Sometime in the beginning you can see one official pulling him back a bit once, but that seemed to help for less than a minute or so. I think he's being less aggressive after an hour or so, but it really took a while
yeah, that seemed really unnecessary, including walking across the stage, repeatedly. I'm not a camera professional, but I think staying out of the view of other cameras is pretty standard. And when his shot was used, it was really unsteady. What happened to the wall-mount cameras for the alternate angles?
I reckon the director must have told him to get some close-ups of the climbers during periods when they are just standing there resting. It makes sense because often in climbing coverage we get to see the climbers faces very little, we just see medium/long shots from behind. During parts when they are resting this is boring to watch, so it's good to be able to see their faces and expressions, but it did seem weird for them to often still be using the long shots of the climber from behind with a camera guy right there. I would say bad directing rather than bad camera work
Maybe it would have worked better if he just stood off a bit to the side next to the boulder (so on the mat, but more to the side and most importantly: staying there) and shot from there. I think he does that a couple of times and when they use the shots from that camera it seems to be mostly from that angle. But all this moving around on the mat was more distracting than anything. I can't judge what his instructions were, I think it's probable they had a camera that can move around on purpose to maybe get some nice shots, but as it is, it just didn't really work out.
I work in broadcast myself and I'd just like to say that the camera work on this was very very bad. Handheld can be seen in almost every shot, the shots them self are very shaky. Also I don't understand how nobody seems to get that it's important to see the entire climber in a shot including the holds he's using and the holds he's aiming for. Close ups are for in between and for playback to see what happened. But the most annoying part is the cameraman and (lazy) grip blocking so many shots of the climber. I love climbing but this is actually hard to look at. If you compare this to last week in Japan it seems like a 5 year old is directing. Sorry if I'm being to harsh but I'm a climbing enthousiast, and this just breaks my heart. Climbing deserves a more professional approach and could seriously improve it's image by having a higher level of camera work and better directing.
It wouldn't be an IFSC bouldering season without at least one event with terrible skipping during the finals. This year it's been pretty good so far, they decided to make up for it in Vail
I am sorry, but why is it so hard for the IFSC to provide a decent livestream? They should look to the FIE, who provide a decent multi camera stream for nearly every fencing World Cup in the last 3 to 5 years.
One of the worst worldcup videos. The camera-man following the climber is totally unnecessary. Its a distraction and the video from it just makes you wana puke. What were they thinking? Incredibly disappointed, especially for Vail.
If the setters injure themselves on a boulder (M2) isn't it a bit reckless to not change anything for the comp later on? I mean if they realise that they might pull something on their fingers they will most likely hold back just to not be out for the rest of the season
I have the impression, they do it on purpose. Worst quality in the most sophisticated country in the world...they want to sell the streaming rights to an American website as they tried at the beginning of this year.
Here's hoping they might still do that. The last time they had stream quality issues at first the replay was also really crap (probably because it's just the feed that was streamed) but they uploaded a better quality version a bit later down the line :S
When there is skipping like in this one they will upload a new version but it takes some time, it's only been a few hours since it was streamed, and can take several hours just to upload a hi-def video file several hours long. I don't think they have any control over whether the internet provider has shitty bandwidth problems which would cause the lag and skips
This is mainly a response to didier mamma's comment but I'm seeing several people make similar comments so I'm going to post it here and respectfully disagree on several of these common points... "This is just US style bouldering": No. Many of the moves required intelligent route reading. W3 was really hard, not because it required incredible strength, but because it was a complex boulder problem, that required both razor shape/out of the box route reading, and a strong sense of opposing forces and muscle engagement timing. Furthermore, W4 is the antithesis of a just "strong" boulder and in my opinion is actually a great example of what's being missed in competition boulders these days. First you have pinch strength check, but dual texture holds are both psychologically challenging and require you to think outside of the box to get to where you need to. We saw multiple women get to the bonus, or close to, just using strength, but what did Puccio do? She use more than strength, She took a second to consider some way to leverage her legs more, and used the thumb catch on the underside of the hold to further enhance the traction of her heel hook, so that when she got her left hand to the bonus she was in a good position to move forward, that's wicked smart. Furthermore, she showed foresight before she even attempted the boulder by clarifying if the mens boulder volumes were in bounds (as she mentioned during the ending interview). Then FINALLY after all that, is a modern comp bouldering favourite, a low percentage near lateral undercling dyno. This boulder was technical, it was strong and it was psychological. Puccio won this on the ground just as much as she did on the wall. I won't even get in to Mens...arguably not as great as the womens final, there were certainly still some really interesting technical boulders. M2, anybody? "These are high risk, dangerous boulders that hamper the climbers ability to succeed": You'd be insane to think that bouldering isn't risky. Risk is part of the game, psychology is part of the game. Are we actually complaining about this, really? Does a boxer complain about risk...a hockey player...a cyclist? There are so many examples of this in bouldering comps...also...outdoor bouldering is, in general, way more risky and all of these climbers face the outdoors fairly regularly, you can even see by Miho's quick return to the wall, that this was par for the course for them. "The streams are so problematic, this should be easy!" a) We don't know what sort of internet connection they have. Streaming from your home internet connection with 23 ping and 50mbps up/10 down, is nothing like streaming from a satellite, or some crappy tethered wire going up a rock 2000 feet to some random lodge, that probably get's minimal maintenance and attention. b) IFSC generally doesn't stream, they receive the feed and act as a third party, this is done likely over the net, they have no control over the quality of the stream sent to them c) IFSC doesn't make a lot of money like other sports federations, the funding for the tech is minimal at best d) IT'S FRACKING FREE! It's funny how people hate on US climbing. The truth is, it's incredibly dynamic and inspired. Yes there's power, but it's more than that...it always has been, this was way more interesting than one move wonder comps. I love parkour style, but I really think Vail broke up the monotony of the 4 move, parkour style slab/dyno/traditional/dyno mix that EVERY WC seems to follow. Things were tense, scores were well spread, and you could really see everyone's strengths. Veil is traditionally hard for a reason, if you're blaming it just on strength I would humbly submit that there's more prejudice than route reading going on...
Trish Dolmer you can disagree with the styles all you want, but you can’t deny that the production and stream quality are absolute garbage and way worse than any of the other locations.
Those people compete every week for months on 3 different continents! High altitude and high temperatures definitely don't help on performance on hard boulders! Just look at Jernej face, it's purple! No one is climbing outside in this weather "US style" is nothing special for those climbers! Murai climbs 8c+! But no normal rock climber would go on rocks with those conditions
Does anyone know the song at 1:43:20 - due to the skipping I can't shazam it... I found the routes from semi-finals and finals in Vail slightly too hard. It's not much fun to watch world's best climbers endlessly falling, and almost hurting themselves throughout these falls. More tops would have been desirable for both the climbers and the spectators. Alex's performance on the last route was kind of superhuman.. really really impressive.
Pity we don't get to see more US athletes in the main world cup circuit. I haven't been following for too long but Sean Bailey is a complete unknown for me. Having Alex Puccio in the mix more often would be interesting too.
She doesn’t like flying. The only world cups she competed in last year was vail and munich. She hasn’t done the circuit since 2014 and the last time she won in vail was 2009.
I've also read that US athletes basically have to pay out of their own pocket to go abroad, contrary to other nations who actively send their teams into the world. So it comes down to each climber's desire (and funding).
I've been climbing for 20+ years and it's fun to watch the sport evolve and grow. It's nice they have a good commentator now, it really helps enjoy the show. Video feeds are largely getting better - last week in Japan it was fantastic. I'd say that's where things are most improved this year. The problems with the stream and clock display this go round are annoying as ever, it's a shame that basics like this keep being problematic. But my biggest gripe is, as always, the route setting. It was obvious the athletes weren't enjoying several of the problems and several of them resembled no boulder problem anyone would ever seek out. The Men's problems were ok but not terrific. M1 was decent; M2 was pretty uninspired and it was clear some of the competitors really disliked it, though at least it was climbing and not parkour; M3 was honestly boring; and finally M4 was quite aesthetic and a good mix of power and technique, and actually resembled climbing! On the Women's side, W1 was nice and aesthetic and powerful and technical, W2 was fine, W3 was pretty boring to watch and seemed unenjoyable for most of the competitors; finally W4 was really just crap in terms of how it was to watch, and how the first 5 competitors appeared to have little enjoyment even attempting it. Dual-tex holds are one thing but large slippery surfaces aren't very popular in gyms, I am not sure why they should be any more popular with world cup competitors. I understand that the route setters have a stout challenge to get the difficulty correct, to separate the athletes, and to put on a show. I am pleased that the use of coordination moves and parkour style is less than in past years, but I still think that too frequently the problems are just not really like climbing, not particularly fun or interesting to watch, and don't look like much fun to climb. Just one person's opinion...
Agreed. I attended the bouldering worldcup in Munich last year which was decided by one morpho problems for the males. Why? Because they let a lead routesetter be the head routesetter. The IFSC has a lot of strange things going on in some regards. Poor stream quality in 2018 when every ape can stream without trouble is another one.. Not even talking about the hilariously bad camera work. But yeah - routesetting has been quite miserable this season on average.
Overall I enjoyed watching (apart from the camera issues), but I agree I didn't really like M2 and W4. For M2 it seemed to me like some of the climbers were concerned for their fingers (and probably rightfully so) and that's not really fun to watch. For W4 I thought it looked kinda fun as a boulder on itself, but it seemed like it was more or less impossible to progress on in 4 minutes time. The first few moves already require that much strength and then the move up to the bonus is super sketchy and the move out of the bonus as well... so that either you do it on your first or second try or you just can't progress at all. Which seems like it could be fun if you can practice it in a gym when you can get plenty of rest in between trys, but it just didn't seem much fun for a world cup boulder. edit: also, the judges didn't really seem to watch the black tape properly themselves. I think it never lead to any big issues, apart from climbers being pulled off a bit late. But imagine someone topping out only to have it be contested after the fact because the judges didn't really react in time. IMO either don't put tape up, or watch for violations properly.
After being spoiled with the excellent streaming and production quality and super enjoyable to watch problems of japan's leg this one was just appalling. Between bad streaming, out of touch cameraman and weird boring as heck problems I hope they get their shit together next year.
Being the international federation, the IFSC should honestly be able of better. This was clearly unprofessional and disappointing quality in any point of view. Extremely poor camera with constant pics of the camera man instead of athletes, skipping etc. This is not how it should be and a shame.
i am asking myself everytime: do the competitors get the chance to climb the boulders after the competition? Cause I know i would like to train on the boulders i couldn't top just so i can cross them off my list :P
I don't think so, in past events it was discussed by the commenters and it seems that the problems are taken off asap. It might depend on the place of the competition though.
In Tai'an some climbed M3 (final) after the comp. I can not find the original video source, but "Beta Routesetting" included it in his video here (around 5min mark): ua-cam.com/video/YPyHutciizo/v-deo.html
Funny to see how US climbers are doing well with US route-setting... OK, Alex and Sean (who?) were not tired, contrary to others (Miho and Akiyo clearly had no more juice, Fanny finished on her knees), but still, can't really buy that US competitors don't even compete elsewhere and suddenly represent 1/3 (!) of total finalists, ending up winning a competition at home with a W4 surprisingly well-suited for Alex, and Sean just missing the win for a quarter of a centimeter...... It's the first time I have such a feeling with bouldering, but something is not right with that competition.
Home field advantage is real. Not having to travel to China is a real boost for an American. And then there might just really be a different style of boulder that American's train for, that got set in this competition. Not necessarily a fix IMO.
Yes... Men, we see surprises quite often, so why not. Girls, I do realize Alex was fresh and others were not (Akiyo especially, she was a shadow of her usual self). I also know Alex is a terrific climber, no question here. But when I see the world's two best female "boulderers" (considering Janja out, Shauna injured) not being able to even find a solution on W4 and Alex on her part not even needing to LOOK at her feets' holds to find them on her FIRST attempt, I find it weird, all the more since the only boulder Alex could't even begin with (W3) was the only one which we were told during the live was not designed by the American team. I am probably wrong, yes, but still, something bothers me here.
the camera work is freaking annoying on this event. And did someone sleep of the fast forward button @ 50 min into the show... It's too bad. It's such a nice event :(
Camera work isn't the biggest issue... I find it not so bad. On the other hand, the skipping all the time is unbearable. They should record locally and upload instead of uploading the crappy streaming version of the replay.
Everybody yelling on obviously awfull video and camera work quality, but there's still something good about this comp I want to mention -- last boulder was just a piece of route setting perfection. IMAO, the best boulder from this year finals. For sure, without Puccio topping this out - impression wouldn't be that good.
Being able to watch the event is great. Sad thing is when I repeatedly catch myself watching the cameraman instead of the climber. No timer. Uninspired and potentially dangerous climbing problems. Why USA, why?
Agree with everything said around the quality of the streaming. USA would deserve far more better. That said my comment will be around the route setting. I do know that the job of the route setter is really hard. Nevertheless I did not enjoy the route setting. Couple of reasons 1) too stereotyped US i.e. power, power, power where is the technic? balance? intelligence in reading???... The last women boulder is the best illustration just power! look at the best climber like Akyo, Miho or Fanny they did no move into... 2) Several boulders were at the limit for climbers security and for injuries. Miho could have had a serious problem 3) several moves were extremely "injuryful" for fingers i.e. dynamics no foot... Route setters please remember the physics of cinetic energy (M=1/2*V2). Bouldering remains a climbing performance where you need to find problem to hard route using every part of your body including your brain. In addition today there is so much different holds, volumes, profiles and so on that you can really make hard boulders without having the defaults listed previously. In my modest opinion Vail has been settled in a lazy manner and/or not imaginative.
didier mamma I think they even said on M2 one of the route setters pulled a finger. Shouldn't that be a pretty strong hint? And I really thought on that problem some climbers looked concerned for their finger.
didier mamma Here's the thing: The americans set their boulder in a very american way, but i dont think this is necessarly bad. Theres a place for powerful more old school boulders in competition. Just look at real boulder, a majority of them are pretty straight foward. I appreciate this kind of setting even more now that the last years have put a bigger enphasis on more ''circus" style boulders. Lastly, americans set in american style...well yeah... and seeing as theres only one stop in the USA i dont think its a problem
I respect your view point at 100% for the route style, I never thought that I had the truth. There one aspect that I humbly believe that there is a room for improvement i.e. protecting the climbers to injury by not asking tendons to far beyond limits.
Crap stream again. Won’t comment further on it, but I will give my opinion on the American power style setting. I think it’s good to have different styles of climbing and setting across the different locations. Climbers should be strong as well as having good technique. So personally, I quite like the different change of pace. The winner of the whole World Cup is the best overall climber, not the strongest climber or one with the best technique or who can jump the furthest.
Poor feed quality and oblivious cameraman in the picture means a dislike sadly. I do realise though that the IFSC is dependent for video coverage on the local organisers.
Shocking lack of video and audio quality. IFSC should be ashamed. Perhaps the broadcaster is the same as the one that tries and fails to cover the cycling Tour of California each year. Who'd have thought that the US would have the worst live streaming services in the whole world?!
You guy's need to up your game on video and audio capture. Stream Live and record static video and audio and you will have perfect video and audio. An Iphone can do it! Thumbs down!
why are there ALWAYS issues with that fucking clock... how is that possible? as people mentioned before, these things are basiscs. at least if you are doing a live stream and broadcast that event.
Video quality is absolute garbage and audio quality impossible to stomach with all the damn skipping! PLEASE after all these years of pleading finally hire someone who knows what their doing and put them in charge!!!!
Do they supply the worst video quality in probably the most sophisticated country in the world to push the decision to sell the streaming rights to dreamsports.tv?!
this is such a shame.... it is an international comp and they cant do it in a climated hall?! just useless to see athletes performing not their best because it is too hot outside.... SHAME ON YOU IFSC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Time stamps by start order (male/female):
*Male*
Murai, Ryuichi 9:00 27:35 47:16 1:03:33
Takata, Tomoaki 13:05 31:45 51:42 1:07:53
Sugimoto, Rei 17:28 35:32 56:02 1:12:19
Bailey, Sean 18:42 37:00 57:50 1:16:40
Narasaki, Tomoa 20:30 38:32 59:48 1:21:00
Kruder, Jernej 21:32 42:28 1:01:10 1:25:00
*Female*
Bestvater, Alma 1:46:02 2:08:07 2:30:40 2:55:42
Condie, Kyra 1:49:58 2:12:07 2:34:42 2:59:40
Nonaka, Miho 1:54:04 2:16:22 2:39:00 3:03:45
Gibert, Fanny 1:55:52 2:19:20 2:43:32 3:07:57
Noguchi, Akiyo 1:59:50 2:23:51 2:47:44 3:12:09
Puccio, Alex 2:03:55 2:28:04 2:51:06 3:16:02
You are a true hero.
dontrestyourhead Nah, just opened a spreadsheet while watching.
Yes, and it was an unbelievable act of heroism that'll be remembered throughout the ages.
Not all heroes wear capes
To everyone disturbed by encountering the skipping. Don't give up on the stream altogether, most of it is watchable. Just move forward appropriately.
live coverage isn't easy. just shows how good the quality has been in previous events. nobody is perfect. excited for the upcoming events.
Really? Really? Get one decent camera and an internet connection.
seeing that camera man invade everyone's space really boils my blood; no doubt in my mind that it affected the performance of these climbers
yeah definitely weird
Camera man on the mat definitely needs to stand back a bit more.
definitely. i was hoping for some climbers or officalls to tell him that ...
Sometime in the beginning you can see one official pulling him back a bit once, but that seemed to help for less than a minute or so. I think he's being less aggressive after an hour or so, but it really took a while
yeah, that seemed really unnecessary, including walking across the stage, repeatedly.
I'm not a camera professional, but I think staying out of the view of other cameras is pretty standard. And when his shot was used, it was really unsteady. What happened to the wall-mount cameras for the alternate angles?
I reckon the director must have told him to get some close-ups of the climbers during periods when they are just standing there resting. It makes sense because often in climbing coverage we get to see the climbers faces very little, we just see medium/long shots from behind. During parts when they are resting this is boring to watch, so it's good to be able to see their faces and expressions, but it did seem weird for them to often still be using the long shots of the climber from behind with a camera guy right there. I would say bad directing rather than bad camera work
Maybe it would have worked better if he just stood off a bit to the side next to the boulder (so on the mat, but more to the side and most importantly: staying there) and shot from there. I think he does that a couple of times and when they use the shots from that camera it seems to be mostly from that angle. But all this moving around on the mat was more distracting than anything. I can't judge what his instructions were, I think it's probable they had a camera that can move around on purpose to maybe get some nice shots, but as it is, it just didn't really work out.
I work in broadcast myself and I'd just like to say that the camera work on this was very very bad. Handheld can be seen in almost every shot, the shots them self are very shaky. Also I don't understand how nobody seems to get that it's important to see the entire climber in a shot including the holds he's using and the holds he's aiming for. Close ups are for in between and for playback to see what happened. But the most annoying part is the cameraman and (lazy) grip blocking so many shots of the climber.
I love climbing but this is actually hard to look at. If you compare this to last week in Japan it seems like a 5 year old is directing. Sorry if I'm being to harsh but I'm a climbing enthousiast, and this just breaks my heart.
Climbing deserves a more professional approach and could seriously improve it's image by having a higher level of camera work and better directing.
i agree 100% with all of this!
Super irritating to watch when its skipping all the time
It wouldn't be an IFSC bouldering season without at least one event with terrible skipping during the finals. This year it's been pretty good so far, they decided to make up for it in Vail
the american stream worked better
amazingly, it actually skips most when there's something happening. we get to enjoy a smooth experience of athletes staring at the wall
where can I find the american stream?
www.olympicchannel.com/en/playback/finals-ifsc-world-cup-boulder-vail/
why the hell am i watching the camera man moving all over the place, rather than focusing on the climbers.
lame!
Camera man just needs to calm down a bit. Pretty sure he could achieve the same thing using zoom without having to be so close to the climbers
I am sorry, but why is it so hard for the IFSC to provide a decent livestream?
They should look to the FIE, who provide a decent multi camera stream for nearly every fencing World Cup in the last 3 to 5 years.
I recently started bouldering and watching competitive bouldering. I was really looking forward to this world cup :(.
Sean Bailey looks so young and clean. In the most recent events he looks a bit more Haggard. One of the best climbers I love watching this guy climb
Wow that camera man! Clearly the star of the show! :)
he thinks he's the main character in his own anime, clearly
yeah video quality is quite bad especially comparing it to the previous coverage in the last world cups... what is with that
why the hell the camera man sooo close to climbers??
How is no one stopping him? How come the climbers aren't saying anything?
One of the worst worldcup videos. The camera-man following the climber is totally unnecessary. Its a distraction and the video from it just makes you wana puke. What were they thinking? Incredibly disappointed, especially for Vail.
If the setters injure themselves on a boulder (M2) isn't it a bit reckless to not change anything for the comp later on? I mean if they realise that they might pull something on their fingers they will most likely hold back just to not be out for the rest of the season
Been said before but I’ll say it again, the quality stinks. If the live video quality stinks, why not upload a better quality version after the fact?
I have the impression, they do it on purpose. Worst quality in the most sophisticated country in the world...they want to sell the streaming rights to an American website as they tried at the beginning of this year.
Here's hoping they might still do that. The last time they had stream quality issues at first the replay was also really crap (probably because it's just the feed that was streamed) but they uploaded a better quality version a bit later down the line :S
When there is skipping like in this one they will upload a new version but it takes some time, it's only been a few hours since it was streamed, and can take several hours just to upload a hi-def video file several hours long. I don't think they have any control over whether the internet provider has shitty bandwidth problems which would cause the lag and skips
Worst stream ever! Shsme!
shitty bandwidth on the Greatest country in the world......go figure ;p
What an amazing climb for Alex in final women’s boulder!
Completely! Like she knows in advance where to place her members...
Yep, surprisingly amazing.
Good to see the Pucc is back.
I love u Alex!!!!!! Replayed your top like 500 times
This is mainly a response to didier mamma's comment but I'm seeing several people make similar comments so I'm going to post it here and respectfully disagree on several of these common points...
"This is just US style bouldering":
No. Many of the moves required intelligent route reading. W3 was really hard, not because it required incredible strength, but because it was a complex boulder problem, that required both razor shape/out of the box route reading, and a strong sense of opposing forces and muscle engagement timing. Furthermore, W4 is the antithesis of a just "strong" boulder and in my opinion is actually a great example of what's being missed in competition boulders these days. First you have pinch strength check, but dual texture holds are both psychologically challenging and require you to think outside of the box to get to where you need to. We saw multiple women get to the bonus, or close to, just using strength, but what did Puccio do? She use more than strength, She took a second to consider some way to leverage her legs more, and used the thumb catch on the underside of the hold to further enhance the traction of her heel hook, so that when she got her left hand to the bonus she was in a good position to move forward, that's wicked smart. Furthermore, she showed foresight before she even attempted the boulder by clarifying if the mens boulder volumes were in bounds (as she mentioned during the ending interview). Then FINALLY after all that, is a modern comp bouldering favourite, a low percentage near lateral undercling dyno. This boulder was technical, it was strong and it was psychological. Puccio won this on the ground just as much as she did on the wall. I won't even get in to Mens...arguably not as great as the womens final, there were certainly still some really interesting technical boulders. M2, anybody?
"These are high risk, dangerous boulders that hamper the climbers ability to succeed":
You'd be insane to think that bouldering isn't risky. Risk is part of the game, psychology is part of the game. Are we actually complaining about this, really? Does a boxer complain about risk...a hockey player...a cyclist? There are so many examples of this in bouldering comps...also...outdoor bouldering is, in general, way more risky and all of these climbers face the outdoors fairly regularly, you can even see by Miho's quick return to the wall, that this was par for the course for them.
"The streams are so problematic, this should be easy!"
a) We don't know what sort of internet connection they have. Streaming from your home internet connection with 23 ping and 50mbps up/10 down, is nothing like streaming from a satellite, or some crappy tethered wire going up a rock 2000 feet to some random lodge, that probably get's minimal maintenance and attention.
b) IFSC generally doesn't stream, they receive the feed and act as a third party, this is done likely over the net, they have no control over the quality of the stream sent to them
c) IFSC doesn't make a lot of money like other sports federations, the funding for the tech is minimal at best
d) IT'S FRACKING FREE!
It's funny how people hate on US climbing. The truth is, it's incredibly dynamic and inspired. Yes there's power, but it's more than that...it always has been, this was way more interesting than one move wonder comps. I love parkour style, but I really think Vail broke up the monotony of the 4 move, parkour style slab/dyno/traditional/dyno mix that EVERY WC seems to follow. Things were tense, scores were well spread, and you could really see everyone's strengths. Veil is traditionally hard for a reason, if you're blaming it just on strength I would humbly submit that there's more prejudice than route reading going on...
Trish Dolmer you can disagree with the styles all you want, but you can’t deny that the production and stream quality are absolute garbage and way worse than any of the other locations.
Those people compete every week for months on 3 different continents! High altitude and high temperatures definitely don't help on performance on hard boulders! Just look at Jernej face, it's purple! No one is climbing outside in this weather "US style" is nothing special for those climbers! Murai climbs 8c+! But no normal rock climber would go on rocks with those conditions
Does anyone know the song at 1:43:20 - due to the skipping I can't shazam it...
I found the routes from semi-finals and finals in Vail slightly too hard. It's not much fun to watch world's best climbers endlessly falling, and almost hurting themselves throughout these falls. More tops would have been desirable for both the climbers and the spectators.
Alex's performance on the last route was kind of superhuman.. really really impressive.
Pity we don't get to see more US athletes in the main world cup circuit. I haven't been following for too long but Sean Bailey is a complete unknown for me. Having Alex Puccio in the mix more often would be interesting too.
The closure of women's final is excellent! Is it just a boulder for her
I am soo disappointed of the camera work overall. Please use some long lens in future. There is no point of using wide angle on that comp.
Does anybody know why Alex doesn’t compete on World Cups out of US? I wanted to watch her performance in Hachioji..
She promised she will compete: 3:24:15
I think she a^was injured
She doesn’t like flying. The only world cups she competed in last year was vail and munich. She hasn’t done the circuit since 2014 and the last time she won in vail was 2009.
I've also read that US athletes basically have to pay out of their own pocket to go abroad, contrary to other nations who actively send their teams into the world. So it comes down to each climber's desire (and funding).
Yep, it's a money question. Too bad.
going away from how horrible the camera work was and the skipping during the mens finals, amazing finish in the women's finals :D
Bloody amazing finish for the womens comp
Anyone know what brand those wooden holds are?
facebook.com/magalaclimbingholds/
I've been climbing for 20+ years and it's fun to watch the sport evolve and grow. It's nice they have a good commentator now, it really helps enjoy the show. Video feeds are largely getting better - last week in Japan it was fantastic. I'd say that's where things are most improved this year. The problems with the stream and clock display this go round are annoying as ever, it's a shame that basics like this keep being problematic. But my biggest gripe is, as always, the route setting. It was obvious the athletes weren't enjoying several of the problems and several of them resembled no boulder problem anyone would ever seek out. The Men's problems were ok but not terrific. M1 was decent; M2 was pretty uninspired and it was clear some of the competitors really disliked it, though at least it was climbing and not parkour; M3 was honestly boring; and finally M4 was quite aesthetic and a good mix of power and technique, and actually resembled climbing! On the Women's side, W1 was nice and aesthetic and powerful and technical, W2 was fine, W3 was pretty boring to watch and seemed unenjoyable for most of the competitors; finally W4 was really just crap in terms of how it was to watch, and how the first 5 competitors appeared to have little enjoyment even attempting it. Dual-tex holds are one thing but large slippery surfaces aren't very popular in gyms, I am not sure why they should be any more popular with world cup competitors. I understand that the route setters have a stout challenge to get the difficulty correct, to separate the athletes, and to put on a show. I am pleased that the use of coordination moves and parkour style is less than in past years, but I still think that too frequently the problems are just not really like climbing, not particularly fun or interesting to watch, and don't look like much fun to climb. Just one person's opinion...
Agreed. I attended the bouldering worldcup in Munich last year which was decided by one morpho problems for the males. Why? Because they let a lead routesetter be the head routesetter. The IFSC has a lot of strange things going on in some regards. Poor stream quality in 2018 when every ape can stream without trouble is another one.. Not even talking about the hilariously bad camera work.
But yeah - routesetting has been quite miserable this season on average.
I actually enjoyed the routes :)
But yeah, not sure why it seems to be so difficult to handle a clock and have a decent streaming quality...
Overall I enjoyed watching (apart from the camera issues), but I agree I didn't really like M2 and W4. For M2 it seemed to me like some of the climbers were concerned for their fingers (and probably rightfully so) and that's not really fun to watch. For W4 I thought it looked kinda fun as a boulder on itself, but it seemed like it was more or less impossible to progress on in 4 minutes time. The first few moves already require that much strength and then the move up to the bonus is super sketchy and the move out of the bonus as well... so that either you do it on your first or second try or you just can't progress at all. Which seems like it could be fun if you can practice it in a gym when you can get plenty of rest in between trys, but it just didn't seem much fun for a world cup boulder.
edit: also, the judges didn't really seem to watch the black tape properly themselves. I think it never lead to any big issues, apart from climbers being pulled off a bit late. But imagine someone topping out only to have it be contested after the fact because the judges didn't really react in time. IMO either don't put tape up, or watch for violations properly.
After being spoiled with the excellent streaming and production quality and super enjoyable to watch problems of japan's leg this one was just appalling. Between bad streaming, out of touch cameraman and weird boring as heck problems I hope they get their shit together next year.
I completely agree.
Being the international federation, the IFSC should honestly be able of better. This was clearly unprofessional and disappointing quality in any point of view. Extremely poor camera with constant pics of the camera man instead of athletes, skipping etc.
This is not how it should be and a shame.
If this was streamed, how is it possiple that it skips ahead faster than natural time?
i am asking myself everytime: do the competitors get the chance to climb the boulders after the competition? Cause I know i would like to train on the boulders i couldn't top just so i can cross them off my list :P
I don't think so, in past events it was discussed by the commenters and it seems that the problems are taken off asap. It might depend on the place of the competition though.
In Tai'an some climbed M3 (final) after the comp. I can not find the original video source, but "Beta Routesetting" included it in his video here (around 5min mark): ua-cam.com/video/YPyHutciizo/v-deo.html
why is this video region locked from the US? I had to use a VPN to watch it.
Same ???
you mean you're actually in the US and had to VPN this?
me too. this is ridiculous.
hmm... cant complain. i sorta did wanna skim through the whole thing.
Why don't you just local record something instead of putting the buggy live thing like that i don't understand
this.
Drum and Bass
Funny to see how US climbers are doing well with US route-setting... OK, Alex and Sean (who?) were not tired, contrary to others (Miho and Akiyo clearly had no more juice, Fanny finished on her knees), but still, can't really buy that US competitors don't even compete elsewhere and suddenly represent 1/3 (!) of total finalists, ending up winning a competition at home with a W4 surprisingly well-suited for Alex, and Sean just missing the win for a quarter of a centimeter...... It's the first time I have such a feeling with bouldering, but something is not right with that competition.
Home field advantage is real. Not having to travel to China is a real boost for an American. And then there might just really be a different style of boulder that American's train for, that got set in this competition. Not necessarily a fix IMO.
Yes... Men, we see surprises quite often, so why not. Girls, I do realize Alex was fresh and others were not (Akiyo especially, she was a shadow of her usual self). I also know Alex is a terrific climber, no question here. But when I see the world's two best female "boulderers" (considering Janja out, Shauna injured) not being able to even find a solution on W4 and Alex on her part not even needing to LOOK at her feets' holds to find them on her FIRST attempt, I find it weird, all the more since the only boulder Alex could't even begin with (W3) was the only one which we were told during the live was not designed by the American team. I am probably wrong, yes, but still, something bothers me here.
Wtf are you even talking about? Most of the competitors are japanese, 2 of the women on the podium are women
the camera work is freaking annoying on this event. And did someone sleep of the fast forward button @ 50 min into the show... It's too bad. It's such a nice event :(
Alex Puccio's last climb!! unreal
Other than the technical problems this world cup was a lot of fun. especially the women's final.
Hey, where did you find this clown with camera?)))
I think it was from craigslist. He films weddings, christenings, funerals and windows reinstalling also.
How did Alex hold that swing? Amazing. Good co-commentators again. Shout out to Tiffany 🇦🇺🤗💕
Camera work isn't the biggest issue... I find it not so bad. On the other hand, the skipping all the time is unbearable. They should record locally and upload instead of uploading the crappy streaming version of the replay.
that video quality is terrible, it was already the case for the semi. Didn't they hear the feedback, or maybe they juste don't care...
why did they skip the really good parts...
why does the video feed skips like crazy around M3??
Is it me or there is a big problem with the video speed starting from around 50-55' ?
Can someone explain why this is not available to watch in the US !?
Everybody yelling on obviously awfull video and camera work quality, but there's still something good about this comp I want to mention -- last boulder was just a piece of route setting perfection. IMAO, the best boulder from this year finals. For sure, without Puccio topping this out - impression wouldn't be that good.
Being able to watch the event is great. Sad thing is when I repeatedly catch myself watching the cameraman instead of the climber. No timer. Uninspired and potentially dangerous climbing problems. Why USA, why?
Agree with everything said around the quality of the streaming. USA would deserve far more better.
That said my comment will be around the route setting. I do know that the job of the route setter is really hard. Nevertheless I did not enjoy the route setting. Couple of reasons 1) too stereotyped US i.e. power, power, power where is the technic? balance? intelligence in reading???... The last women boulder is the best illustration just power! look at the best climber like Akyo, Miho or Fanny they did no move into... 2) Several boulders were at the limit for climbers security and for injuries. Miho could have had a serious problem 3) several moves were extremely "injuryful" for fingers i.e. dynamics no foot... Route setters please remember the physics of cinetic energy (M=1/2*V2).
Bouldering remains a climbing performance where you need to find problem to hard route using every part of your body including your brain. In addition today there is so much different holds, volumes, profiles and so on that you can really make hard boulders without having the defaults listed previously. In my modest opinion Vail has been settled in a lazy manner and/or not imaginative.
didier mamma I think they even said on M2 one of the route setters pulled a finger. Shouldn't that be a pretty strong hint? And I really thought on that problem some climbers looked concerned for their finger.
didier mamma
Here's the thing: The americans set their boulder in a very american way, but i dont think this is necessarly bad. Theres a place for powerful more old school boulders in competition. Just look at real boulder, a majority of them are pretty straight foward. I appreciate this kind of setting even more now that the last years have put a bigger enphasis on more ''circus" style boulders. Lastly, americans set in american style...well yeah... and seeing as theres only one stop in the USA i dont think its a problem
I respect your view point at 100% for the route style, I never thought that I had the truth. There one aspect that I humbly believe that there is a room for improvement i.e. protecting the climbers to injury by not asking tendons to far beyond limits.
Crap stream again. Won’t comment further on it, but I will give my opinion on the American power style setting.
I think it’s good to have different styles of climbing and setting across the different locations. Climbers should be strong as well as having good technique. So personally, I quite like the different change of pace. The winner of the whole World Cup is the best overall climber, not the strongest climber or one with the best technique or who can jump the furthest.
Poor feed quality and oblivious cameraman in the picture means a dislike sadly. I do realise though that the IFSC is dependent for video coverage on the local organisers.
Almost not possible to watch with the constant video irritation. Cannot understand what the commentator is saying either :(
Also super irritating that the onstage camera crew is in the climbers faces and constantly on camera.
THE VIDEO QUALITY INCREDIBLY SUCKS.
Yet another one. This sort of video quality seems to be consistently used as a kind of cachet for the whole genre.
Sadly this is unwatchable, the Video is constantly stuttering. Would have loved to see the wc in vail
Sorry but the qualitiy is realy bad
I had to turn off the livestream way before the quality disintegrated just because of that camera man
Shocking lack of video and audio quality. IFSC should be ashamed. Perhaps the broadcaster is the same as the one that tries and fails to cover the cycling Tour of California each year. Who'd have thought that the US would have the worst live streaming services in the whole world?!
I would happily sacrifice close-ups if it means getting that camerman out of 80% of the footage
Love that Miho has a banana in her little title card video.
You guy's need to up your game on video and audio capture. Stream Live and record static video and audio and you will have perfect video and audio. An Iphone can do it! Thumbs down!
Where's ESPN when you need them, huh? 😉
why are there ALWAYS issues with that fucking clock... how is that possible? as people mentioned before, these things are basiscs. at least if you are doing a live stream and broadcast that event.
after 30 minutes suddenly a clock appears :D jesus christ...
this microtime jumps are so ANNOYING, it is like some pushed by mistake the fast forward button
Video quality is absolute garbage and audio quality impossible to stomach with all the damn skipping! PLEASE after all these years of pleading finally hire someone who knows what their doing and put them in charge!!!!
sick send by puccio
3:16:25
Do they supply the worst video quality in probably the most sophisticated country in the world to push the decision to sell the streaming rights to dreamsports.tv?!
Unwatchable stream quality... shame
Every one is giving up before the time is out ......
the cameran lmfao
That camera guy is so annoying me. Who wants those stupid close ups?
Yeah the skipping is on a few of your uploads. Pls do quality control on your videos.
Still Poor Quality!
That cameraman in the foreground is infuriating! Director should get him out of shot. Close up shots are not important in this.
It's skipping non stop...
Why does this skip so badly.
1:25:31get this man some tissues
Fire the camera men!
Potato stream quality :(
Is Charlie secretly infactuated with Akiyo? You could play a drinking game, everytime he mentions her name take a shot.
The camera man on the mat is super annoying
Unwatchable. And that camera guy is extremely iritating and unprofessional
that camera guy is annoying..
The skipping was just a terrible idea. Please don't do that again !
And a stupid judge calling.... On w3 against Miho
this is such a shame.... it is an international comp and they cant do it in a climated hall?!
just useless to see athletes performing not their best because it is too hot outside....
SHAME ON YOU IFSC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That music was terrible
Yet again you cant do a simple filming job... weren't you planning to charge for this to hahahaha
Sack the camera man please. That is just ridiculous.
That camera crew on stage is not cool. All the way up in the grill of the climbers. So tasteless and callous.
Wtf is this camera doing there ??? Super annoying for the Athletes and the crowd. And his footage is also just bad and useless.
Crappy skipping.... standard
Is an american show.. from start to finish
Terrible quality.