IFSC World Cup Salt Lake City 2021 || Boulder semi-finals

yeah we figure out most of the technicals unless it's like a like a weird mystery me [Music] [Music] hello and welcome we are in salt lake city for the second stop on the 2021 ifsc boulder world cup circuit pete woods here joined by megan martin former national team powerhouse megan how are you this morning i'm great pete how are you i'm excellent we had an exciting day yesterday qualifications the root center set some absolute gems we've got to pair that field down from 40 or 50 climbers down to 20 for the semifinals and there was a lot of sports action yesterday it was really exciting and you know world cups never ceased to be competitive you'll notice here today a lot of big names maybe not in the semi-final which you know that just shows how competitive these climbers are and how deep the fields are absolutely and you still have to get now down 20 to six so you're fighting no matter what if you squeak in you're in semis you reset the bar you're in with a shot let's have a look at some of the highlights from yesterday we are in salt lake city for the second stop of the 2021 season of the ifsc boulder world cup a dominant performance from miho nanaka to qualify first on this beautiful outdoor venue here in salt lake city shauna coxey has not missed a semi-final in her entire world cup career so a little disappointed today to not make the semi-final but she remained positive and was excited to be back on the circuit i caught up with her after her round i think for me i've had long gaps in my career anyway due to injury and actually the last year or so i've gone through three different surgeries and i'm still kind of coming off the back of that so yeah i definitely didn't feel as prepared as i would like to coming in here and it's almost like a test to see where things are at and how much i can like push through pain with my back so yeah it was tough out there but it's so good to be back and like see everybody i've forgotten what it's like to be in this environment and yeah it feels so familiar and so good [Music] we are going to see some first-time semi-finalists here in salt lake city tomorrow and i caught up with fanny bear a 10-year veteran on the circuit after qualifying solidly into the semi-final well i'm really happy to discover another city and another atmosphere like it's quite different from vail and of course i have always super good vibes here and i love them to come here and compete here today i really like the wall and i like that it's pretty not that steep but i mean in vail is really steep and i like it also i think the router have all the card in the hands to make things really different [Music] after a quick changeover it was time for the men to pull down on their qualification round sean bailey put in a really good set of holders to get into semis here on his home turf it it's so rad yeah it's weird honestly like i went to iso and it didn't feel like a comp to me so it kind of took me a second to like get into that mindset but you know once you're out here and there's a crowd and everything here for sure yeah that's true yeah and people are psyched so adam andra one of only two men to top all five boulders this afternoon the other yoshiyugi ogata who led a strong showing from the japanese team that we really have come to expect in world cup events sean mccall showed a little bit of rust but he is absolutely focused on his preparation for the olympics these comps are practice practice testing testing practice uh two world cups so i get to you know do the five on five format there's five boulders there's only four the olympics but it doesn't matter there is bouldering at the olympics these boulders are technically going to be harder than the ones at the olympics because they need to account for the overall or the combined competitors so yeah it's testing i haven't put my boots on since fail for bouldering world cups i haven't really been out of my house for a year uh i'm gonna be able to train at the training center the usa training center do these two world cups go home practice some more then head over to tokyo [Music] the last boulder uh i was coming off two tops on three and four uh and then i got my ass kicked on number one and two i thought i controlled zona number two but the judges didn't give it to me and you know i was i knew attempts are valuable even after spending too many attempts on the fourth boulder i came out it looked doable i just committed 100 i almost missed the last hole but i came away with the flash the semi-final boulders are up on this outdoor wall here in salt lake city the only thing we need now is athletes uh they are definitely on the way and we are uh we're blessed with a beautiful day it rained a little bit it rained a lot yesterday didn't seem to affect the athletes too much it doesn't really get didn't get too wet or humid but it definitely it got chilly it got windy definitely got chilly and windy and i think we're really lucky with how big this tent is because any of the rain that was coming in due to wind wasn't getting anywhere close to the wall which was really lucky for the athletes yeah absolutely so get a quick look at the start list here as megan was saying earlier you are going to see a couple of the usual suspects missing uh none of the korean climbers are here uh and then notably absent uh yanya but what we do have is 20 fantastic men and women to climb in the semi-final so just uh if you see some unfamiliar names go look someone up on their instagram give them a follow you make a world cup semi-final uh you're playing in the big leagues it is always a goal and a sigh of relief to make a semi-final in a world cup it's always kind of the most difficult round to get into because it's just so many athletes to begin with to break it down to 20. it's just so hard to get into that 20. yeah and you uh you're always going to get that fatigue factor in qualifications no matter how well you've trained uh their athletes are coming from quite a bit of time off of competition form so training form and comp form it's a little bit different because you can never quite ratchet up the intensity training even if you're running five on five off drills even if you're running mock comps even if you're running something like that uh it's hard to replicate the pressure of this first boulder on a world cup qualification you're so right those nerves it's really hard to replicate them in a training session i think because at the end of the day in your mind you're like oh it's a training session but the minute you step out on to the world cup stage those butterflies just they are instantly there exactly if you're new to climbing or climbing is something that you're just speaking into recently we're gonna the semifinals is going to seem a little bit chaotic what we have is all of the men and all of the women qualifying in a format in which they have five minutes to try a boulder and then they get five minutes rest and then they come out and try their next boulder and they move on one two three four boulders across the wall the men and women climb at the same time so in the middle of the round once all the climbers have come out and everyone's on a boulder there are going to be eight climbers on the wall at any given time we are going to do our absolute best to keep you focused on where the action is happening we are going to have some replays but keep in mind we are going to move around we're going to talk about the boulders as we get to them throughout the round we're going to try and keep you connected as much as possible and luckily we will ease you into it because we won't have eight climbers on the wall for a while so you can get the hang of it absolutely it makes a little bit of sense when you see the first couple of boulders just on their own what we care about and climbing if you're unfamiliar is we care about tops so get to that last hold show control with both hands on the last hold of the boulder problem that's the one marked with the orange tape it says top on it number of tries to get those tops that's our next differentiator in the placement follow that you'll notice on every boulder there is a hole marked with pink tape and it says zone walk us through the zone so the zone is super important because it's the only other way to get points on the boulder so tops are king but then the zone is after that and you're always trying to get to the zone or the top of the boulder in the fewest attempts possible and after talking to the root center some of these starts are actually very tricky so we will probably see a few athletes have issues establishing and lose those attempts right off the bat yeah we are ready to roll our first two climbers we have philip martin from germany on the men's boulder on your left and we have chloe collier from belgium on the right boulder's right side by side almost all the way through the round the men and women are climbing side by side on their boulders exactly and interesting to have both of them starting on a slab right out of the back right out of the gate that's always a little tricky to have to come out and know that you're going to have to move delicately although after talking to the root setters these two slabs are a little more punchy they're not fully slow technical slabs as you see chloe on the right side of the screen kind of running to establish on the start of women's number one yeah that's a it's always it's an interesting perspective on the running start or the moving start you you're allowed to be in motion into the start but you must be in an established position on all the march start holds as we see chloe making really nice work across the street to this uh gaston kind of side press fighting around the corner yeah nicely her working her way into that zone hold looking for a little cheering here from the crowd right off the bat that's what we like to see i like a little the over the shoulder like hey there's sports action happening right in front of you especially when you get a chance to do that feel comfortable enough in a position on a boulder problem you kind of gotta take that opportunity really nice lie back technique that she's showing here yeah and she's easily making it just needs two hands on that top hold in order to get credit for this boulder just have to be sure there you go so a top on your first try we call that a flash so as uh as it goes that's as good as you can start around it's to walk up to your first boulder do it first try it's important to remember these climbers have seen these boulders for the first time as they turn around and walk it under them we call that on-site so they're trying the boulder seeing it for the first time it adds a significant layer of complexity to already difficult climbing i mean it's honestly the biggest layer i feel like of complexity because half of getting through a round is problem solving efficiently if you don't figure out what to do until your last minute it doesn't matter how strong you are you might not walk away with a zone or a top so it's really important to be able to solve that problem as quickly as possible and on top of that the less efficient you are the more tired you get so the more tries you put in on a boulder yes it affects your score as when you get down into that level of scoring but when you consider that they need to climb four boulders five minutes rest five minutes is a long time when you're waiting for your tea to kettle to five minutes is an awfully short amount of time when you've just battled a boulder for you know four minutes and 58 seconds uh so the cumulative effect of attempts really weighs heavy you're gonna watch athletes manage their attempts across this round yeah and i think with this scoring system too it's really interesting you'll see athletes once they're getting tired especially if they're getting the zone but they're feeling like they can't get to the top they might end their tries early just to save energy because if they're not going to be able to top it they can't get any more points in between so it's a nice strategy to make sure you're conserving an absolutely valid point is that if you see climbers walk away before that time is up they're being strategic they are not just giving up on a boulder because they think it's too hard managing your own it's great to have confidence it's bad to have so much confidence that you think i'm gonna send this boulder and you really deep down you know that you can't and all it's gonna do is make you just tired exhausted and frustrated and super frustrated indeed so this boulder problem is very tricky this beginning section it's really uneasy and we're seeing philip have a hard time trying to figure out the right balance point in order to get off of that start hold that left start hold his feet are in such a precarious placement because the textured side is pretty good but that other dual textured side the wood specifically is one of the slipperiest textures that you can see i mean you'll see later on in the round there might be some shiny textures but this is actually the most slippery to stand on so he's having a hard time finding that balance point to get over right and it's really hard to generate momentum when you're standing on essentially the side of a vertical line exactly so he's trying to put some opposition on that blue half and then as you might guess the the hulk that he's going to there's a very very small hole screwed on the top of the hole that they're first reaching to and uh it's not very good definitely not very good though a lot more helpful than if they just had that wood side because again putting your hands on the wood side is even worse than on the shinier holds we'll probably see later the root centers will tell you that's them being nice they're handing it to you a little yeah the definition the root center's definition of nice is a bit uh it's a bit different than what you and i might consider the definition of nice to be all right now we've got hannah mule from germany coming out on women's boulder number one and uh simone lorenzi from belgium on men's number one and what you you're seeing now the progression so everybody starts on boulder number one and they come out from 20th position in the qualification round up to first position so the strongest climbers from the qualification round will come out last so if you uh if you're watching and you're seeing people you know getting through the round like is anyone going to top these boulders you just wait till we get into about uh i mean in some of this field we don't get that far until you we get about six or seven climbers in and we're definitely going to see boulders coming down exactly and so watching haunted mule on the right side kind of struggling to figure out how she wants to get up onto this boulder problem now you have to have your limbs in the right starting positions before you can move on through the boulder so she can climb into it the way she's doing it right now as long as she establishes here and now she's allowed to continue on in the boulder we saw chloe collier actually run into it and stand up which is another option it's another it's just the route setters are i hear people say a lot that it's you know the route setters are you know hoping to to have climbers fall and it's a battle the root centers versus the climbers and it's not it's a collaborative effort to get to a result and what the route setters want to do though is steal effort from you they want to steal attempts from you they want to get in your head a little bit they want to knock your confidence around so they they put in things that make you just think a little bit longer and try a little bit harder and i think we saw that here from hana especially because i mean chloe came back into the isolation area quickly so han is coming out thinking oh this this was sent quickly and so she's getting on two times quickly and falling underestimating the start a little and losing those two attempts which have has already separated the two of them exactly exactly when you see here this transition that she's trying to work her way across any time especially on a near vertical wall like this one where you have to go you know all the way from left all the way to the right and on that the holder left hand is on um there's really nothing the reason why she's over on the right side is because she needs that opposition she needs to pull on that hold and as soon as you come to sort of the plumb line in the middle uh you start to lose the ability to pull on that hold and that's what something like that it looks like that holds it very close together it's really quite difficult exactly and she's honestly misreading it a little bit there she'd be better off going with her left hand to create that gaston because though it might seem insecure to get there once she's there she'll have no problem falling into it whereas while she's trying to cross to turn out of that cross is extremely difficult yeah it's a lot of travel time with terrible feet and you'll uh you'll see that the footwork is critical uh as you get into high level climbing and bouldering the you have to be so precise there's a lot of these footholds hey they're very very small the angles are important so you think oh that foothold's in a good place but the angle you need to push on it with is kind of sending your center of mass in the wrong direction i mean the start of one here is a great example of that you see really everyone wants to stay way to the right but eventually they have to come over and the footholds are not really leading you that way exactly we just saw simone trying to crimp the top of the hold he found like a little crimp on the very top instead of trying to do that thunder cling and kind of grab onto the screw-on that they want the athletes to do which it looks like it might work i'm looking at my fingernails i mean i felt like i i cringed a little bit when i saw that i mean there's nothing like trying to tuck your fingernails down behind a volume and um i mean on the other on the flip side athletes will come off bleeding um they're kind of you know the gloves are off when you're trying to send a boulder looks like he might be going back to the original beta but you gotta have a check right you gotta go see it's better to try more things than not enough things you don't want to get stuck in a box a little tunnel vision yeah which i mean it's interesting i think that's something we'll come back to a few times is you will see athletes because now we see hannah getting that left hand in that sort of over her head press there is a hold in there that she can kind of wrap her fingers around there's a crimp back there she just needs to commit to getting her body weight over on the left side more and honestly if she could get that left foot up and push into it like we saw chloe do earlier you see that body position yeah you just relax almost immediately oh i figured it out i know what position i need to be in i almost think women's number one could be easily underestimated because it looks pretty straightforward and especially with chloe coming out and doing it so quickly everyone's gonna have this idea that oh it's very doable so the minute you're on the boulder and not figuring it out and it feels weird it's easy to get flustered and get tunnel vision and yeah not know what to do and you kind of saw that cause and you're in your own head you have no one to talk to you don't coach you don't have a teammate isolation behind that wall they do not speak to each other they don't talk about the boulders so you are on your own for four boulder problems and it's uh sometimes it's a dark place it's a hard place to be in for and you know it's quite a lot if you're not climbing well there's almost nothing worse than being than knowing that you have to dig yourself out of it there's no one to give you a pat on the back so hopefully you find a way to to produce that for yourself it takes a lot of strong mental training to get through around because you have to just let it go every time you go out and do a boulder you have to let it go no matter what happened because you don't know how other people are doing and it's not over until it's over so you have to keep your mindset strong exactly got orion on women's number one quickly moving into this boulder and kokoro fuji from japan uh these are two climbers you would have expected to have uh qualified closer to the top half of the field for sure to give you an idea of uh how hard things were yesterday exactly but it looks like orion is oh she's jamming she is that's exciting it is she's uh her left hand she's trying to find uh the space between that volume and the side of the wall giving her an opportunity to just wait kind of a camp space looks like knee bar on that right knee with no there's no foot hold under there that's really really just that's a fight that's somebody who wanted a flash yeah really nice climbing great climbing [Applause] so very experienced and again that's only one minute [Music] so people know that it's doable quickly [Applause] these are the boulder number two here uh that uh you see on the left half of your screen that philip martin is about is trying uh this ball that we watched uh the root centers for running this this thing is a punch in the face it really is i mean just from the start honestly you establish the minute you put that other foot onto that start hold you kind of have no choice but to jump pretty quickly because it is a very slippery surface and you have to one hand catch the zone hold this kokoro just slipping off there had made it oh excellent work nice phil martin controlling the zone and then a couple of tiny little crimps here and that hole he was just matching on it's blocked by another hold actually now he's really going to have to stand up into the top hold to get over on the right side of his body but on dual texture with his left or his feet and so it's a little slippery to find that established position so he can actually get two hands on the top yeah and you saw him and he went to that finish hold and there's no he's pushing up underneath it it's very difficult getting into the zone for the first athlete we've seen into the zone here still very unstable yeah an unstable position you're kind of fighting what we call a barn door where your body wants to swing away from the wall and you don't have a lot of the right tools on hand to uh to be able to push back but uh you saw that slip on that foothold it's uh you know even the best climbers in the world sometimes their feet come out front of them when they are pushing really really hard most likely both of the athletes on the screen right now will wait until around a minute to start because this will probably be their last attempts and the fatiguing the boulder that chloe on it is a powerful line very compressiony nicely into that zone hold again those kind of moves are great though because once you do it once it's a very learned move so you should be able to do it after as long as you can figure it out with enough time exactly so we'll see if you can do a little bit more on the finish here as we said you can't you're pushing up and in the top of this hold is dual textured it's slippery the inside is very shallow so you're really just relying on this a lot of balance and i mean thumb strength very very good effort from philip very good effort but that's not gonna be a top chloe figuring out how to get up higher into that women's number two boulder just losing it at the end and not enough time to make it happen but really nice climbing up until then i mean the space between the zone and the top is good for your headspace but doesn't get you anywhere on the point totals yeah it can be a little frustrating that's for sure yeah you're like oh i got one hold i mean one hold from the end is maybe the worst result on a boulder maybe more of one hand on one hand on the finish all right so now we're gonna see uh yam hoyer from germany will be uh your next new climber along with the kylie cullen from the usa one of the strong young american climbers yup and this is kylie's second world cup ever myron good being the first one for her and so her first semi-final it's a great start to a world cup it is an excellent start to a world cup career it's uh it's remarkable um and uh jan hoyer is uh not new not new the bouldering scene uh 29 years old and i think uh going up over 13 podiums in his 10 years of competing on the open boulder circuit is a a strong smart climber very strong smart climber indeed one thing to note about kylie specifically is she is a very talented slab climber and if you look back at her qualifier she basically flashed the boulders that she did and so it's kind of this thing where it's if it suits her she does it super quick and she's likely to flash it right and it's pretty i always think that's pretty cool when an athlete has that kind of uh climbing style in the sense that they're just on when it suits them yeah exactly and you um you you do have to always try and round out the balance of your portfolio as it were but when you come up to a boulder that's in your style um you get that little feeling of oh here's one here's one for me yeah so she's back up quick looks like she miscalculated the little lean over earlier she's trying to reach a little more than just falling into it like she just did yeah a little bit of extra commitment goes a long way and then try i mean we saw the trap earlier where you come all the way around the corner it's hard to reverse so fighting to stay vertical here is important needs to really commit to getting into that next hold and just rocking into her left shoulder to make it feel good just like that and it's uh don't underestimate uh when you have to reach really high up over your head how much extra power that takes and she closes out very very nicely that's a great feeling awesome feeling especially to get that first boulder done it just makes the round so much better yeah now you get to go back with a smile and you know that your competitors know that you've come back in a short amount of time the crowd tells you some information the clock tells you some information but uh other than that you're uh you're just making guesses really gonna get another good look at boulder number two here and a mule [Music] it's a wide we say compression when you're sort of opposing all the time the holds are you know left to right apart from each other and it takes a lot of that interior core strength to stay on boulders like this and i think it's difficult too because unlike their first boulder you don't really have time to think because you're squeezing the entire time right so you really have to think about every move you're going to do before you get on because if you take too long in one position you might end up losing it whereas when you're on more of a slab angle you can kind of think a little longer yeah you can really nice tension there really good and you can't relax too much or you know you uh you start to think of it like maybe i'll just move my left hand a bit and as soon as you lose that opposition and you saw it there that as soon as that toe slipped that was it yeah going for that crimp method on top of that volume again man i guess it's more of a hold but it's right in between it's right in between they're beautiful holds those cheetos climbing is uh it is an aesthetic sport the root setters their goal is to set boulders to separate the field and put on a show for you all however they like to set boulders that look good they really do and with women's number two this is going to be the start of the fatigue of the round yeah so it is smart knowing you have two more boulders to really take your time now he can flag like that but if he touches yeah there's some black tape uh in that you see that black line is an out of bounds zone so you cannot touch anything or the wall on the other side so it's uh very thank you so you can flag in the air uh you're lighting the air space but you cannot touch you get another good look here at simon's top very quickly as far as the point gets into that top hole really nicely and uses that tow hook underneath in order to stabilize to get the match there that is one of the methods and then the other method that i hope someone does is the inside flag yes that's what i want to see we'll explain that to you if we see it yeah it'll be hard here's hoping that we get to see some really funky technique to come on out it's a little bit of a wider view you get a look at the angles of the wall here it is a bit of a more shallow wall than maybe the american uh world cups have been in the past the veil wall was traditionally very very steep but over the course of an entire world cup circuit there are so many variables there's lots of shallow angles there's lots of steep angles uh it's irrelevant to the result uh what the wall looks like because the boulders go on the wall and the climate on the boulder so um yeah you might have you might have tuned in if you've watched bill before and expected to see you know a near roof or a 60 degree wall but uh not this weekend but the cool thing is is like we're seeing right now from philip is that you can create with volumes different angles so we've got kind of a more overhanging angle here just because of the volumes which i think that keeps it really interesting and adds to the creativity of the root setting absolutely sean bailey on the left on men's number one slowly inching just being so careful with those feet you see that i mean anytime a climber slowly falls away you know that the precarious balance point is on like it's been set perfectly exactly oh trying to go with the right hand on the jump as orion pertone is easily working her way up the summer too which honestly looking at this boulder problem i thought this is something she would immediately do well take two oh you did that you did that i did you did that so one thing to note though is that part is very tricky because that last hold where her foot was is dual textured and there is only a little bit of the actual friction side here's a great look at how shiny the foothold is for boulder number two that that uh that you see on i've been waiting to see someone in this mantel chloe's nicely getting into it man she is having a great final so far which is nice to see because i mean she's had great competition results in the past but honestly more recently not as stellar as they could be and you know she's capable so to see her come out like this is just three boulders very strong performance and uh it's great the men got mental the men got him until yesterday now women get a mantle today and it's uh it's a that's a fatiguing move as well so getting that in a limited number of trials is super important especially for the third boulder it makes a big difference if it was the first boulder not too big of a deal but as a third boulder it's kind of a big deal another look at uh kokoto here a little bit different i mean they're gonna try the jump a few different ways because it's it's awkward definitely so they're gonna try a couple of different methods and the jump being the very first move you kind of have the ability to keep trying it quickly and so in the five minutes you can try quite a few times without becoming too fatigued exactly but uh that i mean that's a good effort that the starting foothold the black surface on that volume um i think they spray paint today it's so shiny it is one of the shinier volume that as you can see with that slip luckily it doesn't look like he got a shin orian getting back on to women's number two this is an interesting thing that happens a lot you kind of get through a bottom section of a climb pretty quickly and it's easy to actually forget exactly what you did sometimes and so you'll see athletes from time to time get really high on their first attempt and then struggle to get back up there quick look at the results so far oh on the right hand side we'll it'll come back up lots of times we'll get there uh if you're just joining us we are watching the start of the semi-final round both men and women here in salt lake city p what's here with megan martin going to stay with you all day and give you uh all of the action and there's some right now fuji was able to figure out how to get that jump as orion is moving nicely um now let's see if she decides to stay a little lower this time just fix that footwork and really keep her left foot on that left side all the way around for his top interesting foot placement for him too a little different than what i would have expected left foot on the zone hold it looked good definitely did sean bailey trying to get i mean 10 seconds at this point you're just trying to get a zone right you know you can't help a boulder in 10 seconds but you might get a zone when it's when you really want it it's there yeah and he doesn't know that only one person has gotten the zone on that hole so or that boulder so it's gonna be hard walking back and thinking oh first boulder didn't get the zone it really is hard to come back from that mentally but that's what these athletes are trained to do so yeah i know we say that right it's like it's so difficult well you're a professional athlete uh so at some point you're gonna have to be tested in a way that you don't want to be tested and sometimes that exactly really uh you know sometimes it's the whole round and sometimes it's just a little spot here and there we got uh christoph schweiger on the men's boulder here and we have jessica pilts from austria you'll see a lot of the athletes as they come out immediately grab the brush and start brushing hold especially the further we get into the competition the first athletes don't need to as much just because there haven't been any athletes out there but as we get deeper into this competition the friction becomes a factor a factor yeah oh honey mule quickly getting up onto women's number three just sort of i mean you're kind of wrestling this you see here so so far three bonuses wow really nice really good climbing and mantels are something you either really like or you really hate and i think we'll see that with that boulder problem specifically you'll see a lot of the women either do it really quickly or struggle aggressively to even get up onto the mantel to get out you know that mantle yeah it's such a it's a very specific movement that requires you know a lot more technique you know it's like looking at a muscle up when you see somebody do a muscle up on the on the rings and dynamics you think oh that's you just have to be very strong but you actually have to be there's a bit of technique to it and a mantle is definitely a technique-based burly kind of move and also flexibility is really important when it comes to mentality that hip flexibility to be able to rock up jesse pilts just trying to find that comfortable position there isn't one i mean there isn't one until you finally commit to it and then then realize that it's okay [Music] kylie cullen just trying to figure out the opening moves of women's number three and compression is not one of her stronger suits but definitely something she's been improving on in the more recent years and you know stepping into this adult circuit one of the one of the skills you really have to focus on yeah absolutely you get a it's a good look at the start of uh of men's number three here phillip martin which in talking to one of the root centers earlier was uh called a sloppy lip traverse i mean pretty pretty accurate they're kind of forced to traverse through this bottom section just to get to the zone and in reality he wants to be facing the other direction yeah exactly and there's no footwork there so you're you're just uh your hands are at the same height as your feet really really nice [Applause] i always love when you can see a jump like that done in a various number of ways oh man look at two fingers on that block just hanging in there is he gonna do the inside flag you see maybe looks like he's gonna try to he's thinking i think he's i think it'd be beneficial he's trying to find a comfortable place and then that right foot you can only put so much pressure on that hold um and you need to be careful looks like we have kristoff actually in a really nice position here to rock over uh we haven't seen that yet he's crimping the top and palming underneath yeah which looked like he got it looks like he was gonna work better position actually it's kind of a combo of the betas that we've seen already yeah exactly this is his first world cup semi-final so uh it's uh he's he climbed well in his youth circuit he's only 19 years old so this is uh this is a big stage to come out and try and put your craft on display see if simone can figure out how to get over to this zone this time it's also difficult because you have that black tape on the right side so you don't want to go too aggressively and then get called off right and it costs you an attempt if you touch around i really love that palm press that he's that yawn is doing there that comes from experience that's a really well coordinated move [Music] now kokoro had the left foot on and both kokoro and jana are a bit taller so maybe that is a more comfortable position with the left foot to be able to come into the to lean in a little further to the right yeah but he just doesn't look i'm with the clock running out that's going to do it so nothing doing on boulder one for the men everybody looks hard we are now at the moment where we have eight people on the wall we've made it we've made it there are climbers everywhere at this point and we're going to try to keep the chaos to a minimum yep so what will uh you know as we said we're going to be uh picking and moving around uh on the action we're gonna see you know try and see tops where they're there we have the opportunity for replays uh so that might come into play here and there but we're just gonna stay with you and what you're watching we're talking about so we'll try and uh just keep you connected all the way through this round looks like holly tooth hill on the right is immediately going to go with the running stand [Applause] shawn brushing furiously oh and back it's unsuccessfully but that's a movement that likely you fall on once and then get your second try kokoro moving quickly through men's numbers already on the top i mean yeah so that's two tops in a bone zone for her you see there on the bottom left of your screen uh t in one top one zone it's gonna be two tops into the zone here really nice he looks very comfortable on this boulder really confident on in his footwork and he i mean those holes he looked very comfortable on just kind of traversing through that lip section yeah which isn't surprising no it's nice to see but not super surprising from someone of his pedigree nice overhead shot there and that top hold is also a little sloppy so it's gonna be one you need to go to somewhere else wow really nice flag to just counter that barn door great body control you saw that left leg sort of flag out as megan said and that's a really really good top from koko fuji but that body control just sort of that's a core heavy movement as that foot swings out you want to let it go because you need to have your energy go somewhere but if you swing too far you're off exactly he executed perfectly with that leg using it as like a balance to keep him on the wall love to see it sean bailey trying to figure out the jump almost had it just a little too quick looked like he was going to try and squeeze maybe put a little squeeze in to slow that momentum down on the right hand side of that uh very shiny yellow hole mikal pickle ruaz trying to figure out men's number one which has yet to see a top and rarely seeing a zone yeah oh holly going um on on purpose i'm assuming but but quite dynamically maybe hoping she would just hold the swing there as you watch the left foot of mike michael's foot just greasing off sean bailey on the zone and moving past comfortably on those crimps he's very strong on crimps now i could see him doing an inside flag here possibly to get two hands on but looks like he's gonna try [Applause] to get a little toe hook underneath really nicely done looking at that boulder that jump would be the most difficult part for him likely because he is just so strong on crims yeah exactly he is a wonderful wonderful root climber i mean he is if anything he is a better root climber i think he's got uh he's got a lot of podiums to his name in on the lead side of things but especially in the us when it comes to our the national competitions here often in that number one spot really cool movement on this men's number four boulder a quick look at the results so far you see kukoto fuji on top there but the bonus so the half line is a zone and a full line is a top so we've got a zone on the first boulder maybe top of the second and the top the third so that's what you're looking at on the way across half lines or zones and it's boulders one two three four from left to right so it gives you an idea of sort of the order of events and then the results at that point holly getting into the zone hold trying to position herself to keep moving upwards oh she's trying to do the cross which honestly she might be able to do the way she is getting her heel on there with that hip flexibility oh she's trying so hard oh and it just slipped there right at the last i think if she'd come a little bit farther around the corner she would have established that this is a perfect example of a boulder problem where doing a move like that's going to make you so much more exhausted and that's your first boulder philip martin kind of putting one last ditch every day to get around the corner on his slab boulder and chloe just uh running the clock out at the end of her round which is something you know some climbers will do though just climb if they haven't topped the boulder they will just keep pushing until that clock gets down to zero quick look on the women's side right now we're in burton sitting in the top with two tops uh and three zones followed uh very closely by chloe separated only by attempts there and i mean it's kind of too early to tell but it'll be interesting to see how many tops the women actually need to get into the final remember we're only taking six to the final for both the men and women six men six women and you would be mistaken to think that uh the top climbers are expected to top uh four boulders they are not the root setters are definitely trying to separate the field uh as megan says down to six climbers so the boulders are very hard there'll be a boulder here that might not get sent and the root setters are will be absolutely fine with that yeah they're really just trying to look for the best separation they can get between the athletes trying to avoid ties i mean it's nice if each boulder gets topped by one person but if if something doesn't get topped it's not the end of the world it's it's almost worse to have too many times too many topics yeah the extremes are the worst yeah anything in the middle if there's a separation the root centers have done uh their job properly so they'll be happy we've got kylie cullen on women's number three rocking into that mantle kind of choosing to use more leg than arm there that sort of that mobility really paying off as she gets that heel up and inside and mantel's also when your legs are longer they can be a little more difficult to stand up but she's fighting so hard she just kind of lost that balance point as she was trying to work her way up that wall does overhang right where she is um so it does make it tricky angles getting around that corner for simone a little bit it's a it's very unstable when i was talking to the root setters earlier they were mentioning that you kind of feel like you're falling the entire time right on men's number four which is i mean kind of horrifying but you know it uh if you can control that feeling of i think i'm falling off then you'll be in good good shape jessie pilfs getting very close she just needs to get her left hand that's better oh this i think this is smart if she could get better footwork yeah she's going for the right idea you really have to get your left foot on that left side too because it's the only side with real friction yeah that's what you've got he's trying to cross to that that's i mean it's not a terrible idea but it's definitely difficult we've seen a couple of the men try that method and it hasn't really worked out yet honey mule trying to get into that zone section when i was looking at women's number four i actually thought it looked more straightforward and not as difficult to get into it so it's interesting to see that coming forward [Applause] see if kylie cullen can press up just make that slight adjustment much better much better much more comfortable body position and a nice clean top so that'll give her two tops in a good spot that's an excellent spot and knowing i mean she should kind of know that she has a slab or vertical climb next they don't know which boulder they're going to next but they did climb on this wall so if you can remember what the angles were you know where you're going you know where you're going so can help i used to think about that a lot actually um just because then you could try certain things a little more if you knew oh this is my only overhang climb i'll have energy to do a slab afterwards right but helps you strategize not if you have another overhang climb next you gotta you gotta manage that energy level as carefully as you can nicely stepping up much more control this time oh nicely done let's first top on that holder fantastic she's just a big smile over there i feel like she is really good at that movement too like pulling her foot up and pressing she's a lot of hip flexibility so it's nicely done georgia tezio on the right on women's number one just trying to get into that establishing position now she's taking a few cracks at it so far we're down to you know under a minute left so now we're we're kind of in desperation time now and she won't get another crack if she falls off because it's such a slow moving transition here it's uh i mean you're watching it eat 10-15 seconds with almost no real work being done i'd be surprised if she has enough time to finish this boulder she'd have to move really quickly but you know as soon as you move quickly that's when mistakes happen exactly i feel like she's gonna run out of time unfortunately she's gonna give it a go so it's important to know that when that clock gets to zero no matter where you are on the that your attempt is over if you have one hand on the finish hold and the clock hits zero it's not a top so it's uh you're fighting the clock as much as you are competing against the other athletes and climbing boulders clock management is a huge part of the strategy and as we said earlier you'll see people taking their rest times you'll see people managing those attempts and looking at the clock and some of them give themselves a bite it makes me nervous see climbers pull on you like you didn't give yourself an opportunity to slip on the first move and then get back on and send the boulder so you'll uh some climbers like to cut it a little closer but for the most part you just you see them look at that one minute and there's that sort of the last attempt marker is when that clock gets down to one minute exactly mao nakamura getting established on women's number one nicely climbing into it like we said earlier you don't have to start right in the position you just have to make sure you establish and show that control of all four points now she hasn't competed since in a world cup since failed 2019 when she was in the final there and ended up sixth so she's climbing like she wants to get back into that absolutely she's that's sort of reaching across we've talked about this right hand being difficult but you see she's trying to jam her fist in there so she's using that space between the walls and the friction to help her come around and now into that lay back that you need to finish really great work really good work she climbed that perfectly yeah now she did expend more energy doing it that way but because it only took her one try yeah i'm sure she'll be fine that will pay off let's see kokoro getting to the zone this is the fourth boulder on the far right of the wall so it does come around the corner that right very nice control very nice and uh he's sort of there's a bit of a flare in the wall it's really hard to see on the screen but it does change angles there just a little bit so no texture other than the wall texture that they are he's trying to use to gain a little more height the last move is uh the next move sorry is it's far yeah just super unstable the entire way through and you kind of even honestly the finish on this boulder problem is also going to be a little bit tricky so you see him there as you're trying to mess around sometimes it's actually better to step off the starter boulder again the longer you spend messing around really good effort from orientation yeah she's plenty of time though plenty of time for us sitting comfortably in our chairs like oh two and a half minutes basically forever it's got like 30 seconds to a minute to rest give it another go yeah no problem yeah next time you uh run back to your car because you forgot something uh give yourself 30 seconds rest before you run back to your house and then do it for four minutes straight and see how that goes probably tooth hill just a bit low right sometimes you can see from a climber's body position whether they're going to be in a rough spot or not and she was very very low trying to get across yeah she needed to be engaged a little more with her shoulders and her back to be able to keep moving nicely through that inching her way to the top really good that's uh first i think the first time she's managed to have the timing pop up on the screen but alma the step for from germany getting a top we're looking at sean bailey here and now back boulder number one uh alexis having a brush and a think brushing is important um hey it's uh it's something to do and it takes the chalk off the holes which can be very important and yeah it is something to do right it's a great way to rest ariana she just came through so now it's about hanging on hanging on and really trusting your feet here this is all about closing your feet that left foot on that volume it's pretty terrible that's strong so strong and now she's going to cry so it's a little more difficult to grab she fell off moments ago so she needs to go with some control [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hopefully and then [Applause] that's a great way to finish the round and i know that wasn't the intended beta from the root center and they were thinking who would jump and throw the foot so i pretty cool to see that he was able to make that happen and i wonder if if they were thinking about that they are now he is a little taller so i i mean a lot of the athletes won't be able to do it that way but really great climbing and just probably adaptability yes definitely just i mean competitor so it's not surprising right the funny thing about it is it's not surprising but it's always exciting to watch even the most experienced athletes adapt uh make changes bear down that little bit further you think you've tried as hard as you can but sometimes you know you haven't really sometimes tryhard is the only thing you need to fix and sometimes it's just getting a little bit outside the box as you were mentioning earlier and trying something that looks like it might work because you have such a good knowledge of body movement exactly gregor vesinic on the left side stepping up on men's number one as lara rigora is working her way into women's number one sort of hopped gently into the starting position a little hop interesting that she's using her toe right now on the right side of the volume a lot of the women have placed a heel to kind of do this little teeter-totter over but everybody has different comfortability levels with their footwork and clearly that works for her it does as you see on the right side orient bertone currently in the lead with two tops and two zones followed by uh chloe collier also with uh two tops but only one zone so now you sort of see where that separation comes in that zone hold uh does become quite important jessie pulled sticking that dino on women's number three rocking up into that mantle here that most of the women have not really struggled with when i first looked at the boulders today the root centers we're talking about this mantle being pretty difficult but it's really not holding no trouble huge problems and i think that that's something to be noted sometimes because women and men have very different you know skill sets and i feel like something like a men's uh mantle or like high heel hooks that's where women thrive so i'm not surprised a lot of the women are doing that boulder it's actually the border that i think is being done the most at this point yeah it's sort of it reads difficult but climbs uh not quite as hard and so that puts her on attempts jesse pilts into second place um what you don't see on that graphic is the number of attempts but that's what's separating those anybody with the same [Applause] with this corner and we've seen just everything you know we've cut over to that boulder we've seen climbers sort of oh now we're at the point it looks that's the zone it looks exciting they all been falling off there so something's happening on the corner it's a really unique body position that they're having to get into and then hold a swing georgia tezio on this compression boulder looking quite comfortable she i mean she's very powerful and i feel like compression is something that she's generally very good at so hip flexibility it's remarkable jealous i'm jealous kokoda fuji currently sitting at the top with three tops and one zone yes simone lorenzi now uh it's a pretty big drop off when you get down through there with uh down to one top but so you see jacob schubert popping up with that top on number two and historically semifinals you will see the hardest boulders probably of the whole competition so it's not always around where you have lots of tops anywhere between two top and some i mean there's been semi-finals with one top before where that's how you get to a final so it's never really a round that has all the boulders topped no and because you're it's as you say historically the hardest round because you have to you have to cut the list down so far you really have to test and part of the root setters job you see uh working on the corner here part of the route setters job is to test as many different variables of climbing as possible so are you testing strength are you testing mobility are you testing risk you know aversion i was talking with one of my friends who's a well-established that are saying that you know creating risk in a controlled space is a route setters job and and they do it so often just almost got a little knee scum in there without a knee pad may be a little painful knee bars aren't as bad but a scum yeah you're really rubbing your skin against the hold we're often getting new holds uh at comps too so that's gonna have a lot that holds got a lot of friction on it now we're trying to figure out on the left side of the screen how to get into the hold after the zone she keeps trying to go with her right hand it looks like georgia tezio will not have enough time to get back on women's number two just getting stumped by that move that we saw a couple of the women get past you know there's a that's definitely a spot in which you need to dig a little bit deeper and have that that large repertoire of movement to dig down into and say what do i need to do here you can't just left right left right squeeze and all of a sudden there you have to change your whole tactic so the boulder goes powerful compression to kind of delicate the footwork changes so within that transition you're going to lose some people who are not 100 on their game on the right we have megan lynch on women's number one had a really nice qualification around probably one of the best she's ever had in a world cup as anz payhawk and is getting on men's number one looking pretty comfortable here actually he did end up you know he podiumed in 2019 um but it doesn't have a lot of strong results but anytime you you would make a podium in a world cup you've uh you know you can do it even if it's not even just a podium but a final is i mean that's a dream right and when push comes to shove you that voice in the back of your head says hey you you you won a medal yeah these boulders might be hard but you're just as good nakamura quickly working her way up moving number three getting into the starfish position which is the tricky part to get out of so much body control there as she let go with her foot to swing it back in [Applause] she just needs to get that left foot in a good position on the hole where her right hand is so nicely done all of that good flexibility she's using great body control sorry you oh no just a bit of a slip i don't i mean her hands like her feet were looked very very solid there yeah that is a body position though where like any little subtle movement that throws you off balance and then you're just off the wall quick look at the women's results as we stand orian berton on top uh with two tops and two zones jessie piltz uh with two tops and one and you see chloe coyer uh they're sitting currently in third also with two top so quite a few of the women there as you see two tops they've uh they've got bonus zone holds on the second boulder problem uh and uh topping one and three so far alma best fader looking really nice good here women's number four and that right foot she's standing on actually a foot is it really a foot and it's actually really slippery because they had to i don't know what the dremel they cut they had to cut it so i i was looking at it earlier and i thought oh that could be nice to stand on and then i touched it and realized oh wait that's really slippery so that just shows how good her footwork is and how much she trusts her feet yeah exactly and you and you have to you have you you sometimes you hope for the best but sometimes you you really put your foot down and say i'm staying here pretty good look at sean bailey getting into this sort of zone movement that's causing so many headaches that was really nice actually it looked like he was gonna hold it but just kind of fell out of it at the last second and you saw that that hand the low hand so sometimes you know it's reaching reaching down low and palming off the wall you see all these little techniques that things you might not have tried on both problems in your gym that uh if you're paying attention there's uh there's more than a few tricks you can put in your bag of tricks and one of those is using the wall to your advantage and palming holds [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] so that shows you that you're gonna at least need a top [Music] because that one is definitely seeing some traffic the top the top half of this field aren't going to make mistakes on a boulder like that either so well it's a short boulder too which is nice right you don't have many moves oh nice stick there by sean bailey just a little bit of a correction from what he did earlier really slammed that right foot into the wall to steady him and create that counterbalance now he has enough time to finish but he has to kind of manage moving fast he's gonna hassle a little bit yeah he's gotta hustle a little bit faster than he wants to and on the boulder that kind of feels like you're falling yeah and he did decide to jump straight to the finish as you were saying and then or straight to that next hole and then swing the foot over just came up short now nakamura getting back into that position she was in earlier she's got time so let's see if she can just be a little more efficient here cause that top look is good she just needs to get on it she had that we call that a dry fire that left hand as she started to pull just popped right off and there's almost no recovering from that that would be a hard one to rush oh my goodness you're not trying to rush that the finish of that ball if you are you see exactly what happened is you have to throw caution to the wind on a boulder in which you need an abundance of caution really good effort though fighting all the way up and sort of doing what he can to get up there so we have sota amagasa for the men and we have fanny bear and french climber for the women and it'll be interesting to see how sota approaches these boulders today because in the qualification round he had the most creative beta that i had i mean mine everything that other people had tried and couldn't do that's how he was doing boulders so i mean he has a risky kind of style though it won't seem so risky while he's climbing because he kind of floats through everything so i'm interested to see how he manages this round that has very precarious feet and kind of really intentional beta that they've been able to force so yeah creatively change the way things are what worked yesterday we'll work for him today schubert getting to the zone here on three quickly i mean that was like a minute 15 or something he's so i just he's a good i like watching him climb like he's not flashy yes he moves very confidently yeah i mean he has been on the circuit for many many years many podiums and many disciplines and he's an olympic [Music] [Applause] and you can see he knows that flash might be important so he's going to lament that little little little mistake uh as you say 67 total podiums across all disciplines i mean that's a lot of time spent holding up trophies exactly see georgia fgo getting into the mantle on women's number three working a little harder to get to that perfect position where it suddenly becomes comfortable but i found it you basically found you see them almost sort of it's almost a no hands finish the top hold is there you know because you have to have one but it's a really i do love the finish on on that boulder i like when you have to be just gentle and careful and get things right looks like laura is having some skin issues um especially on a boulder problem like this where you're on these slopers that you're having to really squeeze like squeeze till the juices in your fingers come out and then it makes it a little difficult to get through while we were away a top for franiiji bear and very short order yeah nicely through that women's number one i mean she's a great slob climber so no surprise there agreed yeah you and your skin management becomes an issue over three rounds five boulders yesterday you climbed four today uconn four this afternoon the finals is this afternoon so they get enough rest some people will say they stay warmed up even but uh your skin if you've been slipping off big holes like this and every time you slide just imagine that sandpaper feeling and then just squeeze harder than you've ever squeezed that's the level in which you're you're popping off these boulders when you're trying to stay on for all your worth so it will take its toll [Music] [Applause] that's i mean we tell people we tell newer climbers don't ever get so extended that you're on your fingertips and your tiptoes but when uh you're trying to top world cup holders all bets are wrong yeah by any means any means necessary do what you need to do another look here can you do a little bit better oh man just a little bit off in that position he still has a minute though he could get back up there quickly but yeah that top section of that boulder problem is really tricky to find that right balance position to not just fly off christoph schweiger here um he's got a he's had a rough round for sure but nice to finish that foot up is great that was really nice would feel good to finish with the top for sure really having to press in there and hold that kind of swing barn really good body control and as you were saying with sean uh you don't want to hustle but you got to hustle yeah oh so nice wow able to get that compression between the erect now he's gonna have to jump and throw his foot out to the left in order to hold the top in 10 seconds oh we a little bit more of the dynamic movement which would be a lot harder than just kind of throwing the foot over without in a more static way creating that stem i feel like a little bit of desperation kicked in you know the clock you can hear it and then you hear it count at five there's it counts down out loud from five seconds so you're like it's all or nothing in this moment on the left stepping up for men's number one this is his first semifinal um second world cup bouldering competition actually his first adult international competition was pan americans where he qualified for the olympics there so which is amazing an impressive young client yeah by all a way to start and then on the right we have stasha gejo who is a very familiar face to bouldering world cups especially semi-final been in many finals as well and very powerful very powerful climber yeah and she uh she's uh come off on basically two years away from competing so 2019 she had acl surgery recovered from that 2020 we all know what happened so this is her first uh second comeback she was 13th in manigan a couple weeks ago which is an amazing result after two years of no competition so injury recovery very difficult time off very difficult and it looks by all accounts as though she is bouncing back wonderfully yeah and even just the mental fortitude she had to have to go through that injury right at the time when everybody was getting ready to get into those competitions to qualify for the olympics the only competition she was able to go to was the european continental championship which she did not end up winning so missing that shot at the olympics which was definitely devastating for her [Applause] a absolutely of resilience to come back and just keep fighting and when you're bouldering at this level uh you can't be thinking about the fall so you need to be a great talker a really nice that's three now yes two she almost topped number one all right she was very close but doing great in this round so far we saw lexi just coming off the top uh you know it's all it's cool to see uh side-by-side tops the crowd loves when you get tops happening one after the other you almost got it there megan lynch taking a second before getting back on as ante wow with the right hand that is the first time we've seen it any of the men stick going right into the zone let's see if he can finish and i i was looking at his instagram yesterday and he keeps hashtagging uh paris 2024 so we know exactly what his goals are what's on his mind and i mean he's off to a great start here yeah can he just you just have to keep your you know [Applause] which is a huge difference really i think the method we've seen the most so far just anything that's going to stop the left side of your body from rolling out from the wall and even just that tiny tiny tiny toe hook is the difference maker really megan lynch getting a little spread out here but not too spread out on this compression holder kind of nicely working her way up just one of the really really impressive performances from the american women yesterday to get into this final it really really did come out and and climb well at the end of the round you know you've been in iso for an awfully long time so you know remember that these climbers are you know they're not hanging around the venue they're they're sequestered in a gym to warm up and then when you're when the round takes almost four hours uh you've been warming up and sitting and reading and napping and it's hard to stay motivated and for those the american women to come out and really throw down yesterday at the end of the round was just really really great to watch yeah it's definitely uh having the training center here has been like a huge help for the american team in general having a place where everyone can kind of train together it's definitely showing alexa getting into this zone let's see if he can figure out how to work his way through the slopey lip section again [Applause] is not enough um and you see them they've stuck it but they can't i mean they're not staying on it for very long and they can't move so there's definitely a sweet spot that we have yet to see someone get right the first time yeah they're in a position where they feel kind of stuck and like uncomfortable sienna from the usa on the right side brushing the holds as well from austria outside brush your clothes it's what you gotta do when you're coming out this late you really have to the last thing you want is on your first attempt to have a a foot slip or not be able to hold on to one of the hand holds because it's too trappy and you gotta look at the boulder anyway so the clown was on a on a complex boulder you might see climbers uh burn through the better part of 40 45 seconds really planning their approach as you were saying before you can't get into the middle of a boulder and be and suddenly have to change your mind and say well what do i what do i do now you need to have a plan in place when you leave the map and it takes time some climbers climb very well on instinct uh and some climbers need to map it out mentally we call that sort of rehearsing in your mind left right left right [Music] and when you get into a position you know if you've made the right choice so you watch climbers especially on a move like this that we're seeing right now um from sienna when you decide am i going around the corner or am i going to stop from going around the corner you need to decide on the flood yeah it is very hard to learn how to commit to movements like that sometimes and how to just you always have to be ready for anything to happen just be really open to your plan changing yep but also sticking to your plan when you need to it's that's right it is a huge catchphrase to master it's fun to coach people or explain it to them for the first time because you just we contradict ourselves more than we don't i think when you talk about really nice control top there and then you see that i always love seeing that it's so hard to get there and then she was able to stand with her hands at her side oh wait i found the position it went from so difficult to very doable yeah see sote getting past you know what we would argue is the hard move yeah coming off just moving to those little crimps maybe a bit unexpectedly just having to kind of find that balance point too it's hard men's number two doesn't have like any feet basically and the feet you have have a lot of that dual textured slippery section on it so it's really hard to trust what you're doing and find the foot placement quickly yeah exactly and uh we have uh boulder number one as i mean we sort of talked about it is proving for the men to be an absolute just out of iso what have you got for me today sorry you don't have enough um and we've seen just climb around we're getting into the last six climbers here um where you would expect to just see some crushing and my goodness this boulder is proving very very very difficult to get through siena correcting her little mistake from the first attempt and he's going to try that on a big turn here i think oh it makes me nervous just trying to stick that right heel in left healing [Applause] that was a really good attempt great attempt great attempt we are here in salt lake city this is the second stop of the rfc boulder world cup circuit we are in the semi final round a little more than halfway through tron up to side who is going to make it into the final six minutes six women are going to come out of this round and watch gregor frozonic [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] excellent work really really good flexibility [Applause] so holding that position and being that far into the climb and you're just kind of squeezing all those bottom lip movements your skin's just getting sweatier and sweatier and i would argue that i'm surprised that uh suta has not consistently stuck that move i would have thought from what we saw yesterday that he would have just uh maybe taken a few swings at it but look at this little sprint here jacob schubert 10 seconds oh my goodness mike just dead point he looked at the clock just too much too much momentum for that tiny little foothold he wasn't really high enough to get enough um [Applause] oh and the second as well yeah and a little bit of the third boulder as well yeah on the right on women's number one both athletes that have been around for a while in so many semis so many finals mika maom is one of the more entertaining yeah he's he's a climber that'll turn to the crowd he's a climber that climbs you see every emotion yeah especially in a final uh he shows a lot of emotion uh which you know i love i love to see you know people kind of letting loose and under you know you get to understand you get in their head a little bit better um and interestingly his brother who's a speed specialist they've both qualified for the olympics which is kind of i mean maybe unheard of right i mean there's only 20 athletes 20 men 20 women going to the olympics in sport climbing right i'm looking at him just two brothers i know walking through the zone on his first try i mean slab climbing is something he's definitely really good at really trusts his feet and i mean great start for this first quarter [Music] [Applause] holding that sort of opening swing very easily but this is this is where the trouble has occurred so far is getting the foot up and getting able to pull with the left hand it looked like she was going to be able to save it there for a second but she just lost the very this is her first semi-final actually that she's ever competed in so to get a top in a semi-final [Applause] [Music] [Applause] remember that time i topped the boulder yeah yeah i think if i talked if i'd ever been to a world cup bouldering and i had topped a boulder 20 years later i would remind people i um i topped the boulder in a world cup so you me you need to just sit down for a second mikhail using that crimping method on top of the hold here to work his way into the zone see if he can figure out that right body position here just try as you said he's working through uh option b and c there trying to heal it but you can see how insecure his left foot is he's not putting it down confidently it is i mean it's it's really really bad it's almost impossible to show you the angle but that foothold is uh as bad as anything you've stepped on at your gym i can assure you of that i love how easily mal nakamura just walked onto that volume because that actually is not easy at all yeah right it's the the perspective pretty precarious oh this heel toe cam come on whoa brilliant really nice yeah really nice i mean so when he just did that that just took off so much pressure on his hands so that'll just help him conserve energy for the rest of the shoulder problem and also his skin will swell his skin will sweat less exactly and it is starting to get a bit warmer here so the sweating of the skin is going to come into play even more quick look at the leaderboard uh nobody yet has matched kokoro fuji uh with his three tops in one zone jacob schubert second best right now top the second boulder and then the zones on three and four gregor sonic one top one zone so i mean this will keep changing as you look at the bottom of that list you have alex magos race kumoto adam andra coming so uh the leaderboard will change the leaderboard will change a minute left nikamaum kind of very casually brush i thought he was gonna maybe do this boulder a little quicker and we have not seen the top on it he came out first try looked really good on it i had to hope that he was going to get it done which he still could do but definitely oh calling duffy really good catch he's a springy climber oh a slip that left side of the start hold is very slippery and it looks like he just kind of lost it there for a second yeah you have to put your foot down as you say the shiny part of that is uh shiny so you need to be very careful where that right foot is [Applause] i'm running out of gas at that point to not [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] kling a little bit more he was kind of low on it he looks like he's going to try it i thought he was going to sort of wind up and bounce to it but he's got to hustle five seconds he's not going to find it i don't think no disappointing for colin but an excellent effort young american climber it's always so hard to fall off the finish there's nothing worse than that well i guess i'm really not getting off the ground i'm just gonna say not getting off the ground is a horrifying experience i one time touched every bonus in a semi-final round and got zero points i touched every single one but couldn't actually use a single one of them it was the saddest moment ever you just threatened them i might i might grab you i might not alex magos who's just brushing regora this is a really interesting move we haven't quite seen we've seen that sort of just after but this move is really uh it's worth watching and she's taking a different approach with her right foot right foot most of the athletes were using their left foot here she's a little she's a lot smaller she's not very tall so you'll see some of the smaller i mean just a very big difference between smaller competitors taller or smaller and taller competitors doing things differently out on the right side of your screen and we have alex magos uh if you are not familiar with alec magos and you're maybe a little bit newer to the sport alex migos is a renowned for his outdoor sense he's uh by all accounts a great competition climber but uh he is very well known for uh putting down hard routes around the world in very short order uh fun and dynamic young climber uh absolutely great to watch [Applause] [Music] [Applause] this building i know i mean almost almost i mean actually every woman has topped it so far man that is actually not very common no no have one holder be talking just sort of get you know maybe just uh maybe as you said thought the mantle would be a bit harder and didn't quite get the angles right i mean it's fine to have a boulder get top but you know they didn't want everyone to do it though it'll be a nice experience for everyone to walk away with the top exactly especially if it's your first semi-final yeah you kind of have that like are you giving me one i'm gonna take it then i'll take it yeah you're gonna give me your top i'll take the top for sure i mean i'm very curious to see alex's crimp strength versus uh the awkwardness of boulder one it'll be interesting to see if he tries to crimp on the top like we're seeing a lot of the men do [Music] in between the panel and the top of the hole we're going with that right foot again we're just having i mean maybe a little bit higher she would have been able to recover and a little foot pop wouldn't help through there but you see this is why we'll see more of it later as we get to climbers consistently sticking it but that move that gaston from down low uh into a force barn door like that is a complex complex it looks quite simple oh you stand up and grab a whole it's a very complex series of movements gregor getting into that oh wow just looked a little too fast it slipped actually we've seen that a dozen times as uh climber's getting oh i've established the zone i'm just going to keep moving i'm going to put my feet on without really paying attention and i'm going to come off oh nicely done by lara getting into that crimp but ooh kind of started to lose it a little bit at the end and couldn't get that left hand to the other castle [Applause] taba getting looking i mean it looks like she's standing on a left foot hold but there isn't one i assure you that's she's smearing on the wall it can go a long way for you uh smearing is important when you're climbing hard boulders with limited feet of course but uh just look for a minute that she got momentum out of uh a wall panel which is always an impressive show so back into the zone he got up into this position before he does a nice drop knee here that really sucks him into the wall but then he was having a hard time getting out of this cross so we'll see if he's found the subtle movement that he needs and body position to get out but not too quick and it looks like his left foot is a long way away closer to the wall maybe it looks like it's a long way up it's a big hole big holes are challenging like small foot holds you have to be precise but big holes you also need to be precise you can't just stand anywhere on a gigantic foothold and that's kind of the horrifying beauty of it is that you are left to decide over something that might be two feet long where your half inch needs to be and uh it stresses me out when i see people having you know what myself it's just me out trying to do it as well when you see people kind of every attempt it's three inches this way and a half a foot that way it just messes with you okay you're getting through that section we saw him on earlier let's see if he can do this little dynamic move he's gonna try to go with his left hand to the next one and then catch the event with his right oh right i'm just gonna say right in his wheelhouse he is an explosive climber yeah you gave him 15 seconds and he knew he wasn't counting down uh i think because you're right i think he would have absolutely stuck that that that move is super cool though it's fun to watch we are uh now we're taking into the top four we have uh schlock and we've got brook reptu uh one of the you know strong american women in this semi-final and an olympic qualified athlete as well it's cool we have four olympic qualified women i believe in the semi-final and seven thousand qualified men at the semi-final yeah there's pretty and this is their uh they're in season to be training for the olympics i was talking a little bit with sean mccall yesterday and he uh disappointed me for him didn't make the semi-final but uh alluded that these are practice comps these results are not as important as the olympic result for some of the climbers so they're obvious they always want to win however the act of competing and warming up your mind and your body before the olympics after a year off is uh as important number three just kind of falling out of that mantle with the heel hook now she is one of the taller competitors so this mantle will be a little more difficult for her um i'm sure she'll have no problems actually doing it but some of the smaller competitors kind of get they fit in that box a little more yes exactly and uh yeah you just kind of just gave up she didn't try and fight through it she was like i'm not really in it and just sort of let herself tip away which you know is maybe just a good technical or a strategic decision katya dabovich into that cell quickly really finding all the right body positions here and squeezing her way through now she's been in the final a lot of times no it's crazy right she made every single semi in 2019 and two finals i never managed to get on top and that consistency alone is so impressive but it is you'll see this a lot in world cup specifically you'll see some athletes that might podium but then they're not so consistent getting into the final or even the semi-final and then there's those athletes that are so consistent in the semi and the final but right now [Music] oh that's uh that's a good stick it's not recommended but it's a good stick and actually one of the first athletes that we've seen do it more dynamically and it actually worked it was a nice poem that she's in there to keep her into the wall and create that opposition now she is trying to go with this kind of finger lock cross that she's going for [Applause] [Applause] how she made the cross work now she does that all the time actually it's kind of a go-to move for her to stand in the peanuts which is allowed for your fingers but for your feet you can great from sasha honestly this could be the hardest boulder for her specifically in the round just because she is so much taller and it's nice to see her get it done colin fighting we sort of run down the current standings [Applause] miguel getting into that bonus and just needs to find the right body position to kind of pull down on this crimp what is he after here he's like trying to heal in there too and then recovers yeah he's definitely going to fight for it at this point now i'm going with the gaston to maybe get his foot up is he gonna match though like i don't know what he was planning to do oh right toeing that would have been amazing [Music] [Applause] she has pretty long legs so she kind of needs to keep them a little bit lower to not feel so scrunched so she can get into that next hole and sprint to the finish here wow [Applause] very well heel to keep it hole [Music] oh and just shorted sometimes i mean you got to have something to pull down with and that left hand crimp very very small and just not giving him enough to get there he's more of a side hole so he can't really pull down he's kind of pulling like he is pulling down but not getting much from it to actually rock off of the heel so it doesn't create any real momentum and you just see a whole lot of people falling off boulders just for the end there was just a bunch of people that five minutes um when it when it's not when you don't pan down the mat with four minutes to go and see empty spaces uh it means everybody is working to send boulders and this deep into the semifinal round i uh i kind of love to see it that it's not just flash of the flash after flash now it does uh it makes it exciting ray sugimoto our third place qualifier into semis and johanna farber from austria who qualified really high into the semis as well and she's been in a final before but hasn't consistently even been in semis she's she's has she's had spurts with consistency so it's nice to see her qualify so high here and really be informed this weekend yeah absolutely ito on the right watching her hip flexibility here she looks so comfortable between all of these holes just see that she's fighting for all of the right balance positions so that she doesn't have to exert too much energy yeah it allows you to be a little bit more comfortable not all your limbs are totally extended locked out elbows left out knees are hard to move out of and she's just uh she's got room to move her own body around and that makes a big difference this is the moment [Music] [Music] walking [Applause] [Music] [Applause] those crimps are and you see it's on the screen for a very short amount of time but the crimps are angled downwards they're kind of in opposition but they're not straight in that position so all of that subtlety great top from sienna cup number three gets uh i was gonna say uh it's not welders taking victims it's now climbers taking names i mean every woman so far has taught me this number three that's a prediction we should just make and then hope that no one uh messes it up from this point forward would be surprising if they didn't would be nikolai just not having the right yeah get into the zone and then i kind of fall off the wall it's just doesn't quite have it in them in that position looks lego springing looking like he's trying to coordinate so the right left hand high right hand low in transition johanna farber getting herself into the zone hold just trying to figure out how to get to the other side of it to make it actually useful to keep moving to the boulder nicely done though quickly going to that left hand which is the intended way and if you just commit like that yep get that actually be in a better position overall yeah absolutely and then you just get into this nice little walk it's okay in the parking lot you're welcome require a nice little jam at the very end for your toes comfortable rock climbing i'm sure she'll be happy with the top on her first boulder problem back up on number two so there's mistakes to be corrected here as she comes into that transition from the compression to the big blue volume see if she can get it right this time yeah so smooth up until that point though it's it's almost like watching ballet yes right yeah she's very precise and moves you know no extra effort she's very conservation of movement is important holds the swing you see her now full crimp there there we go that's the position she wants to be in now she just needs to hold it to get to the top [Applause] little kick a big smile very very good top that's uh that one will uh if you can stay with the other ones that'll add to your list and get you in a good spot alex megos you just got to see the end of the inside flag i don't know if i believe it i don't know if i believe it i didn't quite see it there oh he would be the one to do the incense like too i feel like he does use them more often than most right he climbs boulders like a root climber because he is a root climber yeah exactly one of the best in the world so not surprising finally got my inside leg he's got time can he get the sweet spot of this finish hold that has been the difference maker [Applause] oh he moved i love the stat i love how close he got before he had to move that left hand but again he was very hot very high [Applause] it's very bent in that holder for the event i think they're all underestimating it a little bit they haven't planned enough when they get there and all of a sudden they start to fall out from the wall and there's nothing they can do there's nothing they can do about it so now we have uh the adamandre on the number one and uh i would now say the natalia grossman a huge local favorite uh here from usa natalia's had uh some really good success uh in recent times yeah i mean in vail in 2019 she missed finals by one spot and then admiring again a few weeks ago ended up second i'm sorry third first podium and actually not many us women have actually played in world cup so she just joins a small group she's very good on her feet she has a lot of good body control and good footwork he's so precise in his training i i almost think that he would he would think that way my shoe was too loose but now i'm okay she's also choosing to use that t-nut with her left foot to get into the crosstallian grossman similar to brook gravity it definitely makes it harder crossing but if you can make it happen it's a great way to get through quick rounds of equipment [Applause] and now can you see oh she's slipped and recovered [Applause] uh tops here from the two american women uh the crowd absolutely loving it [Applause] that was a flash for book brook gravis [Applause] yes [Music] yeah very important adam andre looking a little befuddled um i mean just because you're it is right it's uh i think it's accurate and i think i mean just because you are arguably the best time in the world um does not mean that every boulder you walk up to is just gonna present itself to you to be topped yeah you always have to work for boulders in these competitions it's very nice keeping the control yeah you need to be in so much calling control trying to figure out this section here he's setting up to get to that dynamic movement of catching that left hand oh wait actually if he if he can if he stayed there he wouldn't have had to jump the right hand but i think that might not work so i think he's gonna end up doing what everyone else did yeah you kind of think how high up the uret can i go before before i can go and then you realize oh no there's not enough friction or opposition on that arrest semi-finals uh are i'm gonna say winding down we're uh we are second last clamors are second place qualifiers in the semifinals here in salt lake city it's a beautiful day out here a little breeze blowing second stop of the 2021 ifsc boulder circuit and we have been treated to a wonderful round so far we've seen uh a lot of try hard and sometimes seeing boulders not get topped you see a lot more tryhard we've seen a lot of that on some of the on the boulders today for sure for example boulder number one also we have an audience here today which is definitely something to know haven't seen a lot of competitions with an audience for a long time it's really nice to see people coming out and supporting the climbers there are people here there are people here i'm edgy i'm edgy there's so many people there are people here i would have told you that um to him falling off of this series of movements would be uh a zero event yeah he's so nasty very nice with uh as we said just enough time but oh he's gonna have to go quick though especially with this this [Music] [Applause] that's incredible at the buzzer climbing faster than he definitely wanted to but uh making the most efficient decision which is no foot match inside flag uh and it put him in a perfect position by one of the younger athletes i mean this is the second world cup i believe yeah excellent fire good was his first flight where he did amazing as well yeah so your top qualifiers are out yoshi ogata from japan and miho nanaka also from japan really nice to see miho have such a great qualification round because in martin i felt like she struggled quite a bit so it's nice to see her more informed yeah absolutely and uh it's it'll be interesting to see what happens uh on the men's side so in meringue adam andrew with the win and yoshiyuki was second so we'll see if the opportunity to flip-flop the top half of the podium presents itself and looking here a high foot jam from alex magos and i believe anti did that earlier put on the next section on the next section correct yeah so a little i mean it could work but just in that moment as futaba ito looks to join the women's number three topping club we're gonna get t-shirts for them yeah say i topped women's number three yeah which is i mean it's not illustrious but you don't want to not be in it yeah you definitely want to do that yeah you don't want to be the one that doesn't have oh do you oh you don't have a shirt from the italian women's three club oh [Applause] [Music] kind of didn't establish on her first attempt she kind of ran into the start a little too aggressively but easily corrected and that counts as an attempt it's important to note that just because uh you can't move away from the start until you're established doesn't mean that you don't lose attempts if you don't get established so um you got to get it right it doesn't matter she's actually getting a jam there with her right hand and holding on and took it out it's maybe too much oh she's trying to get a better jam so that she doesn't have to wow so i mean it's uh great work from nikolai on the left there but wonderful [Applause] [Music] that hand jam is uh it's look it up yeah it's hard [Music] the root setters wanted the athletes to do the boulder problem better decision making here for alex mangos just getting now this is where the helico camp can work yeah and i mean it tells you how bad these are because they're not just canvassing exactly they're not using shady heel hooks um and for a climber of alex's magos's finger strength to not be able to hang those holds should give you an idea i said yesterday when you're watching the qualifications uh to my friend tony that oh well you know we thought the last hole was pretty bad and then alemandra pretty casually snagged and he said that's the wrong bar to use for how bad or how good a hold is so the right bar here is these holes are bad because alex migos cannot jessie plint still sitting on top of the leaderboard three tops uh with uh orian baton in second with two feneshi bear with two running in that top three and then as we go down the list they're uh they're the gap there between uh second and sixth those decisions are all being based on attempts uh that's why you see them they're not all sort of bundled up in a tie here and if it wasn't for women's number three it looks like we would have probably had people in the top six with just a top but because it's everyone's topping it it kind of is becoming more of a throwaway boulder it's not really yeah it doesn't it doesn't mean anything except it'll break everything up so uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] quite enough a little too shy on that one didn't have the same generation from his feet to get up as high oh man i feel like we're not going to see a topic yoshiyuki you're our only hope at this point 30 seconds and alex kind of giving you that what do i have to do ray on your left and i'm surprised that ray is having an issue of getting into this zone this is definitely a movement that he i would have assumed he excelled at but i don't think he's really trying to go with the left hand and though we've seen a couple people stick with the right it's more um consistent to have them go with the left hand alex migos they're sprinting for a zone um and not getting one so he would be uh disappointed having not topped two boulders in a row um or two boulders sorry out of the round and he's sitting in seventh currently so if he can pull off the top on men's number four he could maybe be in the running but yeah the tops for the men i mean there's only one with two tops and that's kokoro fuji who is in a very safe position right now just right now looks like we will he's crushing with three you know no problem at all adam anderson we're out of holders he's way ahead he climbs wonderfully absolutely wonderfully from you know being in uh in 17th place coming into the round and that just shows you how often things change in these competitions so you just never know adam andrea kind of famously will try and static dynamic movements so you might see him try and get up high on a palm press there and uh lean his way to the zone hold natalia grossman getting feet very low but enough power to just move them up yes yeah it wasn't using the opposition of the left foot at all which just shows you how strong she is seeing so many of the women's struggle yeah with all four points she's just feeling it this weekend she's shocking i mean yeah oh oh this is not so hard for me [Music] when other people could not establish and uh she basically uh just sort of skipped her way up the number [Applause] stones into another pair double gas stones there are no footholds on this volume that she's standing on that you see that there's no hidden jibs it's just friction it's a friendly angle but it's never comfortable to be standing on volumes only and if you look at her left foot she has to drop her heels so much to make it more comfortable to stand really nicely through that and confident on her feet [Applause] fast enough but not too fast basically is the name of the game to finish that boulder and it looked like she was like that's as good as you're gonna hit it so maybe a little quicker on the reaction time to squeeze down i didn't look like she made any mistakes i think it's just a very very difficult finish to that boulder plenty of time to get back up there as long as you remember every movement you did together in the first place which sometimes is easier said than done as mikhail mahwem works his way into the zone offense number four so a bunch of zones not a lot of tops so can he get a top here it would be really nice to see a top here from another athlete from one other just one other [Music] can you respond [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and it really starts to come home at the end of the round along the right now you see adamandra who made it through the to the zone and it's going to uh i want to say he's one of those very tall look at that flexibility which is really even kind of the wrong angle it really is as we saw john hoyer tried to do that earlier he was like trying to get his foot up he couldn't really move at all but that just shows how much flexibility and not just flexibility but the mobility that adamandra has and it's so impressive especially because he is a longer climber in general that he works on that so much and yeah it's it's pays off so often so impressive i mean i think he's more flexible than i am yeah like it might be a hundred percent might be i take it back you take it back 100 out of 100 is more flexible than mega mark 100 100 just in case you were betting at home we've already solved it yeah there's no debate you can kind of do an over split but it doesn't matter it's far more flexible and having power as mobility is having power in that flexibility and that's so crucial here next try or the right foot i really like that hawk she did on the volume and then a nice backpack to keep her [Applause] i don't think he's gonna have enough time but he's definitely gonna run it down until he hears the buzzer that's just the way he is so kokoda [Applause] [Music] when you look down at the bottom there's a couple of of climbers with no tops with a lot of climbers with no tops as you go down the whole second half of that men's leader board so as we said on the intro there are going to be semi-finals where you only have uh one or two tops to get you into the final and you have to remember that you might not send one you might not send two you might not send three you cannot lose hope because you might be in a round where one top gets you in and you still have to put everything into that flash attempt you still have to count on those zones so don't lose hope yeah you never know what round is happening and you you know the crowd is cheering but you can't tell if it's for the matter for the women there's eight climbers on the wall so uh it's a lot easier in a final when there's just one person climbing but with this many climbers on the wall it's really i mean it's you can't rely on the crowd at all no yoshiyuki and miho oh did you see what he tried that was incredible oh my goodness watch you're gonna see it again uh if you if you blinked you missed yoshiyugi getting his right foot up while still in transition to the zone hold that was a remark a the height yeah the quickness that was so much coordination like you don't see that that often no a remarkable a remarkable attempt i hope he doesn't oh come on mijo moving very confidently here had a good look at it and it's now getting the business no problem with that great savings wow is that a flash for her i believe so it's so great to see her looking so strong this weekend absolutely so that top is gonna pop her right up into the top five along with jesse pearl's program too and kind of sorry suspected expected oh as expected a lot of the later climbers are working their way up into that top six with some of the earlier climbers finding a position and holding it but more of the later climbers who are coming out creeping up into that top [Music] but that didn't look as good as what he was doing before so he'll probably try it again and as i mean a clamor i i have seen him climb up close once before in montreal and he is so explosive there's almost no hole that he can't generate force off of so it is a surprise to see him not you know at least grabbing the zone and falling out of it on you know more often than not getting there so we'll see what he needs to do i don't know if that start hold is getting worse or better with blue rubber on it after you know 19 climbers before him it's really hard to tell [Music] oh that was close well plenty of time that was one of the better attempts we've seen going to that finish hold yeah i would love another look at that when we have a moment that's as close as we've got yoshiyuki does the same beta or switches it up there we go switches it up he was doing the harder the harder way because you just saw how explosive he was he caught it so high and so easily and then you sort of that right hand trailing in to stop the swing um you don't need to be that coordinated on this boulder but it makes it a really it just you don't have to squeeze as hard if you're that smooth falling out of the crimp there it is kind of an awkward body position with that foot placement coming into the zone your knee and also depending on how you're positioned if your knee is right in your chest or if it's more on the outside [Music] working his way around the corner and he's fighting this bowl there right where we're four minutes in and he's only got there yoshiyuki definitely realizing that oh wow he almost just tried to throw a heel to go to the top just for a second he you thought about it again now gonna go straight up i think and he's chalking up he's chalking up on crimps that are making me really nervous he [Music] [Applause] anytime you push past for most of us past your shoulder so you're saying you're climbing on the wall and you're sort of moving upwards and you have to push down and just kind of running out of gas at the end of the round but full marks for climbing right to the end alex magos is going to kind of take a five second glory spin on the last boulder if you think it's hard to push down past your shoulder when you're moving your other hand up the wall turn that all the way down to um at your at your fingertips that is a remarkable display of finger strength and and finger health too my pulleys would have exploded yeah for sure tricep back of your shoulder there's so much happening uh when you make decisions like that and and you know uh somewhere before he's climbed a boulder like that in training and he's like i can cram down past my hip um you know with no effort not no effort but with you know i know i can do it i know i have it in me i couldn't do it five times in a row but he definitely showed you what he's got there brook rabbits you on the far right side of the wall for the women stepping up to her fourth boulder are still on the ground looking at it but if she toss this boulder she will walk away before tops in the round which is remarkable yeah three times and she's never been in the bouldering world [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so adam is very good at finding the proper body positions so i'm excited to see what he does to finish i agree because we haven't seen that a lot just saw on myself meaning that almost every [Music] and then just didn't quite get a stick on the finish hold so he got there and fell off like everyone before him really nice flexibility [Applause] now she is a smaller competitor so it'll be a bigger move a little short but it has plenty of time to maybe try something a little different at the top there good look at the crowd that has formed and this is uh you know only going to get larger as the afternoon comes on and we come up to finals this afternoon so adam wander giving that uh wow i'm tired and i think i'm surprised that i'm tired and not topping boulder's face so brook rockets to the top of the leaderboard jesse piltz right behind natalya grossman currently your top six but mijo absolutely breathing down yeah the neck of that i mean she already has two tops and she has the most top uh the most top boulder coming up next and with if she tops it then every woman in the semifinal will have chopped number three so now you're getting that sort of uh time management here um from brook it's really letting it sink in getting a good rest really nice day as soon as he applied pressure it blew out of that foothold also when you've already got the zone on a boulder problem you definitely have more time to rest especially because now you're looking for a top there really is no other reason to get back on the wall unless you're trying to talk so you really have to take that rest in order to be efficient and some holders take a surprisingly short amount of time to top obviously in like 13 or 12 or 13 seconds and some boulders take you know 20 or 30 seconds worth of effort so you need to at least keep in mind how long it took you to get up there the first time alejandra really nice heel toe cam there with his left foot placing it between those holes in order to take the pressure off his hands yeah his ability to use the right footwork uh is second to none at this point yeah he should ride a bike he could absolutely so one minute left wonderful you know he wants to he doesn't want to take it down to the wire he needs to do it this time [Music] [Applause] [Music] just needs to be a little higher than she was last time to get a top here and then she will walk away with four but it looks like it's not gonna happen she moved slower and careful but still unable to secure the final hold what a tricky boulder and that was a long time ago i mean i forget what she did by this point that was a long time ago but i didn't have the live scoring here and have no idea oh nice stick [Applause] just because you know they've known me like now i know they can yeah exactly it was kind of like watching the european continental championships watching the men's speed climb to the roof at the very end because normally you don't see anyone climbing route that fast but it came down to a time thing right they do that kind of a normal difficult route and how fast can you climb and they go head to head super exciting okay so both are one and two done we are now only focused on three and four so yoshiyugi ogata sizing up what he needs to do here our last hope for a top on number three um and he is uh for another top on number three for a second time yes he's uh currently at risk he kind of needs a touch yeah and it's not like four is giving up many attempts so you gotta you need it to top two to be comfortable and let's see if he can just do what needs to be done it doesn't matter where you get your tops you just gotta get him he does his vocal i kind of want to look and see if that's everything [Applause] four he's also having a pretty difficult round it's not not the best round for him especially after you know doing so well yesterday that is hard too you know that happens sometimes when you actually qualify really high which is a great feeling but then it really feels like a gut punch then if your semi-final round does not go so well because you felt like you had a chance for the final and just kind of slips away with every boulder problem and right now on the men's side one top and uh two zones will come down to a tenth one top and three zones will put you in the final which is uh putting a lot of pressure on flashes to zones for these last couple of climbers [Applause] um essentially dusted his hands off and got right back on [Music] on a wall that's overhung probably you know approaching 25 degrees so you're not you want to be pushing down but you cannot push down the hold will not let you and that's why you see slips from a climber who is i mean his footwork is incredible you would never find fault with it really and you can't in this situation it's the it's the well-set holder that is causing uh a really experienced climber yeah i mean this round is all about really delicate body positions and seeing if you can find them early enough in your five minutes and then work them out i mean but then it's not just one the entire boulder problem kind of feels that way so they're kind of forced to feel uncomfortable their whole way up comfort and risk are two of the main tools [Music] [Applause] today and so confident she moved there so i mean she moved there was no float in her body there was no sag in her arm that was just a strong grab what do you got i got a time here he's got time he's rushing that's the thing even on that you really have to go evenly to the left hand yeah just kind of just jumping a bit sporadically it's hard to keep it together in terms of your efficiency and you saw make a mistake there and ray right back on he knows 25 seconds he's got a hustle no time on the mat and he just has to slow this down a bit more attention [Music] he does have a wrap on that right here if that's from blood or because he's got a little tweak so maybe he was a bit tentative hard to tell for sure but we're gonna get no talks from the men this is a stark contrast [Applause] there's still a chance for yoshiyuki but but it needs to be a top on a boulder that has given up um not very many one tough top as well no too many attempts as you would suggest with all boulders um you know he should be able to work out what to do um it's not uh it's not super complex this boulder in terms of the beta in terms of figuring out what needs to happen but it is very precise in the way you control your movements and that is something he's very good at very good and it'll be interesting to see if he kind of goes with the same approach that kokoro did at the very end because i think he's long enough to kind of do that same data and it's the only way it's the only way that's worked so far [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] that left foot yeah crimp is awful he is going to throw it over and then he'll sort of turn it over for a little mantle making that look very doable [Applause] [Music] for women's number four definitely was in the right spot so i'd be surprised if she doesn't do it on this next time she just kind of was a little shallow but she definitely got a little bit of the bite in that finish hold it held it for a second and then came out so it'll be exciting to see her do this boulder because then she'd have four tops which would be awesome amazing in front of this very loud home crowd also wow she flashed the first three boulders too and flashed to the zone like very few attempts overall yeah great efficiency yeah really good consistency for the season so far huge crowd here in salt lake city for the semi-final back-to-back comps coming up we have a same happening next weekend boulder and then we're having the addition of speed so people are gonna be up retreat with back to back events here like she's gonna elect for the toe no toe hook that's good control [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] excellent climbing efficient climbing really showing yourself to be world-class here uh in this semi-final round that's uh wonderful in a row for her back-to-back finals and you wonder if you wonder every time if it's the start of the norm you know if the new norm is of course natalia grossman makes the final you know it's once it's exciting the first time is surprising maybe and then it uh it becomes i expect to see someone show up so watching to see if this becomes her tipping point um she's got back-to-back weekends on the same angle same training right they train at the training center just around the corner everything is layered up nicely um on top of the fact that the american team has been putting in an awful lot of work uh in the last few years moving their headquarters here training together a huge huge game changer so it's paying off and you can see it paying off yeah the results are definitely speaking for themselves look at that natalia grossman four tops in six attempts remarkable brook wrap two three tops in six johanna farber is in third place i don't read fast enough i think jessie pelts was behind [Music] you know she wants to yeah you know she wants to and also she doesn't know so she's gonna obviously do it but it would be interesting if you didn't know though right because then would you just choose to save your energy for finals you might so slack currently sitting in sixth place um which is going to depend on what uh yoshiyugi manages to do on the last boulder so he can earn himself uh a spot because that'll give him one top and three zones so it's uh it'll come down to attempts both to tops into zones to see if uh yoshiyugi can slingshot his way into the final but he honestly has not been climbing today in a way that would give me the confidence to say yes yoshiyugi is going to send this boulder and get into the final i just i haven't seen it i haven't seen it today it's also hard to say too because though i am not too worried about the bottom half of this mother problem for him we haven't seen it done with the antennae [Applause] so swinging that foot over and then kind of pressing to get into the top i it would be really surprising if you could do it that way i think he's gonna have to do the dynamic way which is way more low percentage so it's kind of these situations situation we'll have to see what happens obviously but it's hard to say there's a there is a sense of suspense which i love it's fun to start to finish around with uncertainty on the line um and uh a little bit of suspense you've seen already one minute gone figuring out this boulder [Music] for a spot into the final see if miho can end up getting the fourth boulder done as well good first attempt just sort of figuring it out right see how far away it is sean bailey with a good effort you see just uh just out of contention in eighth place um and finishing ahead of climbers like alex magos and mikhail malwan so that's a really really really great effort from sean bailey he should be very very happy with that most definitely he hasn't actually been in that many finals he's been on the podium before but his semi-finals consistency is not that good so far so it's always nice to see him finish high then in the semifinal within it it's a good uh it's good confidence and experience bolstering this is three tries now to get over here and stick the zone and get the footwork right we've seen a lot of the men kind of go over like throw the right foot out to that red hole and then set up the top position in a little more of a controlled manner um the way he's doing it has also worked but [Music] [Applause] [Music] attention to what that clock is doing you can't although you want to rest though obviously but you can't when you're trying to get into the final you can't stand on the mat for too long yeah and a very different meter between these two athletes right now because they're in such a different top the three boulders ahead of her previous to the one she's on and you know being such a seasoned competitor she probably knows that most people didn't top all three so there's a little less pressure whereas [Music] which is it's frustrating it gets in your head and now you have two minutes left so the the pile on of stress and sort of your internal voice is uh really really hard to contend with this is [Music] mistake free [Music] as you say she's definitely not risking anything it feels like she can sense that it's not necessary for her to do this and i mean rarely do count backs matter when it comes to being in the final yeah so these are things competitors yes exactly [Music] one minute doesn't mean [Music] you know whether he sees it or not or thinks it's more risky um sometimes the illusion of risk can force you in a decision that [Music] [Applause] he's just running it's wonderful effort no desperately [Applause] also knows granted like a disappointing round for yoshi for someone else could be still like the greatest round they've ever had yeah exactly just the caliber athlete that he is that was not his best performance yeah you know that he absolutely wants everything that he's gonna get out of it every time uh so that brings us to a close of our semi-final round here in salt lake city 2021 ifsc boulder world cup the final goes today so we'll come up with the results in a minute and we'll confirm absolutely once they get finalized through the system who your finalists are going to be so on the men's side you're going to have kokoro fuji with three tops adam andra two tops gregor vazonik is going to come in in third jacob schubert nice to see him back in a final in fourth place and anzai pahark will come in in fifth you're seeing how important those zones and attempts are uh and coming out in sixth place to round out your final will be mejdi slack from france uh with one top three zones and a bucket load of attempts but it came down there to just getting that last zone that's the difference between sixth and seventh is the third zone secured so that is your final and a good one and that's that will be maggie's first final second bouldering world cup first first final uh and strong young and strong yeah that is a great result you'll be very happy with that so we just run down the second half um to give you a look at uh how hard the round was a lot of strong climbers uh if you told me that yoshiyuki ogata was going to top no boulders in a semi-final uh along with jan hoyer i would have i would have called you a liar and here we are so a hard round um and a good fight and here we go this is fantastic for the home crowd natalia grossman four tops in six attempts efficient wonderful climbing brook rabbit two in second three tops then you have johanna farber from austria three tops uh jessica piltz also from austria three tops and then mijo getting into fifth place uh by virtue of that third top on boulder number three and then in sixth place you have orian berton uh french powerhouse and uh that is gonna be as you see the difference between sixth and seventh where futaba is was a difference of one extra attempt to get to the tops that they had so sliced very thin on both the men and the women when it comes to those bubble positions yeah and it is exciting to see both natalya and orion two back-to-back finals for them and their first finals were last weekend so to see them gain that consistency already so impressive so we're going to be back for the final tonight at 5 p.m go find that link on the ifsc youtube channel pete woods megan martin thank you for the semifinal coverage and uh you're coming back for the final you're coming back next weekend i had a lot of fun this morning i hope you did too i had a blast i think we make a great team i'm gonna go out on a limb and say i agree i hope everybody watching had a great time that's gonna do it for the semi-final here in salt lake city go get some rest if you uh want to get some rest go get some lunch wherever you are in the world and we will see you back here 5 p.m on the stream for finals it is going to be a show [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: International Federation of Sport Climbing

Views: 206,716

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

Id: wwvwGG6AGdw

Length: 145min 45sec (8745 seconds)

Published: Sat May 22 2021