Music] [Applause] so he's going to be the closest when he extends out tried to go two hands not a bad idea he smiled there i mean i guess that's the smile of wow this boulder really is hard i'm trying as hard as i can what do you want me to do more than this [Music] [Applause] probably talking about how difficult this boulder is yeah he was so close that swing too there's not really a great place for your foot to go that's when you can maybe try to throw your toe into that tiny little foothold that can only fit the toe of your shoe exactly you see as he was catching that it's not just straight out from the wall it's a rotation because you're going from slightly left to slightly right you need to control that angle in your shoulder as well so the shoulder stability and strength uh is unquestioned in these climbers and yet we're still able to test it on a boulder like this good save there very good i slipped there at the beginning kind of a little over excited to start moving through the boulder wouldn't you be wouldn't you be excited to start this folder this one i might be a little worried about but also choosing a much different method than we've seen so be far if it works but he's just definitely trying to make it work at this point i've seen most of the men calm down on that volume to then go again with their left hand to the zone hold but he chose to step through on it with his foot to the volume first kind of putting him in a trapped position yeah that's one of those things you assume that they talked about it and when he pulled on it must have just made sense for him to give that a try once yeah and here he is a little close up on that volume again not a lot of places to stand comfortably on it kind of it's on a strange angle and just becoming more and more slippery also the fact that you have to palm it first so placing chalk on the volume and then come back later and jump off of it with your foot in helping the situation oh devious little trick at the start of this boulder pretty good touching the holds so let's see if we can just reel it in get a little bit higher activate the shoulders you see on the bottom corner of your screen there nothing on boulder number one and then the zone half bar here on boulder number three two having trouble getting back to that position another look at the crowd definitely sunny here today in salt lake city yes what's interesting too here is that foot he's standing on is not great and it's kind of hard like he's fallen a few times getting to that stone because his foot is popped off [Music] he i feel like he's close yeah he went over it that time he was uh he didn't get in between the the two crimps that are put together there but did try and wrap the whole thing dual textured of course on top as the story of the weekend has been how good is your footwork can you manage to do a texture half two-handed and yes getting closer a minute a bit getting down into two tries maybe three i feel like he can do this bottom section pretty quickly so as long as he can move efficiently he should be able to have a few more tries on this oh so much every time he's closer and closer and i think he can definitely fit those two hands on that hold even if he doesn't end up grabbing with the left hand fully he should be able to get like a portion of the left side of the hole with his left hand enough to hold him in i mean these the fingers the finger strength these men have insane so he doesn't necessarily need to have full purchase on that hold with both hands just sort of just let me touch it long enough to figure out how to close my hand on it that's i think as close as he's gonna get the best attempt kind of a look at the fingertips why did you let me down or maybe how much skin have i got left and you know knowing what the next two boulders are you might have to save your skin another quick look at the explosive power from yoshiyuki but just not enough purchase on that hole that blocked on top really making it difficult to jump off to not slip off of that it's a lot harder than you think so the voters testing the men here as we would expect don't come into a finals round it's important not to expect uh the boulders to be set with the intention that the best camera will top all four or that all boulders expect to be topped that you can have a boulder that no one tops and the root centers will be absolutely fine with that so the the boulders are here as a unit of four to test the finalists remember that oh nice nice toe hook there by zac ellis that was a smart way to get up into that red hole which honestly isn't going to help him explode so much but it was a good thing to try and nice nice more secure body position moving around on the volume he does i think he's better off exploding from both hands on the volume versus kind of halfway standing up on that red hold but still a nice nice use of his footwork to make sure i mean especially on your first attempt you're trying to stay as secure as possible because you don't want to give away attempts no so it's good to find those kind of things early on even if it's not something he uses later it's a smart tactic in terms of being efficient [Music] [Music] see if he goes with that other method yep gonna try to explode from here [Music] yeah you have that feeling when you and when they preview the boulder he would be thinking when i get to boulder number two i'm gonna get to use some of that pop um that's as close as everybody that we've seen get around on close enough to this hole to make it look like they might stick it he was definitely in the right area just needs to figure out how he's going to control that swing a little slip look at that they always look down at the foothold like they've been disrespected you look down there what if really i just stood on you 30 seconds ago i stood on you and you you were fine and now you're going to do me wrong and that's it's universal comments look at their fingers they look at the hole sometimes you look at the brush there's there's lots of uh there's lots of blame to go around when they go back and sit down they obviously know that uh it's not the whole's fault but it's uh it's a mental step wow [Applause] is not treating me very well zach getting some support from the crowd you'd never guess it but he did have labrum surgery not too long ago so the fact that he's able to get [Music] exactly but it's crazy to think that you would have had any type of corrective surgery this year and be standing in mainly because i'm thinking back to team trials where i remember boulder in the final and thinking like oh that would have been so scary for zach's shoulder oh so close holding it for just a couple seconds but not long enough just gonna get one more one more try here 15 seconds you can hear the crowd picking up in the background zach gala just rushing it and slipping really great effort from zach galas so close to sticking that hole definitely the closest we've seen so far that is one heck of a difficult boulder you see he gets it perfectly throws that thumb underneath the volume as to create some opposition trying to hold that swing in but just not gonna be enough [Applause] [Applause] last weekend's winner alemandra um posted uh just yesterday that he made a last-minute decision to uh step out of this competition he had felt a little bit of a tweak in his shoulder and and focused on uh olympic performance made the i assure you difficult decision to not compete in boulder this weekend yeah he's got a bigger picture to look at he said that in his interview last weekend if he joined us for that competition last weekend in salt lake city so i would say it's a smart decision for adam and we wish him a speedy recovery and hope to see him back out here soon i'm dancing from the crowd everyone's getting psyched to see some boulders go down sean bailey on his first attempt kind of slipping a little early needs to just get a feel for these opening moves he is a very technical climber so has great footwork so we should be able to figure it out looks like he's in a much better position on this attempt and actually what's funny is i was thinking back to the veil world cup where he did in 2018 where he ended up silver and there was a move like this but one hand catch can move and he is actually so good at this kind of movement he can he can hang from almost anything uh so it'll mostly be about generating here for sean uh because he is you know figures of steel yeah if he gets his mitts on it it's unlikely that he's going to let go all of the climbers in the final are going to get the zone here so that's essentially epidemic at this point it's gonna come down to the first sean do it can you be the first to stick this nasty little print move taking a good amount of rest in between attempts which is really smart especially though there is because there's a breeze it's nice but it is getting a little warmer so just to even keep the skin nice and dry as you're kind of oh that was it he's getting so close hopefully his skin is okay i mean these climbers have this is their third round of climbing over the last two days and for some of them they did speed on friday as well so skin does become a factor and as you can see the crowd there is a lot of sun luckily the climbing wall has a nice pavilion above it which creates some shade and a little bit of a breeze but it's definitely not not as cool as it was last weekend in salt lake it would be we were shivering it was chilly when that when you were in the shade and the climbers liked it because the heat does generate just a little bit extra sweat a little bit extra moisture it gets harder and harder and harder to hang on skin is a factor you are not allowed to bleed on boulders in a round so if you are actively the clock doesn't stop for you you have to stop the bleeding yourself before and you need to get checked by the judge before they allow you back on so you'll see for some maximilian there was a good shot as he wrapped the start of this boulder he had to tape on two fingertips probably bleeding and that makes it hard to understand where the friction points are especially on moves like this so skin blood tape all of these things just layer on top of three rounds of climbing heat pressure stress difficulty we put competition climbers through the ringer over the weekend so true so so true and they still come up swinging they do they come back for the next one sean after that couple of good attempts struggling really to get back into the starting position oh and i don't know my scoring it looks like they gave him he got it early that's even an interesting thing to talk about in general because the placement of the zone can really change things right there are so many times where people get through a hard section and maybe the zone is later but they can't get to the zone or the zone's so low and they get the same score as people who didn't even get close to the next section of the boulder so maybe it was almost too low in situations i do think it's appropriately placed here but it's funny that we're so focused on that next on the next move yeah i kind of forgot where the zone was the zone is almost academic on this boulder but still you could slip on the start and most of the men aren't actually getting there on their first try i mean but the other men it took them a couple tries most of them interesting still was in a really good position but yeah the way he got there maybe not the most ideal but again tomorrow has done so many so many different things in competitions where you would have thought ah that that could not be the way it just makes it happen so it's really hard to tell because with the climber of his caliber and his skill set in general he can do a lot of things that doesn't seem possible for our supervisors quick look there on the bottom of your screen sean bailey with the top in his own fuji over the top of his own and then uh six all with just half bars indicating zones he's not really wanting to come down he wants to go from this position oh that is smart that palm press trying to press with his palm on the slippery part of that hold but in that position any kind of opposition would be helpful so really a good good sequencing there yeah an interesting approach from tomoa and it's always important to remember when you when you're watching the different climbers approach the same movement is that they all have a base level of the same amount of finger strength and core strength and exclusivity but they all have something that they know they're a little bit better at and they will create movement that will mean sort of force a boulder closer to their style so they'll take advantage of the things they know they do really really well you're getting a little bit of that from tomorrow again we've seen so many of the men slip there that that foothold is kind of grimy it's a little it's just me it's gross the angle is not great you're having well actually he's not touching it as much as some of the other men were but um still pausing on it for a second and you're adding chalk to it each time it's not like you can brush it at all the movements are far too difficult for that so [Music] let's see if we can put it into effect here oh looks so much better but in reality almost like it's pulling him to the right a little too much even if he does stick the palm his momentum is moving so quickly to the right it might not be enough opposition in order to hold that swing that time he flipped his hand too to make it a little bit of a different position there on the red hole but again it still didn't look like it was going to be the best way to do it those six tries he never took one where he dropped both hands down with a large triangle he elected to stay in that red and i wonder if now it's in his head a little bit uh he knows that and they will have maybe talked about it sean bale is still on top here the top of two zones in coconut fuji with the top of two zones now you have to attack maximum and yoshiyuki with one zone each so eating separately it's getting interesting there is really good here on those between those first two and now we're getting to a spot where the bottom four are very very similar it's about to get spicy but the thing with two boulders to go you could flip this whole table oh yeah there's definitely time and again since the man had a preview they know what's coming up next maybe they went through the preview and thought ah those first two boulders they are not my style and hopefully i do okay on them but i'm excited for the last two that's the benefit of getting to preview and then unfortunately the worst case scenario is i can't wait for the first two boulders they're totally my style i did not do them right and now i have two boulders left that are a walking nightmare so that is something that you need to manage just having a quick look the root centers are preparing for the women's final by taking off a couple of the holds from the men's boulders we've already done uh there's no concern they're not fixing a mistake over there that was just them getting prepared for the what needs to be a very quick changeover between the men's final in the women's final round which uh you know if you just join us you're uh you're tuned into the final here in salt lake city of the second of our back-to-back world cup weekends we are on boulder number three on the men's field just about to get started following that we will move right into the women's finals so a very short break between the men and the women finals will run essentially quick look at the start of men's number three we went from a pretty dynamic boulder now this is going to be probably the most technical holder in the round very slow moving lots of footwork pressing small holds bad feet we saw some of the root setters trying to work through that middle section to get to the zone earlier and it looked very difficult lots of opportunities to kind of fall out from the wall and just trying to find the balance points that are necessary on this boulder are gonna be difficult and then this finish hold it's only good on the far left side it's blocked completely on that first half so you're really gonna have to get far to the left in order to make it happen so it's kind of a really tricky finish as well so i'm excited to see how the men deal with what's before them here yeah the technical boulders everybody has a favorite style some climbers are really really good on slab less than vertical climbing some climbers are very very good on steep powerful squeezy grabby compression type boulders but you have to be proficient across all styles to be this successful so all they might not like it but they will all put something down worthy of a funnel's performance they might be hating it the whole way but technical climbing is slow careful it steals time uh you get on your feet so this is going to be an interesting boulder as you say i'm very interested as well to see what happens it's almost impossible to tell where people are going to break down and come off because there's so many places where it looks insecure a very insecure boulder and a man looking at maximilian's hands so taped up makes me feel for him on both hands luckily this move is mostly your thumbs and that's working in his favor shallow pocket really nice hip flexibility that he has though so this section could be maybe less difficult but when it comes to this kind of an angle flexibility will always serve you well kind of misreading that trying to go straight to the zone but you're gonna have to put your foot onto that screw on which he was trying to do at first and then kind of bailed thinking oh maybe i can just reach the zone but ah alas not the way sometimes you will see climbers reach early for the zone and not really intending it to be the sequence to continue moving up the boulder but they want to get recorded as that zone ticked off in the least number of trials possible so you will occasionally see congress it doesn't happen all the time but watch out for somebody making a move that you think is way out of sequence but in an effort to secure that zone at once to their scorecard yeah if you find yourself in a kind of trap position there's i mean you might as well try to keep going up really having a hard time kind of standing on that foothold it's it's a it's kind of a greasy foothold it has that blue jib uh which is screwed onto it to give you something to think about purchase on if you saw the maximum there was trying to stand on top of it which becomes essentially a smear just as he was applying pressure i was gonna say i wonder if his shoes are a little too soft for this and it's smart he brought out another pair of shoes if you join us last week and i talked about how it's always smart to have multiple styles of shoes because some boulders require you to have a stiffer shoe or a softer shoe and we've seen some athletes like adam andra come out with one of each one of each shoe depending on the style and maximilian made a great decision to make sure he brought a stiffer shoe out to hopefully help him get through this beginning section of the boulder when they ask when they ask so much of you yes like the highest level of every style of climbing it's kind of hard for one shoe to actually be the thing that can get you through everything you know i don't know if there is one perfect shoe out there for the things they throw at you in these boulder problems it's not like being outside where it's like you're trying something you know exactly what you need to do each time as you're working it you have four minutes here so yeah you have to be very prepared you got to be prepared to have whatever you need to do with you you can't run back behind the wall there's no phone a friend in the bouldering final you're alone on the mat here and just having that option even if it just is a mental difference i'm glad i changed my shoe i'm gonna feel better about standing on this terrible yellow foothold such a precarious um position to be in it's funny that you said not running behind the wall i actually i mean i actually don't know what would happen if someone was like i left my shoe back there can we send someone else to get a shot i've never seen that happen i'm gonna find that out in between men's and women's finals i wonder if that's something that's kosher or not because mostly people bring their stuff out but has it ever happened when someone tried to run back there in desperation actually the body language here is uh definitely one of frustration definitely a bit bummed you can tell yeah really delicate movement there you're gonna have to trust your feet so much in order and you see he brought his nice yeti bag that was a gift to each athlete as they came to the competition yeti is one of the sponsors of usa climbing so as the host federation they gifted everyone with these yeti bags they're nice to keep all of the stuff they need out in the front of the wall [Applause] it's always nice to not have things everywhere last time you want us to have shoes flying track banks playing keep keep it all nice and organized exactly same maximilian looking like this is not how we wanted his first world cup final to go interestingly he's not out of it yet definitely not out of it it's just a tough round all around uh very different from the semifinals round it's a little more technical the coordination's a little bit more difficult so they just ratcheted up the difficulty just a little bit when you have multiple people top all four boulders though in semis i think it makes sense that the finals holders get a little harder they kind of have only themselves to blame for the finals boulders to get they're just too strong yeah they're just too strong using that bit of height he has to try to move in to that zone and able to move his established position so using the hold and having control of the hold thus getting the zone there even though he didn't continue upward he still definitely had control of it so the judges gave him that zone hold good something that will uh it won't be the first time that it comes up across the rest of our broadcast is the the whether or not you get points for the zonal the finish hold is fairly obvious we've only had one appeal if you watch the semifinal round sean mccall was lost in appeal or i guess another federation won an appeal for a top that they didn't think that he had earned with control but zones you'll see are a little bit grayer you can't just reach up and put a pinky finger on the bottom of the zone anymore you have to actually use the hold you have to do something that looks like you're using it you can't just wave at it and carry on it's something that will be potentially a point of contention just a really great example of how awful yeah the footwork is here and these are these gentlemen are not sloppy definitely not they have very good footwork and that just means that it is so difficult maybe they need to brush that foot a bit more as well that i mean again right before this round started we saw the root centers on there as well and it did not look easy it looked very difficult but when you're studying for the best in the world they need to get tested and fuji see if he's able to make the adjustment necessary a good look at the coaches they film every boulder both for training purposes and also if they need to look back at something and decide if they want to appeal a decision but the amount of data they collect in order to optimize their training is just it's it's a ton of information that comes back really great to have that technology there's nothing like an instant replay of what you were doing and how you could do things more efficiently or better with things you did great kokoro finding that balance point oh just losing at the last second so that's kind of the disadvantage to going to the zone first is not having that right foot up the idea is to get the right foot up and then press up between those two volumes and then go to the zone but since he's able to get to the zone first now he's having to try to bring his foot up later which is also proving to be difficult this is another one of those things where the setters they see this right they see oh if you can't reach that cool but you might not be able to keep moving if you do that so maybe if you do the intended sequence you'll have a better chance of talking yeah you would have been able to generate opposition on the volumes easier to get the foot up there than trying to use you look at this zone hold it it's a vertical hold so you're pushing into we call it a gas zone so you're pushing away to create opposition against the left side of your body but it's not intended to pull down like here you need to be able to pull down to get your foot up a really insecure boulder climbers are used to being faced with insecurity and risk some of the tools in the route setters tool bag is to make the finalists feel like they're going to be falling off every single hold this boulder is a wonderful example of slow steady and still insecure one of those boulders where you just feel like you're falling the entire time nice confidence here by yoshiyuki really intentional with every movement and looking quite comfortable on that foothold that we've seen so many of the men struggle with but again trying to go first to the zone making a movement into the volume we'll see if that does anything for his score so that zone pops them up into the top of the leaderboard ahead of a few climbers still to come of course but uh those tops from kokoro and sean boulder number one are really helpful at the top of the leaderboard right now i remember the zone from the third on down doesn't look like they gave him the zone for that we're looking at there's two different scores so we have another avenue to the score and see if the one on your screen here on the bottom left the if you just look at that third column that half bar and the column that's highlighted on yoshiyuki's name his last name is ogata so look right there on your screen and the highlighted one is signifying the boulder that he's currently on and right now because it's still blank it looks like they didn't give him which is interesting because he did move his other hand out of it but you know it's always up to the judge's discretion um i mean i thought he was on it long enough he crimped it and moved his hand and crimped it again i thought he changed his feet so yeah he's a judge somewhere making a decision about it there's also perhaps i mean you don't know maybe there's an appeal happening we don't know still trying to go straight up into it versus trying to move the foot up first but still plenty of time to get through this really taking advantage of those brushers there and staring again and their force now still we're really asking a lot of the right hand fingertips crimping down on the top of that zone hold i am curious to see somebody solve it the way it's intended uh rather than reaching as high as they can and then trying to use the zone earlier than intended really nice great coordination move there that probably isn't the intended beta but really fun to watch from yoshiyuki it looks like he's going to try to bring that foot up instead see if that beta will work a bit better just trying to find that right balance position he's in a better position on the zone now doesn't really stop moving now he's actually in a great position to get his foot up kind of finding it now he'll just need to oh my goodness it's such a terrible foothold oh at a terrible angle in order for him to you want to be able to bend your shin in between your knee and your ankle to make it that feel like it's going to be a good foothold especially because the hole that he's trying to put his foot on is so flat it's hard to get any purchase on it for his foot to kind of pull and then rock over on it because it's so easy to slip off something that flat i say great save so much strength from yoshiyuki looks like he's gonna go right hand i think he doesn't know that they didn't give him the zone up to this point because he didn't make another attempt to go and grab it and make a movement so i think if he thinks that he did enough and it will be interesting to see if that zone pops up later or if he asked the judges at all but yeah currently he's got a blank box this is a really good look at how difficult the angles are on the start of this boulder just forcing that different kind of strength in which you need to be able to hold onto a static body position which is can be just as taxing as needing to generate lots of power the way we saw on boulder one or spring and lock down a and right zach just started to pull on the start holds and they they let him down immediately he didn't actually pull up though so he he put the one foot up but not all four points had left the ground yet so before he could do that he was quickly deciding to make sure that he had enough chuck had brushed everything enough because he was already sweating off from the start [Applause] in a much better position now to establish on the boulder gonna have to work his way through this crazy foot section see how he's dropped his heel so well great ankle flexibility just needs to kind of get over it yoshiyuki did a cool little coordination move and zach's going to actually kind of wrap on the volume with his left hand that's going to suck him into the wall nicely but kind of make it a little out of reach to get to the other volume just because he's pulling in with his left hand so he's shortening his whole arm yeah it feels it's one of those it's one of those moves it feels comfortable to be in but is difficult to leave exactly so he's left his center of mass and it's it's worth watching where that center of mass is how they're moving around it it is a lot of the ability to control movement is do you have a swing have you climbed a little bit further ahead so that when your trailing foot lets go are you going to come around the corner so there's in this position here there's a lot of subtlety in coming across from the start and exactly the wrap looked great but it looked like he was uncomfortable to leave it and move it that kind of puts him in a stuck position just constantly looking at his fingers and trying to wave his arms to get as much wind into his hands so that he can stay dry and you know one thing that i've noticed a lot of the athletes doing these days too is bringing fans into iso so they'll have a fan back there in order to stay cool before they come out and you know he should be used to the heat though he is from georgia where it's a southern state it's pretty hot it's pretty hot down there but it's always different in a competition anyway like there could be just any bit of extra heat when you're on holds like this it's just so difficult and if you if you've ever had a session at the gym where you spent just a little bit too long and you can feel your heartbeat in your fingertips turn that up to about a thousand and that's what these finalists are feeling this afternoon so a minute left really good correction there he was committing to it for a second he was in a nice position to kind of rock over going back to that rap method see if he can make this happen here oh interesting i hope not i hope that has nothing to do with his shoulder but i mean he's holding his forearm but you know things are all connected so i don't know if i wonder if he's cramping too yeah hopefully not a tweak and more a bit more of a question of dehydration or something muscle cramp i don't know who don't know actually yeah we're hoping it's not a tweet nothing serious yeah anything other than a tweet so 15 seconds left this is now gonna be zak versus the zone he needs to go and get this zone he's not gonna have time to get a top i'm not sure that he's gonna get around this corner [Music] looks like he's gonna oh he's in a better position but he's gonna run out of time that is uh an intricate what may have appeared to be a relatively simple movement upon first glance or you looking at home saying okay so uh yeah i get it they just lean back and they match that yellow hold and then they sit on the volume and off you go but the complexity of angles so you remember to take into account the angle of the wall and then the angle of the holds and then how terrible the footholds are and now we're on the third folder so layer in the two boulders that came before this one in the the time of fatigue they have about 20 minutes to rest between each boulder in this format however there is a cumulative effect over yesterday's qualification round this morning semi-final and now here we are so the fatigue factor definitely weighs in sometimes it just gets the better of you sean bailey collecting to go matched on the yellow hole that looked good really trusting his feet there sean has great footwork and i mean kind of a difference there between him and zach on this really is just trusting the foot zach was having a hard time getting around the corner because he wasn't trusting the rock over on his foot but sean immediately put all of his body weight on his right foot because he's able to trust it also doing the right beta here yes and so good on you a little bit this is huge from shaw bailey the crowd is definitely getting amps attempt is really big for him and he was nicely in to the proper beta so he should be able to get that done again and he honestly didn't struggle with it at all he just really stood on his feet was confident in each foot placement and kept the momentum going just kind of fell out of this a little bit just as he started to generate reset a little bit of that left foot position and that's when we started to look really good and then we'll just see what happens here on the slip and i think you're right he just started to tip away and there's not enough in it with the right hand to hold him in but megan and i both just sat forward as sean got his right toe established that is the right way to get through this sequence to get you high enough up to be able to use the zone and we both just land forward to the screen a great look at this foothold it's tiny it sticks out enough it's probably the best foothold they're going to get on this clock this time i also think it it was the minute he left his left hand taking it out of that kind of gaston press and trying flipping it took the opposition away we'll see if he just fights down on their right hand this time i think that's what he's gonna oh he's gonna flip again he bit down a little bit more on that right hand putting him in a better position he's gonna try to just go right foot rocco this is what they wanted really really really good read of the sequence on this boulder and very nearly executed on that try still plenty of time too and taking his time which is really smart on this one especially given the heat and needing to have your skin stay as dry as possible as to not slip in this beginning session i mean he's looking at his fingers every two to five seconds as a lot of the athletes do willing the blood to stay behind the last layer of skin trying to blow every second to keep your skin from sweating one minute left he's letting the clock tick down a little bit more so he's giving himself that rest he knows there's work to do after he gets up past this zone but if he can get this one-legged step up to to work i uh i'm excited to see if he finishes the boulder and he looked really good there last time a little slip i think he should get back on the boulder he has enough to oh he's gonna say no he's gonna say no one else is gonna do that boulder maybe maybe tamora will do it but i don't think anyone else is done and he's gonna walk away uh i am a little bit surprised but he knows better than anybody what his capabilities are and how he's feeling with one boulder to go i think had he not flashed to the zone it would have been more likely for him to try again but if he's paying attention to the crowd and how long each person is out there he would guess that jamal hasn't had a top yet and that he could possibly be in a better position than kokoro right now or if not he's at least you know in second so kind of weighing his options i mean this is a lot to think about we don't actually know if he a seasoned competitor and oftentimes athletes do pay a lot of attention to the cheers and the time that athletes are out there so they can kind of get a feel and then just basing it off of how difficult something was and like knowing what you're good at and this is definitely a strength of sean's is this style of climbing so he might guess that you know some of the athletes are struggling on this and that would be a proper guess yeah you would be spot-on correct tomorrow they're taking a swing at the zone they're not going to give them uh control for that i think maybe he was just going to go and have a look that is definitely control also so confident on his feet here it's so impressive he doesn't look like he was flipping at all he just was putting his foot in different orientations on that foothold i mean where he just slipped off i mean well that was the very point of the hold so the most difficult part to stand on but really digging in and adding that pressure on either side of the hole in a way that we haven't seen the other men do so confidently yeah absolutely agree and it the slip there came when he tried to apply real force to move upwards from there but the footwork up to that point was impeccable yeah should i would take a clinic right now i would if timon narasaki was teaching a clinic uh i would drop everything and go and check it out this is a man with so much experience good in all styles oh yeah most definitely but like i would take an hour long clinic on just how to move on that foothold like you're gonna dial it down level further and say i'm gonna take a clinic on how to do this switch that foot switch alone look at that hip flexibility too so good at keeping the hips into the wall if you don't know climbing that well one of the easiest ways to put yourself in better positions is to have your hips in takes pressure off of your arms and sinks you into nice movements that will help you flow through a bit more that looks like you just jumped off there yeah i think it looked like he was testing us another another variant to his approach and then decided uh either yes it's gonna work but not this time or no it's not gonna work and i'm gonna go on to plan c or back to plan yeah again just managing the time when you're a seasoned competitor like tomoa you don't always want to fight through the wrong beta it's better to keep your time and go back to something else he does have a lot of time and he's moving through the start of this boulder with zero issue it's really impressive another check on the zone curious what this body position is about i mean he's getting into more of the right position that they wanted just in a different way like a different route to get there yeah but he's almost finding it so he is definitely worth noting that he skipped a couple of events looking after his knee so he's it's the first comp that he's come out in in quite some time so not that he's going to be nervous by any stretch of the imagination but training in your gym is not the same as competing it's really hard to replicate the stress of three rounds of climbing so it's possible that he's feeling it a little bit of the conditioning that it takes to climb through three rounds over a weekend well i wouldn't necessarily say he's not nervous i think all athletes get nervous no matter what but i mean i think nerves are good i think if you're not nervous i don't think you care enough and i think that nerves keep you on your toes to an appropriate degree but yes like having taken that time and focusing on healing up and then also just the fact that the olympics are again his big goal like some of the other athletes as well you know you're in a different cycle of training so even with an athlete who is generally one that doesn't fall all the time or is always in the lead or more often in the lead in a final seeing something like this i don't think is that worrisome because he does have a very different goal coming up in august that zone establishment here has catapulted him into third place behind sean bailey climbing really well very well and then zach maximilian and yoshiyuki with one zone each so as we say one boulder to go there's still room to flip the table that's going to come down the podium is might very well uh be affected by what happens on this last boulder but things are looking good for sean and kokoro at the moment as we see maximilian the sun just managing to reach the wall here in the afternoon maximilian the start of boulder number four you are in salt lake city with us for the final of the third world cup boulder event of the season and the second of our back-to-back events i'm pete woods i'm joined by megan martin we have been watching a really really engaging finals round not a lot of tops but a lot of very good climbing today very good climbing indeed ending with one of the more straightforward boulders of the round and very big exciting jump move at the finish of this boulder which i'm really excited to see all of these men on again we have more of a technical start to this boulder but then from there it's all about coordination and leg power and then of course the contact strength that all the men have to hold crazy swings and the finish hold is pretty good comparatively to everything else on this boulder problem it might be the best hole they come across all day all day actually well okay all day in the finals all day all the evenings there might have been some good ones in the semis we joked last weekend there was uh the last boulder had what you would think is the best hold you've seen on the world and i was definitely thinking this i would be overjoyed to find a hole like that on the start of the world it's really nice [Music] oh we're in the sun too oh man that sun is bright at this point i see the big exhale i almost guarantee you that he's holding his breath to push his way through that it's about finding the way to stay as tight as possible you can have no sag in your hips moving through a move like that this is the gonna be the steepest part of the wall that the men encounter and i always love when athletes use the press on their knee to move into positions it actually helps so much it seems at first glance you might not think that that really makes sense but whether you're pressing a stand up or pressing over pressing your hand on your knee really helps to move your body into the direction you need to go it's a nice little secret trick there if you're taking notes watching at home this is something that you might never have thought of but it's something that absolutely can make a difference calm down on flat walls lots of little little little tricks you see the micro adjustments he's making every time to bump that right hand get that shoulder folded inwards you're suddenly asking an awful lot of your shoulder stability on this boulder and he didn't actually use the press on the knee that tie that was not as close well hopefully it'll come back it'll be the inside flag of this round oh we have the knee press if you tuned into our earlier broadcast i i get extremely excited whenever a boulder uses an inside flag on a boulder problem it's generally more of a movie scene lead climbing but i always i want to see more of it in bouldering so it's a sign of great um understanding of body positions and i think it's really impressive and i'm a fan of the inside flag megan the inside flag mark who's probably only used an inside flag twice in her life but it's fine but recognizes when it has value and that's that's the important part here especially when we're sitting where we are it's about trying to get that little bit of extra information to you and bring you some of the knowledge that we've made over our years competing and hopefully get you into a place where you can have an appreciation for what's going on in front of you on the screen i really like the way the shadows are playing and it looks nice here it does look nice i'm a little bit upset about the heat on those targets makes a million um appreciative of the crowd a hard fight a rough day but a hard fight for maximilian milne um and all respect total respect really good fight here and he doesn't even know that he climbed a lot but like right now he's probably thinking that was not the final i wanted but the boulders were just hard and he is actually currently sitting in fifth place like i bet he doesn't know that and wouldn't think that at all but the thing is is that they were just tough boulders this round and you know sometimes they're just hard and it's all about whether or not you kept trying and he i think he fought hard he showed that he is a very talented climber kokoro fuji getting nicely into the zone and he's gonna have to set up for this swing kick and jump to the finish hold doing the right motion just didn't get high enough and his foot definitely slipped as well so this is uh we're going to get a couple good looks at it of course over the next few climbers this is a a big big move and it's going to involve again a fair um element of coordination you need to get that left foot moving and planted while you're thinking about pulling down and away on a steep wall where about 20 20 plus degrees on this wall there are many factors making this quite difficult fuji making the first move look really good really nice mobility and he is one of the taller climbers so maybe getting into that position is a little more comfortable it's still very difficult obviously but he's able to rock over and press a little bit better and kind of get his fingers on that undercling but what rootsetters often try to do is if you know they have athletes that are multiple sizes they try to keep it just even across the ground so maybe sometimes the boulder might seem a little better if you're taller but then maybe later in that boulder it could be better if you're shorter or just from bolder to bolder just trying to keep it even because obviously everyone's dimensions are different so there's no way to set perfectly for every height it's all about the balance throughout the round see there that zone needs to generate a lot here get a nice foot placement on this volume before he jumps up to that top hole oh wow he got up to it got a hand on it he's close full commitment to come down on the mats like that okay hunting this top as you see on the bottom of your screen one top on boulder number one followed by the three zones on two three and currently four looking to fill that last bar on boulder number four to really put himself in a good position it's interesting that the men went from such a high scoring semi-final round in terms of topping boulders and then now you're lucky if you have a top currently hoping to maybe get two to finish the round but man just a low completion round here sometimes tops are expensive today they are expensive but he still has a smile i mean he appreciates that this is uh an interesting piece of movement almost looks like he's looking forward to trying it again he's in a great position too because he already has one top it's unlikely that anyone really catches up to him other than sean so already this would be likely to be a podium spot for kokoro which would be three finals in a row two fourths and a podium i mean he's gonna be really happy even though he might be frustrated after how difficult this round was at the end of this competition he'll be quite happy yeah they as much as they are here to win they are here to top [Applause] [Music] otherwise there's always something to dwell on oh fingers so close to the good part of that hold he needs to just be a little to the left but great climbing there by kokoro fuji the crowd needs to know that they appreciate his effort he looks exhausted exhausted and that is the thing right even though boulders weren't topped here these men had to fight really hard on each boulder and it's great that he was able to sequence this so well just not getting enough of the power here oh so close just again a little to the left on that top hold and he would have been in the sinker part of that jug it's like left it's like yeah jugs maybe a little too far it's not like a big bucket but it's it's like a joke [Music] look at the striations in his shoulder just so much strength there as he presses out of that start hold [Applause] he's got a lot of good power see if he can figure out this leg swing he might just oh this this could also be a oh you're thing close very close quickly brush that please thank you very much next time thank you for being ready the only thing i worry about without doing that swing kick to the volume is that putting your foot on the volume first and then generating from there might make you generate to the right a bit more than having kind of that swing tap jump yes so it could possibly make holding the top hold a bit more difficult but we'll have to wait and see either way really great first effort from yoshiyuki ogata and uh a top from any of the competitors at this point is gonna have podium impact so yoshiyuki can get himself on top of this boulder he will propel himself into a podium position let's see what he can do with two and a half minutes left will he stay he's gonna stay with his foot high first we got close just a little slip there really really emphasizing the need for brushers we have so many amazing volunteers here this weekend and they're all in these really cool blue shirts that actually have multiple languages on the back of them just kind of keeping to that international vibe since we have people from so many different countries at this competition so nice to create some unity 100 agree the volunteers are a huge factor even at a local comp in your gym at home if you get a chance i recommend volunteering at a comp be a judge be a brusher be an isolation runner get into the scene a little bit and appreciate what goes on in the competition and you will be definitely rewarded in terms of the gratefulness of everybody competing in that event yoshiyuki just sliding out of the start hold on that attempt it's wild because that left undercling is good enough if you can get underneath it and over to the left enough but until you're fully under it you really need to have the opposition with the right hand and he was just slowly sliding out of it it was ugh hard to watch just another boulder where you feel like you're falling off the entire time this is a good look at the angle of the wall and really the right hand start there same thing he's just sliding down two full hand lengths and running out of shoulder power this is the cumulative effect of the boulders across today we've lost a lot of the right hand over this round and you can see just the the like imprints from the sweat on his fingertips just in the sun this time of day is a little a little difficult to deal with but the thing is it's difficult for everyone right now so yeah they're all having to deal with it and fight through it trying to get into that undercling oh she's not able to rock over as much and this kind of movement too is one that you know it's hard from the start but not so terrible the first two times your first few times you get on it but the more and more you get on it the fatigue you have in your hips and your triceps really catches up to you and yoshiyuki thought hard had some great attempts but it's just not going to be able to make it happen here today but is moved up into that fourth position currently which he'll likely be you know pretty happy with when he i mean it's not over yet but he's he's moved up a bit by getting into that zone so so close to those attempts his fault is so big yeah i know it's it's their full commitment to what needs to be done is remarkable of course and it's important to remember that fourth place is a shade of disappointment to not be on the podium but it's fourth out of 60 finals okay anything in the final is a worthy accomplishment so all the positions in a funnel are worth celebrating fourth stings a little more he's definitely struggling there's something going on with his right arm he's holding that elbow and as you say it's either a cramp or a i do feel like it was his right arm that was hurt before um you know these athletes have to train so much and they're they're put through so much in every competition too and like even just little things like any kind of tendinitis like i recently had bicep tendonitis and oh my gosh it was so frustrating to deal with it's like even things like that can when you're pushing yourself so hard becomes such a problem but let's see if zach can work through whatever is bothering him right now oh my goodness gracious i hope it's devastating to you it's hard to watch and you hope that he makes the right decision for his season of climbing uh and not making a decision based on really really want to get to the top of the boulder he is [Applause] he's still definitely thinking about it [Applause] just seems like he's trying to loosen up a bit of whatever is bothering him right now and again i mean a very pressing intensive boulder so it's a part of your body that you're gonna need to really be working with you right now it just keeps trying to like shake out it could be a cramp you know you could have that compression cramp in that bicep and this is really hard to watch it's making my arms hurt too and you you know that he is teetering on me i know my body and i'm in a world cup final yeah it's like how do you make a decision here it's a it's a very difficult place to be in we'll uh just keep that hope that this is not something that is going to result in a serious implication on the rest of this season while at the same time trusting that uh zach allen knows himself and what he's capable of and what needs to happen for him to be able to get up he'll get a zone or a top on this border and a good sign is that he hasn't actually asked for a medic yet so because the athletes can do that so that is a good sign here but see if zach gala can fight through this press section it's just it's uh this boulder although again there's not a lot of options in order to get into this body position hold it and press out the amount of shoulder internal rotation and opposition you need to push between you can't just put your foot on the left hand scoop you need to be pushing hard into it and that power's coming from your right arm exactly and he he's fighting so hard to try to press up into that position and just fighting whatever pain is ailing him right now just running out of time yeah right amount of time and running out of gas and you see him trying to use his left hand looks like he's about to rip up the crowd he didn't actually ask for it but they're giving it to him trying to support that gala out here as he fights through men's number four first time in a world cup climber solid competitor [Applause] just trying to make make something happen here as he's really struggling to get into that right body position he's gonna give it a brush a show of one last effort [Music] i don't know if he he's because we have enough time to keep going but oh let's yes campus and then go straight up yeah he's out of time but he wanted to try one lesson the judges don't love that but the crowd does yeah exactly great effort by zach not the final he wanted but still tried super hard great for the qualifications semi-final round you know getting into a final is always a big barrier for athletes so to do it once you know you can do it again so the next time he's in the final you'll likely see him doing something even more spectacular you're going to carry the confidence that you belong or you don't have that oh i got in once was that luck or not and hopefully his arm is okay uh we have some medics to the right of us preparing ice already so they're gonna go take care of him quickly as sean bailey is up and on that's number four [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] sean bailey with that flash to zone is currently sitting in first place nobody can take it away nobody can catch him at this point so sean bailey will end up winning his very first bouldering world cup and you know the only other final he was in he ended up second so this is a good progression very good progression consistency is key in world cup competitions and really hard to master so having made semis last weekend and ending up walking away with the win this weekend you know these aren't final results we don't know if there'll be any appeals or anything but currently nobody [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's about using your angles to your greatest advantage oh yeah and he does a great job sean bailey with one arm a move i was talking about earlier something he's so good at catching anything one-handed and a huge smile from sean bailey first world cup win barring any appeals with an exclamation mark and also you know topping two boulders in one of the more difficult finals we've seen in a while creating some serious consistency this year so far semi-final in my origin semifinal last weekend here and now finals on top of the podium wow great for the home crowd absolutely really really really really fantastic for usa climbing as a whole to have this level of success sean bailey absolutely putting a stamp on the finals with this performance in front of the likes of kokoro fuji tomorrow narasaki yoshiyuki ogata these are really really seasoned finalists let's see what tomah can do here he has uh he has got a podium and it's a question of what color the metal is oh wow flash from temple and arasaki you know this boulder all i could think of is wow this last boot just has name written all over it and after a disappointing final for him it is a great way to end the round doing what he does best and flashing boulders with authority so that is going to give him third place [Music] really great climbing there from tomoa narasaki difficult round for him but saw this boulder saw that it was straightforward all of the things that he excels at in his skill set and really this move specifically it's i can't think of another move that says tamo more and he does it with such confidence grace and absolute power so exciting to see tomoa narasaki top that final boulder putting him in a podium spot great way to start the season for him again it's not just the world cup season on his mind this year but also the olympics in august the first time sport climbing will be in the olympics and it'll be that combined discipline of bouldering speed and lead it'll be competed in the order of speed bouldering and lead at the olympics and tomo narasaki has to be excited with that finish and knowing that his training that he's doing right now is right on track for that big olympic games in tokyo his home country of japan currently doing the flower ceremony for the men you have and mr sean bailey of the usa with his first world cup win is gonna get his flowers here and then after this we're gonna have a quick interview with sean before the actual podium ceremony but as you can see sean bailey is so excited you know he is an athlete who has been talented enough to find himself in a position like this it just hasn't always come together so to have it come together in front of a home crowd like this originally from washington spent a lot of time training there up at vertical world and kind of bounces back between that state and here in salt lake city training here as well so exciting to see sean bailey on top of the podium so here are the men's final results sean bailey in first kokoro fuji in second tomo narasaki in third yoshiyuku yoshiyuki ogada in fourth sackal and fifth and rounding out your top six it's maximilian milne and both sac gala and maximilian in their very first bouldering world cup finals so really exciting stuff here today for the men lots of firsts happening and we're gonna have that interview with sean bailey done by our my lovely co-commentator wow the words here mr p woods will be with sean bailey doing an interview momentarily and then following that we'll have that award ceremony and we're gonna see the women in a bit as well but man what an exciting final for the men here today [Music] now let's go to that interview with pete woods and sean bailey [Music] sean bailey gold here in salt lake city what is the first thought in your mind right now oh man i i don't know man i i can't even think right now i just never thought this day would come and it's crazy that it came you absolutely threw people are loving it here you absolutely threw down in this final hard boulders topped one top four how did you feel in that last jug on boulder number four it was all over your face psyched man um yeah it's hard there's two super hard boulders and um i just wanted to find some success on something again so i just like to try hard on it and it was a big big hug and yeah went for it you went for it and you stuck it gold medal at home you've been on the podium before in vail america is good to you on the world cup circuit yeah more us comps let's let's do it super excited for you sean congratulations well deserved gold medal here is there anything else you want to tell these people who are watching here in salt lake city oh just thank you guys so much and the crowd hype was real so thank you congratulations uh go enjoy this and we're gonna watch the women's final now cool thank you [Applause] really nice interview there from sean bailey so exciting to see him walk away with a win here and it should be noted too that he was very close to qualifying for the olympics a few times this in the 2019 season and i know it was really a big bummer for him to not make that team so having a win early on in the season here in a bouldering event we mentioned earlier if you were joining with us that he has succeeded in lead multiple times that was really the discipline that he was best at originally but he has put some strides into bouldering becoming more and more consistent his second podium now in bouldering world cups second in vail in 2018 and now first here in salt lake city in 2021 awesome climbing from sean bailey and all the men a very difficult round they never gave up they fought hard and it was great to see just so much fight and try hard out there and congrats again to sean bailey absolutely speechless it's uh it's so interesting to see climbers in that moment and that he came around behind the wall his eyes are wide looking looking so excited first world cup gold and you have to truly believe that he was speechless yeah it is really cool to see see that happen to have those moments those are those dream come true moments right we heard natalia grossman talk about that last weekend if you joined us for the salt lake city world cup last weekend and it's like these are moments you dream of you hope to be on top of the podium and everybody puts so much time and effort forward towards that goal and when it can actually happen it's like a dream come true so yeah and i got a chance to sit down with her this weekend and she had some some really good insight into her climbing and where it's going it's been really special to compete you know in hometown kind of i mean i live in boulder colorado so i don't live out here but it does [Music] [Applause] you know the whole team here and a really amazing crowd of local climbers so it was so awesome this past weekend to have their support and we could really feel it on the mats for all the cheering and um everybody wanting you know us to succeed [Applause] i've also never done a world cup's back-to-back which is really exciting i've always wanted to it's kind of like you know two chances and just more competing i feel like after the thrill of a competition weekend i always want more and so i'm excited to get more this [Music] [Applause] weekend [Music] climbing with strong people is definitely helpful i think both of us have seen that climbing together as well that we push each other i moved out here in january but i've been spending a lot of time here since like september and i've definitely seen like my climbing levels improve since i've been around here and having all the other strong girls there's so many strong girls here who push me and it's pretty cool i and i think we dreamed of and more and so this weekend is just another opportunity to you know push ourselves and kind of just that cherry on top of i think both of us i mean we climb because we love it and that'll be the same whether we do well or we don't do well and some you know in the moment that can be really hard to realize but in the end one competition won't make or break it especially break it it can make it but so you can't take last week in a way and this weekend's here just to have more fun i couldn't say it any [Music] better [Applause] [Music] [Applause] really great to hear from two strong young american climbers they will be looking to work on those performances from last weekend we are going to see this final coming up shortly natalia grossman stasha gayo brook rabbatu orian berton miho nanaka and yanya garnbret a tough act to follow but if anyone's gonna stand up to the challenge it's gonna be these six women right here yeah we have a really stacked field here with the women four of these athletes were in the final last weekend yanya wasn't in the competition last weekend and this is the first final for sasha since you know for a while because she was out in that 2019 season with that knee injury so this is big for her to be back in a final but here we're gonna start with natalia grossman on a pretty technical first folder for the women it's um one that she's reading really well currently but there's some interesting body positions in this one and use of the auret which i always love to see and actually the zone hold hold you can't see yet but you're gonna have to stand up into the zone hole that's in this next section of the arret wow standing on delicate delicate nice toe hook with that left foot really nice counterbalance she has shown to be a very precise climber she executes very very well conservation of movement doesn't make a lot of extraneous movements when she's climbing through boulders now what she's gonna want to do is get her right foot where her left foot is here in order to get the left foot on that other left foot to the left of the volume left right left right look at that foot switch so much control so good on her feet and then there actually is an inside be kidding flag natalia grossman with a flash so first attempt top of folder number one she has come out swinging with the inside flat and she's gonna feel really great about that she had to fight very hard in that semi-final round and it was looking like she might not end up making it and with the very last boulder she was able to put herself into the final so having to come out in the final and flash the first boulder is going to put her in a nice headspace moving forward absolutely if you've just tuned in um you are now watching the women's final here in salt lake city the second of our back-to-back climbing weekends the men's final went down uh just finished just moments ago i'm pete woods i'm joined by megan martin uh we are excited to bring you the women's final now in salt lake city the six best climbers from the women's field uh climbed in their semi-final this morning and now they're out for their four finals boulder so this is stacia from serbia she is uh the second climber out out of the six and what we're trying to do here now is go six palmers down to our podium of three four boulders in this round the climbers have four minutes to try each boulder versus five from the rounds before the difference here is that they had a preview almost getting established on this first move they had a preview session where they walked through all the boulders so they've seen them ahead of time so we take a minute off the clock and they get four minutes to try the boulders and then they also get almost getting at that time uh the climbers also get a longer rest so the route setters can set harder more complex boulders because they have that preview they have some discussion with our teammates and sometimes with their competitors and then they get about a 20-minute rest between each boulder so all the women are gonna climb boulder number one sixth to first and then repeat it two three and four as we watch sasha figure out this opening move and start working delicately around the corner a really nice adjustment there from sasha on that opening move because she was trying to go in a more dynamic fashion quite a few times in a row and finally settled back into more of a static way of doing it and that's what ended up working for an italian grossman as well so definitely a good idea to switch to that method or beta because it seems to be the more efficient one but really exciting to see sasha back in a final she's been in multiple finals throughout her career and you know her first comp back from having to recover from a knee injury was the europe continental championships where she actually placed second behind victoria mizkova who got that olympic spot so it was really you know that's a rough year for sasha not to get to compete at the other two events where we could make the olympics and have literally one shot due to an injury so being back here is a great boost of confidence for her this year yeah absolutely and she is an exciting climber to watch she's very dynamic very powerful and as we mentioned if you were watching the semifinal round her emotions show on almost every attempt and i i like to see it i like to see when people are trying hard i like to see when they're putting everything they have into their time on the mat especially in a final round kind of struggling with this foot switch here it looked like she was gonna try to match down low and then bring her right foot up we saw natalia grossman kind of just do a foot hop switch here which is a difficult move to do she did make it look easy but it is difficult but this looks like a better method that sash stasha is going with it looks a little more secure especially with her height here she can stand comfortably on that nicely [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i love how they have to kind of teeter over grab the hand and throw the foot to stop them from barn dooring and it's absolutely beautiful pete loves that i love the inside flag he is cracking up at me currently it's and it's because it's such it seems like it should be obvious but there's so many things you could otherwise try and do to control the movement that's going to come out of this faith tip over to this last hole the right side of your body anybody that doesn't do the inside flag you're gonna see what happens with the right side of their body as we just see a good look at statue here working your way up the corner getting a good look at just the balance points required to move across but the you will see the momentum and the inside flag is the easiest if slightly more coordinated solution and this will be the third time that it's come up in the last week and a half and uh it's a well spotted by megan well and it's funny too because honestly the setters they set such diverse movements and so it is so cool to see that the inside i mean and the inside flag is not always the intended beta there's always other options but it's cool to see that move specifically sneaking up now and again brook gravity reading this really nicely again an athlete that's really good on our feet if you did tune into the semi-finals she absolutely walked the fourth boulder in semis which was so footwork intensive and very small uncomfortable holds to stand on but she's able to trust her feet well it's definitely one of the skills that's high up in her skill set needs to make that foot switch here gonna go with the same method that natalia did a nice save on that bubble definitely looking for a flash here oh nice close-up of that but you can see that she's on the textured part that's sticking out but that part around it is very slippery she's just trying to turn her hips a little so she can rock over her right foot's not in the perfect position and she's just trying to figure out how to get out of it without kind of messing up her timing i'm not able to make it happen but and that's the subtlety of finals boulders is you're going to want to see brooke turn her right foot inside more so that she can generate momentum going to the left uh and when you're standing on big holes moving between big movements you can have uh imprecision in your foot placement and you can adjust when the footholds are this small and the movement is this precise you have to get all of the angles right and you just saw her climbed herself into a position she couldn't reverse and see if she can correct that that i'm not even gonna the knee press it's so it makes it so much easier to rock over on your foot and again another move that i love there you see the right foot she does twist it that's the difference in sticking that like big smile brick wrap two i mean still happens she's been climbing for 13 of her 20 years um and still smiling on almost every boulder and actually i think that's more competing for 13 of her 20 years you're probably right she's probably been climbing for 19 of them right after crawling but yes a very um accomplished competitor on the youth side and you know struggling a bit to find her flow on the adult circuit but really after qualifying for the olympics seeing that momentum pick up a bit more and being very consistent so far this season having made the two semi-final or now three semi-finals and two finals in a row when the entire 2019 season i believe she was a spot out of semi-finals almost every single time which was extremely frustrating for her so to come back and kind of turn it all around is pretty impressive yeah it's a bit of a breakout season just this year here another breakout orianne berton from france [Applause] nailing the first move 16 years old one of the youngest finalists you're going to see this the first year you can be allowed to compete on the open circuit is at 16. so this is orien and she showed great poise through all rounds so far that is a really nice neighborhood really nice control over the swap in the corner and she's working on her flash attempt seeing if she can figure out the best way to switch her feet we've seen two methods and she's kind of in between the heights of natalya and stasha so either beta could work oops a little too slow not a lot of space there to kind of if you're matching your hands you'd call that more of a piano match but i mean i guess that's applicable to the feet sort of yeah she wasn't swapping she was more like kind of moving her feet off one edge of her foot at a time onto the other and yeah a good look at that foothold and when there's a couple different ways you can choose to swap your feet we've seen a couple of them and one you sort of move as quickly as possible and there is a moment when you're trying to get both feet on at the same time where you run out of friction on either side and but again they're just just unable to hold the change in balance when you're climbing we call it slab if you're not that familiar anything that's um less than the vertical angle so imagine a wall that's just gently tipping away from you it allows the root setters to set very very very intricate balanced ebola problems in which you don't need to use your hands and just get in the first move wrong a little bit of excitement first boulder there's always going to be adrenaline as you step out for your first boulder in a final and just needs to settle it down and get back up there but when she gets back up to the top as i'm sure she will you'll see that the handless movement is made possible because of the wall angle and the root setters can do an excellent job to force insecure movement without your hands it's so cool to see how different the styles are that's amazing orion is literally climbing this boulder so dynamically and with so much coordination that is working for her it's not necessary or even the intended beta even that first move the way she's doing it is similar to to what was the intended beta from the third boulder in finals last weekend if you actually got a chance to watch that that same kind of foot swap but that wasn't something that was intended it's just something she she feels like makes sense for her style um so it's kind of cool how you can apply your own style to the boulders even if it's not always the intended way exactly you're when the dust settles it's just you and the boulder and the root setters can have all the best intentions and i love that she's doing that it's so funny it's so fun to watch you're right it's uh she's an engaging young climber and she's got a switch there we go oh just falling out of it her hips just sagged to the right a bit too much to be able to hold that um counterbalance there that compression move with 30 seconds to go this is gonna be a boulder where she needs to hustle uh but won't want to at the top so and with her beta she actually she can't even any of the other women who did that lower beta differently i don't think they would have been able to hustle but i think she's going to make it happen [Music] [Applause] wow with five seconds to spare that was the most dynamic tournament i'm out of breath from the four minutes of climbing she basically just did a cardio workout on this boulder such cool movements that she chose to do and real confidence there able to get that boulder done so much promise from this young competitor absolutely fantastic piece of farming uh at the wire as we [Music] [Applause] an absolute powerhouse has podiumed in half of her boulder competitions so impressive and earlier this weekend podiumed in the speed competition which is remarkable it's so remarkable and you know if she ends up with a podium here she will be the first woman to have ever podiumed in two disciplines at the same in the same weekend because we haven't ever had a boulder lead weekend together so yeah a remarkable remarkable performance on friday in the speed event mio doing the knee press yes things that megan thought might happen we're two for two right now knee press inside flag she needs to figure out how exactly she wants to approach approach approach the big switch approach that footswitch and nice execution there so you're just seeing that current scoreboard here full bars are tops on the boulders you see mijo on the right hand side just missing the last move took a second to readjust on her foot placement there which actually looked like it kind of knocked her off the boulder a little bit but easy adjustment she got up there with a lot of ease and she is such a seasoned competitor that i find that she remembers her beta well some of the younger competitors you see them occasionally forget kind of how they got somewhere quickly but not not a mistake that you would normally see someone like miho make agreed so this is just a good look if you're not familiar with the scoring uh on the bottom left there the bars the w1 we're on women's boulder number one that half bar means that she achieved the zone hold and then the full bar will be if she gets a top and we're three empty bars to go so we're on the first boulder and you see the attempts there is gonna count the number of attempts it takes each climber to get to the zone hold and then the number of attempts it takes to get to the top so that's the t and the z it looks like her shoe velcro has come off there maybe not bothered by no a little short there again and after her first attempt she really cinched it down more so looks like she's having trouble a quick look at our brushers and volunteers which volunteers spelled in english italian and french on the back of their shirts it's kind of a cool little aspect to add yeah it's just nice to recognize that the world cup community is truly a global community you have climbers here from all over the world the only nation that we're used to seeing that we're missing is the korean federation who did not make the trip over but representation from almost all levels mijo getting the crowd on her side with a minute to go i would have said that she would have done it no problem second ago but she's just having a bit of a a moment trying to work out where to get the momentum from uh to get to the last move and she's come up short twice now so we'll see if she gets it sorted out on this third try she's really good with the foot switch here i think she's not leaning over as slowly as everyone else she's trying to kind of create that motion all in one whereas the other athletes who finished that boulder slowly teetered over to that foothold stayed in that stable position and then generated to the finish and so it's just a little too fast you just need to slow it down a little oh and that's what happens when you when you're looking at 30 seconds on the clock and you tend to rush your movements we saw odienne pull on a little bit more she probably had 30 seconds on the clock uh and sprinted this boulder to the finish mijo is going to be in similar mindset both of them kind of doing that lower section faster than some of the other women now the split which she's gonna need to make happen pretty quick and she doesn't want to go too fast here is she gonna be oh so close miho nanaka coming up a half a hand shy on boulder number one but still smiles she is happy to compete every time we see her out her the joy that climbing brings her is just so apparent and so fun to watch her climb even when she is frustrated or things aren't going exactly her way she does keep that attitude positive and really is a joy to watch just the difference there is as you were saying a few degrees in the decision to tip farther to the left and now we're gonna see if janja can flash this boulder as we have become accustomed to my fault i had nothing to do with my fault 21 gold medals across all disciplines uh a remarkable remarkable career so far from the young athlete 22 years old it is so wild to think that she's only 22. she's accomplished more than most people in their entire career in you know just a few years and really is the dominant force in climbing i i've been referring to her her as the michael phelps of climbing it's a good one yeah i mean she is so dominant and people expect to see amazing things from her and she doesn't disappoint disappoint she is such a fantastic climber she understands movement so well and she's so strong and it's gonna and that the only other option that is such a typical yanya move where she does it differently than everybody else and it's just because she can yeah right she just makes it work she understands what she's good at what her body's capable of sure there's the barn door that might happen going with two hands but what does she do she immediately jumps up into the top even more you'll see it right here really engages his shoulder throws that left foot out to keep her from barn dooring and that right foot also to keep the counterbalance there and keep her in a more steady position just excellent climbing for me anya her understanding of how to absorb generating control momentum is currently second to none and i'm going to say in either field men or women 100 agree with you on that yeah so a difference of uh a slip on the start hold puts natalia grossman at the top of the leaderboard for grab two [Music] attempts to top being the difference there and mijo unable to get a top on the first boulder but it's only boulder number one uh there's three to go anything can happen there's lots of different styles you're gonna see over the course of this women's final natalie grossman not climbing in the afternoon sun now it's gonna warm these holes up so something that to pay attention to especially when the friction is not really high natalia just looking determined and that cross move is one of the harder moves on this boulder now from this angle that right foot hold might look kind of good but it's pretty shallow and these handholds especially in the sun are going to be kind of difficult to hold on to and we're going to see a flash here for natalia grossman grabbing that pocket hold that's a little sloppy but the way she was able to control that the way she was able to control each movement there just nicely into that finish hold wow another flash there for natalia grossman really gonna put some pressure on yeah she needs other women turning the heat up she has signaled her arrival on the tour and in this final which is what we're concerned about right now but that is excellent execution back to back flashing boulders it does not get any better in a final than flashing boulders if you're not super familiar with some of the terminology if you do the climb first try we call that flashing the boulder it's just a climbing specific term that we like to use and that's two flashes from italian grossman and obviously you just want to be efficient in general in a climbing round but it really rewards you in terms of how much energy you have so from bolder to bolder if you're doing them in fewer tries each time you get to a new boulder you have more energy than someone who used up all four minutes on that on that boulder before so not only is it better for your score but it's better to keep being successful in the round if you can just get things done in one try absolutely and attempts are going to be the difference maker when we come down to breaking any type of tie we care about getting to the top of boulders we care about getting to zones and then we care about the number of attempts so all four pieces of the puzzle come into play uh number of attempts to get to the tops number of attempts to get to those zones so those are going to be the difference makers you see on the bottom of your screen there the bars represent where they are right now the open highlighted bar wings are on folder number two and you see the full bar on the first column it's that's just sending topping folder number one and then we have the attempts on the side so you're going to see some differences um based in leaderboard position that might not be immediately obvious but that would be the difference in number of attempts and that's how we separate stacia trying to set up for this cross move natalia was able to make it happen pretty easily but really struggling to get around that cross a bit more to find the right body position to be able to hold that hold a bit better it's a difficult cross that those holes are pretty sloppy and it's definitely not helping with the sun shining down on them and it looks like i think our middle finger is taped so adding any tape on a boulder like this is gonna make it a lot harder to get the friction that you need in order to stay on the hold but sasha's a fighter and i expect to see her try extremely hard to get this move to figure out exactly where she needs to be in order to get on it now throwing that left hand up is another option when i was talking to the root setters earlier they did mention to me that you can do that move two ways cross and kind of hang it and then come into it or try to go and bring that second hand in quicker to give yourself a little more stabilization and the biggest thing that stash is missing here is just generating enough momentum to get high and farther to the left and that's going to make the body position is more ideal when she brings that right hand down on the next hole that we're about that she's going to elect for this interesting way to look at things it did look a bit better like she looked like she was in a better position to actually stay on the hold but she did shake her head after so maybe she thought that that wasn't true yeah there's a there's some things to be learned as the viewer and what a climber maybe thought about an attempt or a boulder by just looking at the way they look at their hands or look at the holes or shake their head and that was the shake of the head and we might not see it not going back to it that looks better too but yeah she's just not rocking over enough before she does the cross like leaning into that left side and putting more pressure on her foot kind of trying to move the knee more past the ankle yeah that's a good description of what needs to happen is she needs to climb around herself really to get over there going back to the heel i i thought the heel looked good but it does put a lot more pressure on your hands and then it's going to make it harder to keep them from sweating too that's another aspect of that that's something to think about nostalgia would be a little bit frustrated i think i think this is a boulder she would have definitely expected while looking at it to get to the zone [Music] [Applause] not that much friction so you need to be able to generate enough momentum to get to the hold but not so much momentum that you then can't control the amount of force that you put back down so it's a subtlety of movement is not uncommon and i almost feel like tustasha is the tallest competitor in this competition and it almost looks like she was a little too high as well like when natalya was able to stick it she kind of hung on it better and sasha wasn't able to have her arm as straight so that could be an aspect too brook rabbits who won her first attempt here bringing in that left hand that other option kind of floating your way through that cross move nicely into this first boulder a really good description and duke watching climbers float between holes is a sign that they have the power dialed in just right exactly nicely into the zone just needs to kind of keep it together here keep the hips in really rock over the feet lock off get into that sloppy finish hold and a flash for brook rabbitshield the americans picking up where they left off last weekend coming out blazing on boulders one and two really really great from brook and natalya really really good composure here you saw after she did that earlier move the first cross she kind of took a second to breathe and then continue on through the boulder and that last move she she is the smallest competitor in this final she's only five two with a 0.5 ape index which is small it's very small and again i'm not sure what that is in centimeters but it's a lot smaller so she really had to use every bit of that lock-off power to reach and get to that final hold and she was able to make it happen it's uh it's been a joy to watch the climbing over the last couple of rounds just really showing that the age is not a factor yeah it's experience uh confidence and composure and another great example of it is looking to see if she can put a flash down on boulder number two [Music] little flip there see if she can recover and work on that cross move doesn't seem like she found the most comfortable position it was kind of it was interesting too she wasn't just placing her foot she kept like hopping in a bit instead of kind of settling into that position which is a sign of discomfort so she kind of she kind of jumped off and was going to take another look at it and speaking of age not being a factor this is a very mature move to take let me just take a step back sit down relook at this something didn't feel right and you know take it all in not you know hammer it time after time after time very mature climbing you don't want to get ahead of yourself uh although your instincts often tell you just jump back on and do it there's only one move you've only tried one move uh you have to calm those thoughts in your mind and say just settle settle settle and she uh is a climber that moves um definitely quickly between holds uh also precise but not in the same kind of level that we were watching natalia just a different approach to how to move between the holds and you see that it's down a little bit on that left foot those footholds i mean megan mentioned earlier they're awful and the root setters took a grinder you see where that u-shape is uh the bottom half of that is a different texture and it creates a bit of a lip and they took a grinder and smoothed out the lip so that hold is worse than when it came out of the box and what it's doing is forcing uh the climbers to be very very careful and orianna is just maybe not quite careful enough with that left foot placement i also think she's not putting enough pressure into the foot when you're on a hold like that i think your instinct is to not put enough pressure on it because oh i might slip but in reality you need that pressure on the foothold in order to actually use it and keep it from slipping so that last attempt was a lot better with the foot placement and just even the cross motion in general so maybe she's kind of figuring out that movement that she needs to find uh still a good chunk of time on the clock this boulder isn't that long i feel like you can get through it pretty quickly if you can get through that first section so we'll have to see what she can come up with here here the crowd behind is starting to get the crowd can sense when you need a little bit of a boost maybe to help you up so 45 seconds now this is getting into and she top builder one with 30 seconds ago not something you want to make a habit of definitely not something you want to make a habit of but she's clearly good under pressure so she she had that move a second ago kind of rushed it there not ideal but i think it's a good idea to keep trying at this point because she saw how quickly the other two women came back from their attempts and she knows that it's been topped but unfortunately she's not going to be able to do that here and more get to the zone get lucky for her she does have one top under her belt that goes a long way and add that into the multitude of factors that go into a finals you need to control the emotion of not being successful on a particular boulder and be able to move on she still has two boulders to go and you don't know what's going to happen the temptation is to be frustrated and kind of kick the chalk bag mentally around and say i can't believe i didn't do both number two and i'm turning my grass and you spiral very very quickly so to be able to pull yourself around the mental game uh as a young competitor is not easy but let me stretch the imagination and hopefully she's able to get around whatever thoughts come with not sending a boulder uh although you shouldn't expect to top four boulders in a final you do want to yes mijo taking her first attempt here did not get a top of women's number one so is gonna be looking to get to that zone quickly and then hoping for a top as she can pretty well guess that everyone else got it top so she's just trying to keep herself in the running stay calm let her body do what she instinctively does know how to do after being in the game for so many years and important to note another one of the olympic qualified athletes here competing this weekend so another goal overall in mind but still looking to do great here and definitely capable of it and you saw her looked at her fingertips maybe just a little bit of that heat and sunshine adding to the difficulty to generate the friction required on a move such as this and she's definitely got that the footwork looks right just about maybe a little bit extra core to control that swing and i think too that bringing up the left hand is a little more secure of a method so if she goes with this cross with a little bit more and just kind of rolls into it more and then can bring that left hand up it seems like she could be more successful on that move [Music] crusher's working really hard there's only uh it's not two pressures on every boulder so the brushes are gonna earn their keep across the final brushing every boulder across the round two minutes to go mijo won't be stressed yet but who needs to get some upward progress to start to feel comfortable in this round [Applause] just not finding that motion yeah it doesn't look smooth which is something i would not have said very often about miho climbing but it looks a bit kind of jarring now she is generally a very smooth climber has a lot of contact strength really understands movement whether it be dynamic or more static has great hip flexibility too but just having a hard time just finding the flow here that's better oh no whoa a little oh my goodness yeah you saw her look at her fingers and say can you see that yeah you can see the imprints hand streaks little moisture in the dry dry salt lake it's still it's just still hot your hands are still sweating oh but again that that pull through and then come in with the left hand does seem to be the beta that works a bit better i mean it's always secure if you can get that other hand on a hold there she does it nice this time really focused on throwing that foot too to avoid kind of slipping off again nicely into the zone honestly a boulder i would have maybe put a chalk back well so this is a great strategy here she's noticing that the holes are pretty slippery considering how hot it is and she just got the zone 40 something seconds on the clock maybe she can do it but maybe she can't maybe she wastes another attempt she knows what the next two boulders are coming up so strategy wise i think it's a good idea to not only just save skin but energy because the likelihood of making it back up there in 44 seconds is kind of cutting it close yeah it's a bit it's a bit rough and you need to climb quicker than you want to in there again just a little bit short you need to be up into the middle those scoopy holes are at their best right in the middle of the shape that's where there's the most depth the most depth and the largest scoop so let's see what yanya can do faced with boulder number two gets right on the boulder always very quick to get on the boulders i feel like she is very intentional with how she reads things and i feel like she pays attention to what her plan like she comes out and she knows what her plan is immediately we'll see other athletes take a second and kind of um rework what they're going to do a little slip slip up there but she definitely can fix it no this is an interesting beta going with that toe hook on the left side versus the right side uh sort of nicely through yeah good great example of how great her hand strength is that was exactly not the cleanest we've seen that move done but of no matter to yanya just needs to keep it together here go high enough hold that swing and just a slow press over nice lock off into that top hole nicely done by yanya good stuff so she is going to sit behind natalia and brooke based solely on tiny mistakes establishing on the first two boulders on the start holes and what a great save there by danya i mean she was already planning on bringing that left hand up but that foot slip was pretty jarring and to be able to hold it is just a testament to her hand strength and especially in these conditions in the hot hot sun yes and here just really smoothly pushing through [Music] so this is two boulders down two boulders to go we're in the dead middle if you're just joining us you're a bit late but you're watching the finals here the women's finals in salt lake city the men's final went down a little bit early this evening and we're right in the middle of the women's round natalya grossman brook te rabatue not much in it but one attempt nyanya also equal with them but four attempts so two tops each and two zones for the top three and we have orianne and miho nanaka sitting on the bottom third bottom half the last three of this final round so two boulders to go and just like that we are coming closer we're halfway through the women when we like to watch climbing and it feels it's always exciting to see things go through and uh when climbers are flashing boulders they move through them very quickly and so the likes of natalya and brooke and jania taking less than a minute and a half means they were shaving quite a lot of time off of the movement through this round and i am excited to see boulders three and four i am too they're they're very different boulders and i think that's one thing the root centers always do a great job of there's so much diversity week to week in competitions um from last week's competition here in salt lake we're seeing very different styles here this weekend and from boulder to boulder round to round it's been so cool to see how they're testing these athletes and the goal of these competitions is to be as well-rounded as possible so you can handle what the route setters throw at you and they have been throwing everything in the book and it's just so cool to see how the root setting is such a science and they're so good at their jobs and just shout out to the root centers i mean they're killing it in these last two weekends and generally on the circuit it's really impressive yeah 100 i am pro route setter i've been proven for a number of years they are an integral part of the competition because they're building the boulders on which the competition happens and it is not root centers against climbers it is not route setters we're hoping and praying that climbers fall off it's roots that is creating an environment in which to showcase the talent of these finalists generate some separation through some slips bulbs create some risk create some uncertainty a great expression from a friend of mine is that they put all the athletes in a boat and push them out into the water and what happens in the water is up to the climbers and that is the x factor is what the climbers are going to do on any given day so if you think because climbers are flashing boulders it's because the roots are too easy that's not a thing no i assure you the boulders are very difficult if miho nanaka is not topping a builder [Music] so what you have is a couple of climbers who are having absolutely standout starts to their season and then yanya who is an absolute standout performer so climbers pulling down boulders and the route setters have done an absolutely phenomenal job all weekend long natalia nicely establishing on this number three boulder for the women you saw she kind of climbed up into that last orange taped hold establishing all four points on and coming into this stem position now she's gonna have to rock across here and kind of hold on as tight as she can and really use her hip flexibility here to get into that top hole it is a good hole that they're finishing on but this isn't precarious it's super insecure one two fingers wow very impressive another flash from natalia grossman absolutely reading that boulder to perfection and i mean an interesting take uh it was supposed to be more of a dynamic movement to the finish i mean not necessarily the only way but maybe a more secure way to kind of stand up into it but she she kind of just let herself use a little bit of her reach and hip flexibility and just trusting those feet you can't do that without trusting the feet there and really nice execution there great foothold it's really bad it's really bad it slopes away it slopes down it's dual it's a slippery texture on the other side all those holes are dual textured with friction side slippery side it was a risky move but it paid off and it's again it's your comfort level right whatever you're more comfortable with you can make things happen just in case you thought the boulder was easy it was an excellent rock climber slips there just creating the opposition between those two holes they're fairly far away from each other you do have to push quite hard and we mentioned earlier uh again in the men's round when you have to apply a lot of pressure you run the risk of slipping out so there is a there's some things we're gonna say that sound counter-intuitive sometimes you cannot push hard enough sometimes you can push too hard uh it's gonna sound like we're disagreeing with ourselves but every boulder presents its own set of circumstances that they need to adapt to and that's the beauty of climbing it really isn't sasha gale figuring out that lower section this time now i'm just gonna have to figure out how she can get to that top hold in a secure manner already looking like she's not so psyched on that right foot into the more dynamic way but didn't bring that left hand with her if she had she might have been able to save it better but a good an easy fix just plenty of time yep and what you're getting is the the hold we'll point it out when we get back up there but the whole the second last hold they need to move from left to right and the farther they go from left to right the worse that hold gets so it's great when you're far to the left of it because you can lean back on it imagine you lean back on a door frame and then as you move across it it just gets progressively worse and worse and worse to the point of which it's no longer providing any help and that's the transition where you need to now trust the right foot which we've said is not very good and then moving to the finish hold so although natalia made it look academic there is complexity in the way that this boulder finishes and see what stacia can do two minutes is on definitely enough time to go up and make those adjustments she's taking a good amount of time to think about it a good brush just a deep breath or two to get re-centered and that's another thing about climbing in general it's sometimes hard to tell when things are hard because when you do things well they look easy even though you're trying hard and that's something that can always translate to the viewer but it's good to note that just because things look easy they're very difficult yes so this is what we're talking about she needs to transition way to the left because that's where the opposition is and then there's a point of almost no help but that is excellent work from sasha really nicely done by sasha gayle going with that static uh option as well as long as you can trust your feet it definitely works really nice adjustment there for her it looks like she forgot something but able to get it from the judge really great execution and nice to see another top for sasha gayo as we mentioned she is coming back off of some time off so she's just finding her rhythm again and she's spent a lot of time kicking around semi-finals and finals on the world cup circuit so she's in a familiar spot it's just been a minute since she's been there brook rabbit two comes out the crowd wakes up again two tops looking for three taking a second to center herself before getting on this boulder she knows it's been flashed already for natalya getting back to that isolation zone in a matter of seconds nice safety great shape hyper gravity gotta get into this first section of the boulder and again with the knee palm three in a row she's a bit low on the left foot but i think she can probably maneuver through that again really confident on her feet which we've seen from a lot of the women here tonight and throughout this weekend and the last weekend it's a skill that clearly everybody's practicing see if she's gonna go with that more static method it might be harder for her to get into a static position almost able to see if it just falls out of it at the last second we saw an italian sasha kind of reach to it a bit more and brooke being a little shorter she's not gonna likely be able to get her fingers on the hole before she starts to fall into that shoulder but what she just did is definitely something that she can make work she just kind of fell out of it at the end and honestly considering how that boulder started with her having to do a quick save to be able to have that composure in order to even continue to attempt and then adjust on the fly again later was really impressive so she should be able to clean it up a bit on this attempt i agree i said a lot of work i kind of went on a roll for a second spot on all the way through good gravity um there is an interesting layer in a round where boulders are getting flashed is that when you don't flash a boulder you put yourself behind even though you get a top so there is pressure now in number of attempts to tops and brooke is really really really going to want to get this one oh she is able to reach over there nicely just barely every inch of her reach nicely done by brook rabbit very happy with that finish because the crowd is excited to see another top in the women's final yes a little bit of a contrast to the men's final not as many tops but more tops in the women's but fight for both all the way through nice smile there from brook rabbit to as she finishes women's number three and an interesting ride for the crowd here and especially when you get a crowd where you don't necessarily have a thousand seasoned finals viewers is that they're gonna think that the women's final is maybe more exciting because people are grabbing the tops of boulders whereas the men's bottle was a nail biter because one top would flip-flop the entire leaderboard so from us from our perspective we're here to tell you that just because you're not topping boulders doesn't mean the round isn't spicy so they're giving us completely different experiences and i kind of love it yeah the separation has just been so good throughout the entire weekend right like even though like you just said the boulders weren't being topped as much those men were separated very well in that final and you're seeing it here with the women as well a little more of a dynamic approach as you might have come to expect from orianne this is uh in her style is to try and do something springy and dynamic and uh i think she got close enough that she might try that again and that method definitely could work she just needs to have a little bit more power on her next attempt but we'll see if she decides to repeat that movement or go with something else [Music] she's going with it again no she wound it up and then slowed it down exactly just kidding just kidding not predictable no that's uh making predictions is dangerous we try really hard but we uh get foiled by climbers doing unexpected things fairly often orien here making this transition just the the two-finger save is becoming a hallmark of this boulder quick work from audience yeah really nice climbing there from heard puts her in a much better position having two tops now that was a great adjustment and she definitely tricked us by winding up a bit making us think she might try to go um with more of a coordination dynamic approach where she actually ended up adjusting to a dynamic then static press approach but we're gonna get a really good look at she moved very quickly to match that well if you think about it too right the more you get into that right shoulder on that hole the more secure you're gonna be hang there with just the two fingers for too long you might end up in the wrong spot miho just taken a second to figure out which boulder holder am i standing under right now it is a little different as the women's number three is right next to women's number four so it's easy to get confused yeah and you're uh you're coming you're running out you're staring into the sunshine shoulder strength execution there again with the leg press she needs to get that right foot up and she'll be in a nice secure position lots of stemming yeah in this day of climbing lots of careful movement uh precise footwork the root centers have chosen to test precision and careful movements now just along the bottom of your screen the scoreboard three zones from her just needs to kind of teeter over here oh almost able to save it looks like her feet were starting to slip a little bit so she wasn't able to be in as good of a position as she needed to to get some real purchase on that finish hold it is wild how much sunnier it is this weekend than last weekend we were literally shivering last weekend and now everybody is just blazing in the sun but it's the same for everyone so they're all dealing with the same conditions yeah outdoor comps add that layer of weather of course the wall is shaded if it rained it was uh you know it wasn't going to be affected and in fact it did rain last weekend and added just a little bit of humidity to the situation but there's been a breeze for the most part uh and climbing outside is a regular occurrence on the world cup circuit there's lots of venues that have outdoor but some of them are really hot there's a couple places that turn into green houses and so this is a a really nice venue a really great job here in salt lake city to host back-to-back events oh yeah niho working her way back towards this top i would expect the adjustment to be correct try to go more dynamic than the previous time kind of moving that shoulder around she did have a shoulder injury a few seasons ago that i believe is healed up but you know older injuries can you know you can feel them again occasionally but specific movements can wake up old kids yeah notice it a bit more than if you never had any kind of injury there but really efficient here at the bottom it it just looks like she either needs to commit to going more static to that finish hold or just really go for it and actually go full dynamic bring those two hands over and not fiddle with that left hand on that lower half moon volume just be a little bit more oh and just maybe uh she's just holding that right shoulder quite a bit just needs to be a little bit more precise a little bit more definitive in her movement at the end of this folder and she just looks she's momentarily unsure she sorry no no i was gonna say she is also putting a lot of pressure on that very first move on her shoulder she's really slamming her right hand into it let's see if she can make it happen going a little more static nicely done by mihonanaka she'll be very happy to have a top there absolutely just showing that there's a mental resilience no matter how good you are or how many competitions you've been in where you have to get back up off the mat give it one more try even if you think that you might not even be in a podium position anymore you want to show everybody watching that you've got it in you to dig down deep every time you need to so it's when you're having a tough round it's hard but mijo showing absolutely why she's been around this sport and been successful for so many years is because she does have that gear to grow and fun exactly and tough rounds are part of the game right you it it's easy to you know succeed when your rounds are going so well but it's you you learn more you learn this resilience and that extra try-hard ability from those rounds that break you down a bit more so it's a good good life skill to have if you want to stay around on this circuit the way she has yeah and even for you you know in in the gym at home when you're getting frustrated by a boulder and you want to walk away and maybe you just want to try it next time go back and give it one more shot put a little bit of uh that try hard that miho just showed us and see how much that'll improve your climbing honey just a little finger flex to make sure that everything is in optimal position a little more wind to the fingers before she sets up for this last move reading this boulder nicely going into it very dynamically i was hoping she would do that now she definitely had the top it's funny when people slip after they've established on the top it then makes it seem as though they didn't but she definitely had the top i i wouldn't argue with that no me neither i mean likely someone will still appeal because that's what happens but if i were calling this she was in control she just slipped afterwards this this catch is remarkable this yeah that's a 100 top but a great save unexpected to come swinging around like that but not unexpected for it to be a save from yanya so a lot weighing on boulder number four natalia grossman still sitting at the top of the leaderboard brooke rabatu right behind and then tied right now is yanya garnbret for that third position so this is spicy it's very spicy and this last boulder that the women are gonna get on is pretty powerful um they're gonna kind of start on the start holds and then work their way into the uret go through some sloppy volumes then there's a dynamic jump into a pretty good flat hold and then followed by this palm press and then the end shouldn't be too difficult but it's a slow kind of lock off and you're gonna have to hold a bit of a barn door at the top which i mean they've proven that they're very good at it the women have been showing us that no problem natalia grossman boulder number four we are into the last boulder at the finals here in salt lake city and watching natalya grossman basically announcing her arrival on the women's circuit this is where that dynamic movement's going to come up looks like she's going for it oh not doing the pong for crash she's actually gonna go straight into the zone looking for a perfect round here if she's able to top nobody will be able to catch her and she'll be solidifying a another gold medal world cup win she thought she was dreaming last weekend can't wait to see what she says this weekend i mean we talked about this earlier unless you come out and flash every boulder in the final and end up in first place there's always something to complain about but nothing here for natalia grossman i'm going to try really hard not to cry so is she natalia grossman is absolutely in her element this is an excellent show of climbing on boulder number four you are climbing against the best climber of our generation in yanya garbret and you know that this needs to be a flash in order to maintain the top of the leaderboard and she just came out and made it happen all over this boulder she really did and you can see just even right there her face is scrunched up in joy the buzz there is a feeling now in this building and i i cannot help but think that yanya is gonna be kicking herself for those two minor slips getting established on the starboards things that she normally wouldn't have to worry about at the end of the day though it will be a really good learning experience for her because you can never be too careful and going into this olympic year i mean she yanya another qualified olympic athlete has to be thinking about everything and being so specific about every portion of her climbing so to have this happen here it'll be something to learn from for her and only make her stronger sasha gayle trying to figure out how to get into this zone hold she really needs to come in first she's kind of too stretched out not impossible i mean this is going to be adjusting right now that was a really good climbing decision there you go now she's gonna need to figure out if she wants to just go double to that zone or go into the palm press she was long enough to keep the toe which honestly is more of a trap because even if you do releasing if she was able to get in a palm press and one hand on that zone hold releasing that would be quite a crazy swing so it's going to be better if she can get out of that before she even before she gets to the zone sometimes you can trap you into a sequence or into an area where you think you've done the right thing not necessarily we saw that on the fourth uh semifinal boulder was like that too it sent quite a lot of the climbers into the of being handcuffed and backwards so here we saw stacia get handcuffed uh with her feet really that you know sort of an entire body handcuff and see if she can make the adjustment [Applause] you have to decide to use the bad part of the hold sometimes and that's root centers often ask you to do the thing you don't want to do but have to do instead of doing the thing you want to do which is to grab the good parts exactly so powerful oh really nice sequencing there from sasha gales really really good work it's important to use every part of your skill set to your advantage and she size that up and he's like i think i can do that move by gastoning that zone hold i am long enough to make that happen and that's great decision making there still had to fight for it and was able to make it happen see if she can get her two hands on the top she doesn't need to grab that screw on it's just more secure so she's gonna go that safer route and make sure she gets to that screw-on and what a way to end the round for sasha gayle great entree back into the circuit after dealing with so much with that injury having to miss out on world championships the to lose combined event and then missing the olympics by one spot in moscow so to end this round with the top it's great climbing there yeah she's uh definitely still in the mix in the women's circuit it's interesting you see the different approach to the last move where you saw natalya get perched all the way in the zone hold and basically be established and just need to make that finger tip match and especially there having to climb into the finish hold [Applause] climbing as well as anybody could have expected she's having a really great round here tonight a little slip ups here and there in terms of attempts but she's been quite efficient all around two attempts on boulders one and three to get a top and flashing women's number two she'll be looking to get a flash here i'm sure again having sequenced this earlier the women can get on the boulders a lot quicker than they do in the earlier rounds they kind of already have a game plan so they just need to execute and hope that how they read it from the ground is the way that it's actually supposed to be climbed but right now looking really comfortable and kind of cruising through just falls out of that tow hook really quick and you're you're tow hooking on the side of the wall which is flat and has no texture so it's not that that's it's not a bad idea it's just insecure and it doesn't take much to to pop out the little bit of friction that you're getting off the shoe rubber just uh asking a lot of your foot when you're making a drop down move like that and they're big sloppy holes like this is a big compression a powerful move but still almost smiling yeah she definitely has fun out there and she's always had a really good outlook when it comes to climbing it's all about how she feels on the boulders not really about the placement so i think that just sets you up to really climb to your potential when you're not so focused on how you end up ranking but more so about how you're climbing on each boulder trying to figure out how she's going to approach this dynamic movement the determination so close yeah dialed in yeah she never really saw that on her face staring down that hold she was in the right position she just needed to get that left hand a little bit higher but climbed through that earlier sequence sequence much better really great adjustments from her first attempt to her second plenty of time to keep moving through this boulder problem there are implications here for the silver medal yeah she really needs to definitely get control of the zone and a quick replay of her going for that you saw that her left hand was so close to hitting the lip but she was just a little short she's gonna add a little power to this attempt in order to make sure she gets set up better to get both hands on that zone hold and continue on throughout the boulder again really determination here on her face not getting as you just needs to be a little higher a little more vertical out of that jump same amount of right to left and just a little bit more up and uh a minute and change to go brooke just needs to find a bit of composure here she definitely has the capability we know that she can do a boulder like this maybe it's just a small adjustment in footwork is it a small adjustment where that left hand is sitting or the right hand is sitting only she knows for sure and this would be a surprising adjustment to make because she's pretty close but if she does go into that palm press with the left hand it it might suit her better not sure she sequenced it that way oh looks like she's going to slide off there if you're running out of gas this is a burly boulder that compression move is going to take something out of you so brook gravitude [Music] gonna go for a heel hook quickly deciding that's not the way to see if she can get a little more power just looking for something wow will get this zone does she have enough time to talk she really needs to move quickly oh my gosh this is so exciting sorry everyone i'm freaking out oh wow that was some crazy movement just wow great fight from brook rabbits the amount of strength to hold that we call that an iron cross so hold that stretched up position just watch here look at how stretched out she specifically is being not super long when it comes to her arm length really fighting just not enough time to make it happen but keeping it really exciting yeah that was a remarkable show of grit from brook rabbit two on boulder number four and you cannot turn off the switch when you are in a final with yanya you just you can't you can't take your foot off the gas you need to fight for every single inch and she absolutely did there and uh kept it interesting for sure orian berton now i think this boulder will suit her well honestly maybe better than the other ones in this round um i feel like she has a lot of power in these positions and she's clearly no problem being dynamic yeah she's a springy climber so i could see her getting a flash here immediately looking quite comfortable here you see that a lot of bend in that left arm allowing her to wind up moved in the right position just a little low on the zone if she can on her next attempt grab it higher on the hold itself and then also pull into it more with her shoulders and her biceps that'll put her in a better position to hold that swing but as i expected really nice climbing through that bottom section not really struggling that much and reading it really well really well so a quick look at the leaderboard here to see natalia grossman on top and brook rabbit two yanya yet to climb stacia there in fourth and orianne and with the the ability to move into fourth with the top of this boulder i believe and then mijo two zones on the first two on a top on boulder three also yet to climb the crowd is giving orianna boost they want to see people on top of boulders and the climbers definitely appreciate it it's been uh it's been a while since we've had a thousand people shouting at climbers seriously and she's so comfortable in knee bars it's really fun to watch her style of climbing man something that will only get better yeah and it's um it's a mix between body movements and dynamic movements and just decision making quick decision making adjusted just as we thought she would and just trying to figure out how exactly she wants to go to the finish of this women's number four taking that same process approach as natalia grossman and gonna end with the top orion verton very very good climbing not gonna get her on the podium but fourth place i mean three finals in a row this season on the podium last weekend on the podium in myringan in second place so off to a wonderful sixth i'm gonna say it again 16 years old you see a a huge hug there she knows that natalia has wrapped this comp up and they are absolutely happy for each other something we talked about before is that men are also happy for each other they're just less expressive of it you see them definitely high-fiving each other and congratulating each other pat's on the back good performances all around and the women just tend to be more quick to express very expressive and it again we've talked about this a lot it's just so great to see in this sport it's such a competitive sport the athletes are so strong wow that's safe that was very good very good uh reaction to what was happening we know she has great reactions considering her speed performance this weekend and i wonder if we're seeing a little bit of the speed wow more of the intended beta there perfectly executed yeah see how high she got on the zone hold no doubt she was gonna stay on through that swing and she's just gonna very calmly press her way into the pinch and a very nice way for me to end the round only pride in it but pride is a big deal and not the round she wanted but she again i think is a climber who really thinks more about how she's climbing versus necessarily the ranking she has another goal in mind this summer the olympics and all of this is still training so when you can get into a final and fight in the final i think you're always in a good place absolutely and having podiums in speed this is just showing that she can fight uh in multiple disciplines and that is a big confidence boost going into the combine and into the olympics and we're down to it yanya gombret the last climber in the round uh unexpectedly for her uh gold medal is off the table but a silver medal is on the table and just wait and see what danya can do here i'm interested to see specifically what her approach is to that dynamic move in the middle also looks like she kind of forgot about that or there for a second but a nice quick fix right there but i can see i i almost could see her doing more of what miho just did with that palm press but perhaps she'll just jump right to the zone hold but we'll have to see we're about to see straight to the zone hold perfectly executed gonna take a second and compose herself yeah in control you are gonna see [Applause] the rest of her body reacts so quickly and that is just something that cannot be learned easily she that that is so specific to her climbing style and it's so cool to see we're absolutely privileged to have been able to watch her climb uh and just because she's not in the gold pedal position because you expected her to be because she's done it so many times uh natalia grossman needed to bring the best performance she had just have a look at look really the extension you see from yanya to get up to finish this boulder in absolute style this is a good look at the power she has in store look at that left hand just controlling the movement [Music] natalya grossman is the story of the weekend when you are climbing in a final with yanya garnbret you have to have to approach every boulder has a flash in order to give yourself even a hope of competing with her and she absolutely did that today maximum respect to natalia grossman maximum respect to yanya brook rabbatu oriyan berton stashigeo and miho nanaka you were treated to a wonderful wonderful final on the women's side so here's a look at our leaderboard rook rabbits in third presentation here [Applause] [Music] [Applause] from slovenia your silver medalist yanya darnbrett and once again second comp in a row look at that smile natalia grossman the roof if there was one would be coming off natalya grossman winning back to back in salt lake city great look at the excitement in the crowd here they cannot stop smiling this is a real wonderful wonderful arrival performance showing the american program is doing some things right to make these podium appearances very consistently across the start of the season and wonderful to see the emotion here between teammates brooke and natalya so excited for each other first and third here in salt lake city and you see a few of the volunteers obvious they're people they know from the community orianne so excited for them as well just off the podium this time but a bright career ahead i have no doubt about that [Music] let me just see we want to get natalya over for a quick interview she's more focused on basking in the joy with her friends after that performance so one last look at the perfect final from natalia grossman four tops in four attempts absolutely right on her heels nothing in it but a couple of attempts on boulders one and two from yanya voters that she would then go on to complete uh in quick fashion brook rabbit two just missing a top on boulder number three orian bertone with three tops having trouble on boulder number two along with stacia also having trouble on boulder number two and then miho nanaka who put in a wonderful performance on speed on friday fought her way into a final and then climbed very very well indeed to come out in sixth place with two tops and let's hear from natalya now she chats with megan natalia three podiums in a row two gold medals in a row you were calm cool and collected the whole time how did you handle the pressure out there honestly going first i think just like allowed me to have fun and have no pressure the whole time and yeah well it definitely looked like you were having fun out there the whole time when you were approaching that last boulder did you feel like you were gonna be able to flash it or did you have a little bit of hesitation going into it um i tried to be just as confident as possible but it was like the problem that i thought was gonna be the hardest because it had like a little jump which is not always my forte so yeah would you say that having one last weekend gave you a bit more confidence going into this weekend yeah i think i had a little more confidence this time but after 70s i was feeling pretty wrecked so i didn't really know what to expect in finals and now last weekend you said winning the world cup was a dream come true what would you call this weekend um i don't know like it doesn't feel real it's a dream times two i guess well i can assure you it's real and you are a two-time back-to-back weekend gold medal world cup bouldering champion and huge congratulations and i can't wait to see you on the rest of the circuit thank you wonderful to see natalya grossman um standing in on the big screen in front of this home crowd and showing the composure that you need to develop if you're going to keep winning comps you're going to keep getting interviewed right afterwards and that is something to look forward to so uh peyton attention to the young american climbers they have arrived we are just waiting to get the podium set up here we'll do the presentation of the medals a reminder that our next event is going to be in innsbruck the 23rd to the 26th of june and that's going to be boulder and lead an interesting combination especially for the combined athletes heading into the tokyo olympics [Music] america one and three sneaking in for that second place it's funny to see young sneaking into a second place position um well deserved but very very [Music] what's close and now well if you did not watch the men earlier this afternoon it was a a hard fought battle a lot less tops but a lot of good climbing sean bailey with his first gold medal over kokoro fuji in second place one top in three zones and then tomoa narasaki with two zones and a top to take in third place yoshiyuki ogata zak gala and maximilian rounding out the men's field in what was a completely different but equally entertaining final round a little bit earlier this afternoon in salt lake city you can go back and watch that uh on the youtube channel they will be up in replay as will the women's final you can go back and watch the semi-final as well uh really really good climbing in those rounds in order to get 20 climbers down to six that's what it takes to win a world cup you've got to fight your way through in this case 60 climbers get the job done stand yourself on a podium so wonderful to see sean bailey as well the american program producing some really really really good climbing this weekend just waiting for megan to come back and see what uh she thought about talking to natalya right on the heels of this victory i hope you enjoyed the coverage this weekend we're gonna have a look at our podiums here and i believe what we're doing here this is all the olympic qualified athletes who are here this weekend so we brought them all out this is the showcase these are the athletes they're going to be climbing in the olympics the combined athletes boulder lead and speed it's really exciting too to have a chance to see all these athletes and for them to have a crowd of people that they know and are they might not know everybody but at least there's coaches fellow teammates like things that you're not gonna get in tokyo because it's likely that there won't be an audience and definitely or not and it's still like there might not be an international audience so this might be the only time to have some familiar faces in the crowd for these athletes that have achieved so much by being able to compete in the olympics you're right a great moment for them in front of this crowd [Applause] 21 of them i think are here this weekend and that's the number that's a significant grouping barely over half but because at the olympics there will be 20 men and 20 women totaling out 40 athletes total really difficult to get into that top 20 in each gender it was a grueling year and then some postponement of some of those invitations to the olympics and then we had a couple of them here who went home so we've had you know adam andrew went home as did shauna coxy we're here on the first weekend and unable to compete this weekend [Applause] on the left of your screen is always a big character oh yeah [Applause] really nice look out across the venue that we had on hand so thankful for so many people to come out and support these athletes that have worked so hard and have been waiting to compete in front of a crowd again just so nice that that could happen here and two great exciting weekends mikhail just you know throwing a few flips in for everybody to be more entertained by as if finals were not entertaining enough so let's just throw in a few flips a nice pack on mijo's shoulder and hopefully that's just preventative she was favoring it a little bit over the last couple of holders they were super shoulder intensive but she was able to top the last boulder so nothing too serious i think uh megan the emotion coming off of natalya there was evidence yeah as she topped that boulder it was like an automatic moment of oh my gosh i can't believe that this just happened again and also it's not even just standing on top of the podium again but to have a perfect day of climbing you don't get that in competitions that often in general let alone a world cup and then after winning gold the weekend before it's just so much that is just so rare and i'm glad we didn't say anything about the perfect round before it happens that's a jinx that i want no responsibility for i am with you on that one just uh giving it a minute here to get to the podiums the presentation of the flowers we do right away just to give them a moment back in front of the crowd and then we bring the podiums out and give us a little bit of time to go and get the medals and uh some actually really nice if you if you didn't watch uh the finals last weekend the trophies that they've got here in salt lake are really a nice touch uh you often see interesting local the the host country tends to make their own trophies so it often has a local flavor and the salt lake city ones are no exception we'll get a good look at that in just a few minutes and if you're looking at the top of the wall the way kind of the mountain range is the trophies kind of reflect that even which is pretty cool to see if you're not familiar with salt lake city if you're watching from you know parts abroad salt lake city is a a really interesting spot uh because it sits in a bowl it's surrounded by hills and mountains there's great skiing here there's great climbing uh just 20 minutes out of town so a really good spot to usa climbing move their headquarters to their new training center is here this is the where the hub of usa climbing is and the difference in having all of the athletes training closer together more regularly you start to see maybe a little bit of the difference in the european model where the geography is less of a factor for national teams to train together more regularly and do not discount the ability to climb with other world cup level athletes on a regular basis something that uh sean mccall said last weekend is that in your basement when you're training or in your home gym uh if you're the best climber there you might try a move and think well that's impossible and there's no one beside you to step up and say no it's not watch i'll do it and then force you to dig deep and find another gear so that friendly consistent competition is super super important yeah you are blessed if you live in a place where there are a lot of strong climbers that can push you because the only way to get stronger is to climb with people better than you and like you just said that is a great example of that self-doubt that because maybe you haven't seen somebody else do it it doesn't mean that it's not possible but the minute you see somebody else you switch into gear up oh okay and even if you don't see someone uh do the mover if they're far far ahead of you in terms of level you can also just watch the way they do it with ease and then you can be like well if they did it that easily i should at least be able to do the move you know fighting a bit harder in some instances you also need to consider that you have to set your own motor problems and when you're here in uh when you're surrounded by world-class route setters as a lot of national programs will have national level route setters around setting world cup style boulders that's going to layer in as well so there's lots that go into creating world-class athletes and the american program has uh suddenly done that and just wanted to give a nod we talked about the root setting a lot jamie cassidy was the chief first time chiefing back-to-back boulder comps um a huge undertaking huge undertaking and if you know anything about root setting you know that it is such a grueling process they not only get on the boulders but they have to put the boulders up move those volumes some of them weigh so much and so to take that on two weekends in a row as the chief is so impressive and the creativity involved you walk up to a blank wall and a pile of holes on the ground and you need to create uh the the stage on which the climber's going to perform across two weekends across three rounds each weekend um we're looking at in the neighborhood of 60 boulders getting put up so uh jamie different slightly different crew each weekend but our route setting crew here did an absolutely phenomenal job this weekend yep they absolutely crushed it both weekends and it was cool to see just the diversity of the boulders different styles really testing that well-roundedness from each athlete and really really cool to see just how the sport is progressing it's just the level gets higher every year and i don't see any sign of it slowing down no i agree with you that the the climbers keep getting better so the routers keep getting better to test the climbers and the climbers do what they're supposed to do and we're in this wonderful loop of uh an arc going upwards and their route setters are finding ways to bring out the best and put on shows like we just got today and um i'm going to point to men's boulder number four the slam dunk final move uh they often can set showier boulders in the final if they've created separation in the semifinal where they know there's no ties in a count back then they will sometimes set slightly showier and what we got there on boulder number four was uh an absolutely exciting swing and women's bull number four as well you got to have a hop dyno i mean i we could break them all back down for you and and you would be uh treated to uh a class in a root setting this weekend totally and to talk more about boulder number four for the men it was just such creativity kind of a combination of some moves we've seen before in other competitions but to put it all together in one boulder was pretty incredible and just so exciting to watch and usually the more showy the boulder like that in a final the more people top it so it was cool to see that it was just pretty difficult on top of being kind of showy yeah exactly we just uh we having a moment waiting to get we gotta bring all the athlete we to collect them all back up again back there they got it you know they're they're busy chatting there's climbing is we haven't evolved to the point where we're allowed to keep people segregated from each other so there's a lot of friends congratulating friends which is great love it just makes it a little longer to get people onto the podium but don't worry our mcl is just dancing for everybody to keep them excited and around to see this amazing podium of women that fought hard in every round this weekend 100 i said i encourage you to go back and watch the men's final if you did not see it i encourage you to go back and have a look through the semi-final just to see how hard these athletes had to work to climb tonight in front of this crowd and to put on the show that you were treated to this evening it was actually pretty funny too because natalia right after our interview she she was like after 70s i couldn't even lift my arms cause i said i was like you're happy you fought really hard during that semi-final round huh and that was her response was i couldn't even lift my arms afterwards but hey that didn't stop her from doing every boulder and flashing everywhere exactly and that uh it goes to show you that doesn't matter where you are when you step out in the final whether you're sixth fifth fourth third second first you just i was gonna only do a couple that i thought i'd come this far i've come this far i'm gonna do all the numbers it doesn't matter where you come out from behind the wall if you top all the boulders uh you've uh increased your odds greatly of taking home a gold medal though it's definitely comforting to come out in a higher spot sometimes i think it's nice to come out first right nobody's gotten on the boulders everything you do you're gonna get a cheer from the crowd it almost takes some of the pressure off to like perform a bit better so i always think that that's like an interesting aspect of just that whole reverse running order you kind of have more ground to make up in the sense of how you qualified even though it doesn't carry over but like internally you feel like you have more opportunity to show everybody that you can be better in this round and you can kind of put it all out there like with more ease there's less pressure as if you're waiting behind hearing someone flash flash top of boulder the pressure just builds and builds and builds and builds so there's something to be said about coming out first yeah i agree with you and the crowd is excited to see newness so sometimes when you come out uh sixth as the top qualifier and someone's topped a couple boulders the crowd's like yeah i've seen it what do you got for me lately now i've seen this boulder get topped so they will they pretty much always cheer for you but you sometimes turn around and go wait a minute um i thought people aren't super super excited for me and it's well we've seen this done before and that sometimes happens so you're right the order of events has a little bit of a factor and it is a lot of what you make of it so what is your own internal process how do you approach finals how do you approach the job that needs to be done and if you're natalia grossman uh last weekend and this weekend the job that needs to be done is stomp all over boulders exactly so impressive how efficient she was and how composed she was it's funny too because i remember um doing an interview with her not too long ago and she kind of mentioned this competition back in 2018 where alex puccio had to top i believe the final boulder unveiled to win and she talks a lot natalia about the composure she saw and alex in that moment and she she'd referenced it a few times and how it really inspired her to get her mental game more together and so it's really cool to see how that has kind of played out in these last two weekends that is an excellent little piece of information and that's if you're a young climber pay attention at all times we're going to do our men's podium first [Music] [Applause] getting everybody where they're supposed to be [Music] third place your bronze medal tomoa narasaki who i believe is standing on the wrong podium but it's okay it's of no never mind there's a good look at that trophy the mountain range here in salt lake city perhaps we should switch those just little place mats in front and your silver medalist also from japan kokodo fuji [Applause] also showed a lot of composure through the final half of the final round and the boulder's got really so much composure both weekends in a row really great adjustments that he made and then your winner gold medal from the usa sean bailey absolutely put down a clutch performance on boulder number four to secure himself this gold medal that he is very very happily putting around his neck it's always so nice when you can see years of hard work come together in a moment like this and exciting to see sean on the very top of this podium in front of a home crowd [Music] [Music] [Applause] really nicely done by the men i'm gonna stand up there for a few more more photos drink it all in take your moment in the sun as the sun is finally setting take your moment out of the sun we're on the podium and now the sun has gone away these are the temperatures in which you'd want to be climbing those last couple holders for [Applause] [Applause] okay did you get enough photos of me i'm ready to go can i move along now please and thank you um [Applause] just waiting for the women to start moving out here i think we were able to wrangle all of them it's always like that earlier a little tricky to get everybody in the right spot looks like we've got them we found them by we not not the two of us no we didn't do anything we didn't do anything in the international federation and aaron mendenhall mayor and here is your bronze medalist from usa brook rabbitshield two bronzies in a row last weekend here in salt lake as well really great climbing from her all weekend lots of fight to the very end i'd love to see it [Applause] phenomenal athlete on another podium with another medal we often see her in that number one spot but great climbing from her today great progression towards the beginning of this circuit as she prepares for the olympics yeah exactly she has uh finding the balance with the other decisions the disciplines yeah and your gold medalist two weekends in a row from the usa natalia grossman she said it was a dream come true times two [Applause] looking to create more consistency in this world cup circuit as she has been on three podiums in a row and showing no signs of slowing down and now the national anthem of the united states of america [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] and another look at your women's podium gold medalist natalia grossman two back-to-back world cups where she's walking away with a win yanya garden brett in silver brook rabbit two in third both yanya and brook will be at the olympics this summer so much exciting climbing tonight from the women and the men and we will be back in june in innsbruck austria for our next world cup stop bouldering and lead make sure you check back in uh in about a month's time i had an absolutely wonderful time this weekend and last weekend uh megan martin thank you for sitting here with me through all these rounds and applying your knowledge from your experience competing in climbing for so long i really appreciate your knowledge and what you brought this weekend and last it was my absolute pleasure pete hope we get to do it again sometime and i hope you all continue to tune in to these broadcasts make sure you're checking those apps for updates on how all the athletes are doing and please come back and see us again yeah uh thank you for hanging out with us we absolutely enjoyed bringing bouldering and speed climbing into your living room hopefully gaining a little bit of an extra appreciation i'm pete woods thanks for hanging out with us that's gonna do it for the ifsc world cups back to back in salt lake city have a wonderful evening [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Applause] you

Channel: International Federation of Sport Climbing

Views: 420,985

Keywords: Sport, Climbing, Sport Climbing, Climb, Boulder, Bouldering, Rock Climbing, Climbing Gym, IFSC, Meiringen Boulder, Competition Climbing, Salt Lake City, USA Climbing, Salt Lake City World Cup, Salt Lake City Bouldering

Id: 3yM1wjzE-ss

Length: 230min 0sec (13800 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021