MCing is really, you're trying to like, you're being a conductor. If the crowd is a symphony,
you're trying to be the conductor to some extent. There are two things that I remember saying
that I regret and that I should apologize for. Who have a terrible record of killing journalists,
jailing people for tweeting, and just an awful human rights record. If Janja was American,
she would be a superstar. She would be Simone Biles.
Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Climbing podcast. I'm your host,
Jinni, and I'm excited to introduce my guest, Tyler Norton. Tyler is a fellow competition
climbing nerd and podcaster who has been involved in the space much longer than I have. And you may
be familiar with his channel, Plastic Weekly. In this episode, we'll talk about what it's like
MCing at a World Cup. We'll commiserate on the hardships that come with climbing podcasting,
go over some climbing hot takes, and talk about the upcoming 2024 season. If you end up enjoying
this style of comp climbing podcast, be sure to check out the debrief, which is Tyler's podcast
on Plastic Weekly. And for now, hope you enjoy this episode with Tyler.
Okay, but yeah, let's get right into it. So sounds good. I know you're not a huge fan of
describing yourself, but I think people need a little bit of an introduction of how you got
into climbing, how you got into competitions, and I guess your knowledge on the history of climbing.
Yeah. Well, I think I started climbing like most people. It's just you get dragged to a gym,
whether it's your idea or somebody else's, but had a great time. At this point, I've been working
in it for about 15 years almost, and been really fortunate to do a lot of things in all different
parts of the sport. So aside from setting and coaching and customer experience at climbing
gyms here in Canada, also getting to organize a lot of competitions through our provincial bodies.
Got to MC a World Cup one time, got to go to a bunch of World Cups, either dragging behind
some of the Canadian kids and just watching them do their thing. But yeah, just a lot of
little bits of exposure here and there through the time working in gyms got me really interested.
About I guess six or seven years ago, started up Plastic Weekly as a sort of expression of
wanting to contribute to the conversation and wanting to talk to people who, in my professional
life, I didn't have a reason to. And yeah, that's kind of the story. So I've just been really
fortunate to get to experience lots of different parts of climbing. Most people, I don't think,
get a chance to do that. Or most people don't last long enough in climbing before they find
better pay and then whatever somewhere else. But yeah, that's just the reality of climbing,
I guess. Yeah, unfortunately. How long after you started climbing, did you start working at the
gym and doing everything else? Also, you never told me that you MC'd at a World Cup. That's pretty fun.
Yeah. Yeah, it was 2015, a Toronto Boulder World Cup. It's the deep lore of me and Pete Woods.
Toronto hosted a World Cup 2013, 2014, 2015. And in the first two years, it was Pete Woods and a
Toronto local, Dave Voltan, I think. They were the duo for MCing it. Not commentating it, just
MCing it. And then the last year, I think Pete had a personal engagement somewhere in Europe.
He couldn't make it. And I had been MCing a bunch of local comps in the area and I got asked to do
it, which was very kind. And yeah, it was a wild experience. But yeah, I started climbing at a time
where I didn't really have a strong career path. I had dropped out a couple of times with different
programs and stuff. So it was probably about a year and a half, properly. But right away,
and it may have been the same thing for you, was you get into climbing as a climber and very
quickly you have lots of questions and you're fascinated by how does this gym work? How do
these comps work? And all this curiosity led me to volunteering in different things. And it was a
small new gym at the time. The community was just starting to build out. And so I kind of,
by benefit of being one of the few familiar faces around through volunteering and so on,
got a job and just kept kind of going up the tree just because I stuck around, I guess. But yeah,
so not very long.
Interesting. No, I mean, yeah, I do not have the similar experience at all. It took me several
years before I feel like I actually got into climbing, even though I was climbing on a regular
basis. Yeah, I feel like I followed the path where it was like I had never done any sports before
and I wasn't particularly good. I just liked climbing for fun. And then I plateaued at like
V3, V4-ish, as people do. And then I didn't really have that passion because I plateaued for so long.
And it wasn't until COVID happened that I kind of got out of that funk.
Oh, interesting. So I'm similar to you in that I wasn't into any sports before climbing.
And I think that's part of why I loved it so much was it was the first time I felt remotely like a
well-rounded person. Because as a kid, I had never been told I was like an athlete or, you know,
sporty or anything like that. So I really appreciated that. But for me, and it may be
different for you, was the climbing was fun, but I was really curious how the industry worked very
quickly. It was like, who puts up all those questions that you get from people that you
probably talk to like, is there a map for the holds and who makes the holds and who makes the
walls and is it fastest to the top in a competition? All those questions was what got me the most psyched,
I guess, really early on. So very quickly, I stopped caring about getting good at climbing
for whatever reason. And it was just all about like, oh, I want to be behind the scenes in this.
Oh, interesting. Yeah, no, I didn't care at all. I didn't care. And then I wanted to get good.
And then to get good, I wanted to learn about all of that.
Gotcha. Have you done stuff in your life where you start something and you're immediately like,
I need to master this? Is that something in your personality or what?
No, never. Yeah, I'm not a perfectionist. I do things and then I'm pretty half-hearted about it
until I reach that certain point that's like, oh, I'm good at this and now I can actually,
I've unlocked the fun parts and now I'm really into it.
Gotcha.
So I think that's what happened.
Okay.
But yeah, I wanted to learn about all the behind the scenes because I think that'll help me
get better myself as well.
That's cool. Yeah.
Yeah. Back to, well, I wanted to get more into about you and seeing stuff because that sounds
like a lot of fun. And you also did like commentating as well, right?
Yeah. I think, I don't know where it started, but probably just having a bit of like a music
background means I'm not, I don't really deal with stuff that I'm not really into.
I'm not, I don't really deal with stage fright at all. And I'm pretty comfortable being in front
of like a large crowd of people. So just some local cops at, you know, starting out at the gym
that I worked at at the time. The famous Canadian bouldering tour is called the Tour de Bloque up
here. And it's kind of, it's slowly fizzled out over time, but that was, you know, every gym in
Canada wanted to host a stop on the Tour de Bloque. And of course we did for a bunch of years and I
were just MC for the finals, you know, I, and I did that for a few years. And I guess at some point
that transitioned to commentating when the gyms were starting to feel more comfortable about like,
Hey, let's splurge for a live stream. Wouldn't that be a cool, like fun thing to do? But yeah,
the MCing was, was just, I was willing to do it. Whereas a lot of people aren't, they might not be
interested in, in, you know, having a lot of eyes on you and having to talk for a long period of
time. But I've always felt pretty confident in my ability to like fake it on a microphone and so on.
Yeah. I've had a lot of good role models when it comes to like stagecraft. So, so even if I'm not
great, I'm still comfortable with it. But yeah, the, the, the world cup one was, was wild because
at that point I would have only like live witnessed maybe two world cups, like a speed world cup in
2013 and a boulder world cup in 2014. And I'd watched a bunch and I'd been to a bunch of like,
well, I guess the other big ones would be like ABS nationals, like the American boulder series.
And I had always thought like, Oh, what a cool job it is to be the guy with the microphone and
have to introduce everybody and have to create that hype. So I had a few influences, but something
about the world cup with just like how long the days are. And maybe the fact that it was in a
hockey arena that this world cup was in something about the acoustics, the crowd was really loud.
And it was a ton of fun. I remember, I think it was Tsukuruhori maybe gashed open his finger.
And for whatever reason, I thought it would be appropriate to like commentate everything that
was happening, like with the medics and him dealing with all the blood and the event organizer had to
come over and just be like, you can stop, you can stop talking about the finger injury now. So I was
like, okay. But yeah, ended that comp, I guess the Sunday night after finals, like super worn out.
I just like felt like I was about to black out. I was a little bit dizzy and I was just like,
you're just exerting yourself for a couple of days. And yeah, it was a pretty like strenuous
experience of trying to maintain hype for like two days straight. It was wild, but like a really
cool opportunity. And I haven't had it since and that's okay. I don't know if I want it again.
It was really long, but very cool. Very cool to see it like all up front. And that was actually
like my favorite climber Anna Sturr's very last gold medal event was that one. So there's this,
I have this crazy memory that I get to keep for the rest of my life of being the person that gets
to say, and in first place, blah, blah, blah, Anna Sturr for the last time of her career.
And so like, if I've got a handful of like best memories ever in climbing, that's definitely one
of them. That's not super exciting. I so I've never been to a World Cup in person. So I didn't even
think about there being an MC there because you obviously don't hear that during the live streams.
Since you've done both MCing and commentating, what do you feel like are the differences there
and which one do you prefer? Yeah, I certainly prefer commentating because you're allowed to
talk about more and you don't have to yell as much. And also I might not have been a great MC. I may
have done like too much yelling, but MCing is really, you're trying to like, you're being a
conductor. If like, if the crowd is a symphony, you're trying to be the conductor to some extent.
You're trying to help lead them towards big moments and you try to cue it all up. So everybody's like
amped up right when somebody gets a top and that's cool by itself. But commentary is nice because
it's usually a bit more conversational and you can actually talk about beta for instance. Or, you know,
if Jakob Schubert is climbing a boulder, you would be permitted to say to the stream like, well, this
is what Mejdi did and this is what Adam did. Whereas obviously as an MC, you're not allowed
to just yell into a loudspeaker microphone what just happened that breaks all the rules of isolation
and you know, beta sharing and stuff like that. So I certainly prefer the commentary. I wish MCs got
to, it got to do a little bit more of what, of what commentators do. I think audiences at events
could, could be a little more in the know and, and maybe have a better experience if somebody
was giving a bit more actual information and context to what was happening rather than just
screaming platitudes, trying to get people psyched up, you know, make some noise and stuff.
But yeah, I, I certainly prefer commentary. That's definitely the place to be if you're going to do
either of them, I think. Yeah, that's super interesting. I feel like MCs need more credit.
It's a, it's really, it's a skill for sure. It's a kind of, can be kind of embarrassing, I bet.
Yeah. I think like all these things, if you just put yourself out there into a microphone,
there's a lot of, you know, if you're, if you're too self-aware, you can really bottle yourself up.
I think you have to just be willing to kind of like go with the moment and hope you don't come
off as insincere. That's, that's always my biggest worry is that people are going to be like, who the
hell is this guy? Like, why, why is he talking into a microphone? That's my like, you know,
what, what gets me all nervous. But yeah, it's long days and you're just like kind of yelling
the whole time. It's not the most fun thing in the world for sure. Yeah, I could never,
I bring much more of like a calming nervous energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah.
But okay. And so you've done all that. How did you get started on the podcast?
The gym I worked at at the time was a pretty big commute from where I lived. So I was listening
to a lot of podcasts for the first time in my life. And I think a bunch of different
podcasts made me think, oh, there's room for this in climbing. At the time, the only climbing
podcast that was like focused on competitive and indoor climbing was called, uh, shock talk,
by a guy named John Blomquist. And sadly, I think they're all gone. I think like, I don't know what
host he used, but I think they're just erased from the internet, which really sucks. Cause he had a
bunch of great interviews with, you know, hold shapers and gym people and competitive climbers
and gym owners and stuff. Him and Jackie Huffley, who's involved with Kilter grips now,
they would do after every world cup, they would do kind of a roundup, kind of like what plastic
weekly does. It was a shorter format and it talked kind of about different things.
But that was really cool. So there wasn't a whole lot of content at the time. And I thought, you
know, wouldn't it be neat if somebody was talking about issues in Canadian gyms or Canadian comp
climbing and then, well, there's only so much to talk about in Canada. So let's do some American
stuff. So, you know, I just bought a, you know, bought one of those little audio interfaces for
microphones and, um, yeah, I went around to places just recording with people for the most part. I
think I recorded all of them like face to face, um, just with a Mac book and a couple crappy little
sure mics. And then over time started using like a digital interface or like online interfaces,
like the one we're using right now. Uh, and that kind of led to where the podcast is a video
product came up. Um, yeah, just kind of that evolution from audio to video, I guess.
Yeah. So I guess you managed to do a lot of interviews with, um, I guess through working
at the gym and going to competitions that way. Yeah. If you're a coach and you travel to a lot
of competitions, you do meet a lot of people. You meet a lot of other coaches, you meet a lot of
like comp organizers, you meet gym owners and stuff like that. And so after coaching for like five-ish
years, you start to feel like you really know everybody in Canada that's involved with comps.
Um, so within Canada, it was pretty easy to talk to people. Um, if I wanted to speak to Americans,
it was more of like, hi, I'm a random dude, you know, can I bother you for an hour or something
like that? But within Canada, it's a pretty small community ultimately. So it wasn't too hard.
Did you mention that you were a coach or did I just totally miss that? I did not know that you
were a coach. I might've buzzed over it. Yeah. I was just coaching kids. Um, and, uh, uh, um,
yeah, it was, it was just, you start as a rec coach and you kind of follow your kids up and a couple
of them ended up at a world youth championship in 2015. So that was like another big moment getting
to meet lots of like international people. Um, yeah, I got to go to the one of the ARCO ones,
which at the time I was aware that ARCO is a, I knew factually that it was like a historic place,
but until, you know, years later, when I started the podcast and started doing more historical
research, did I realize like, Oh, I was in a really, in a really special place, like one of
the very like foundational competitions in, in like Western competition history. Um, yeah. So
a little bit of coaching, I wouldn't say I'm like, uh, coaching is something I'll probably never do
again. I don't have the drive for it. I don't have a personal like competitive background.
So I think I was pretty good at working with kids, keeping them happy, making sure they have a good
time, keep them safe. But when it comes to like trying to build a competitive drive, um, I don't
have that myself. I can't really relate to that part of the human condition. So, so I kind of
maxed out how much I could do in coaching, I guess. Yeah. Okay. And so, um, with the podcast,
it seems like now you're more so doing debrief with, um, John and instead of doing interviews.
Um, yeah. Why did you sort of pivot away from, from the interview? Yeah. Anybody that's followed
plastic weekly for a long time. First of all, like the name has become a joke by itself. Um,
and I've kept it because it's a good reminder to stay humble about your ambitions and what you're
capable of. I thought it was going to be a weekly podcast. I would publish every week. I thought I
was going to do an audio thing with like two or three interviews every single week in one episode.
And between that being like way too much work, I just, the way my life works, the way my
personality works, I started having these months where nothing would come out. And over the seven
years of the podcast, that's a recurring pattern, right? There will be content for a bunch of months
and then I'll just disappear for a couple. And, and I'm starting to learn to live with that,
especially because it's not the thing that pays my bills. And the other big part of my life is
still climbing, right? Like I spend almost all of my time in the week talking about climbing and
thinking about climbing and worrying about it. And so it is a little hard to get home and want to
dive right back in sometimes, especially during the winter time when it is kind of busy season
for gyms in, uh, in the Northern hemisphere. Um, so it's, it's had lots of ups and downs,
but the thing about John that was great was I had wanted to try this format possibly since John
Blomquist stopped doing his on shock talk. And so I was thinking like, wouldn't it be cool if we
could do this kind of thing? Like the kind of content that's really at the time was really
popular in like e-sports circles where it is just two guys on Skype talking for a couple hours.
And I was digging around trying to find like, okay, who's actually writing about competitions?
Who's, who's the person covering this stuff? And it's a really short list, but John was right there
at the time writing for climbing magazine. And so I shot him a message and we're like,
Hey, can we do this? And of course he was great. He's a sports nerd in general. It's not just
climbing. He just loves sports and he's fluent in that kind of discussion, uh, which was a good
counter to me where I don't have a lot of history of being a sports fan. Um, so he brings this great
experience as somebody that understands like fundamentally the experience of being a sports
fan, of being a sports journalist and me coming from a different angle. That's a little bit more
naive about those things and more of kinda, I'm used to working in the background. I'm used to,
you know, maybe being involved with the organization of events. So it was a really
cool dynamic, but the real key thing is it's where I discovered that having a partner to do one of
these introduced a new level of accountability to make sure it gets done. Because now it's not just
me failing myself. If I don't put out a piece of content now I'm failing John. If I don't reach out
to him and say, Hey, we got to do this Tuesday. I've got a guest and all that kind of stuff.
So it made it much easier to do things because there was somebody that I was going to disappoint
directly and somebody that I like love deeply and I don't want to disappoint him or leave him
hanging. So that's the key to the longevity so far of the debrief is that he's just there.
He adds that extra layer.
No, that's awesome. And seven years doing this is, I mean, quite a feat. I kind of wanted to,
I guess, commiserate on highlights and like biggest struggles of dealing with the podcast.
Yeah. What have been your highlights?
That's a good question, man. Highlights of the podcast. That's like, honestly, maybe like the
first time somebody like wrote me a letter, like sent me like actual mail. That was sick.
I used to have this really lame way of ending the podcast. I think I said something like,
you know, if you enjoyed this, like shoot me a message, just let me know you're out there
somewhere. And for whatever reason, some people would occasionally like write a letter, which
is amazing. And that was really gratifying. Highlights otherwise was maybe starting to feel
like I'm becoming friends with the other people who are covering climbing, like really struggling
to keep the tabs on this stuff. Like it's a very small group of people, especially in English,
that are actually trying to keep track of the evolution of the sport. It's people like, you
know, John, obviously Delaney Miller as well over at climbing, Natalie Berry, of course.
And then some names that are fading out, like Eddie Fouke. He did five incredible years as the
official IFC photographer and things really went south, unfortunately, around the pandemic. But
that guy is, the amount of institutional memory in that one person is wild and he needs to write a
book like as soon as possible, because for five years he was living on athletes' couches and
shooting the comps and flying with the athletes and taking all of their pictures, making sure to
take a picture of every single face at the comp and qualifiers. Like from, what was it for him,
2014 to 2019 or something? He is the memory of record for the athlete experience. And sadly,
he's kind of phasing out. I think he's found other things that he loves and he's definitely
earned the ability to move on. But getting to meet these people has been amazing. And the one or two
of them that I might talk to outside of an interview is really rewarding. Yeah, I don't know.
The low points, I'm trying to think of the lowest point. Have you ever had somebody,
have you ever published an interview and then the subject messages you and says,
like, hey, can you take it down within the day that you've put it up or anything like that?
What's your, do you have any disaster stories? No, holy crap, if that happened to me, I might just
shut everything down. Yeah, for real. It's silly. Yeah. I don't know. I had, it was somebody involved
in like hold shaping back when it was an audio podcast and we recorded it and it was great.
And there was nothing that I thought was like remotely troubling. But yeah, it was up for maybe
like 12 hours. And then I got an email while I was just like out of the house saying like,
hey, can you edit this out? And I was like, I can't edit it out like right now. It's kind of busy.
So I ended up taking an episode down and republishing it later after having clipped some
stuff out. But that was like really frustrating. Okay. I thought you meant like you just couldn't
publish the entire episode. No, it was a particular, yeah, it was just one particular area, but it was
like it kind of ruined an entire line of questioning because we kind of started talking about I think
like quality control and liability and stuff. I think that's what it was about. But yeah,
that does make it difficult. But no, I thought it was more of like a personal thing. Like, hey,
this went up and now I hate you and I don't want to go ahead. I want to hear it's like what some of
your highlights are low points. Low points are honestly more fun, frankly, but it's not even
like nothing bad has really happened. It's just my fear of bad things happening that just gives
me this constant anxiety about it. Sure. Like, um, I don't know if you see if you're like on
TikTok or anything, but I see a lot of videos, um, talking about, uh, like anxious attachment styles.
And I think in my personal life, I don't have an anxious attachment style, but in like podcast
guests, it's like, you need this like constant, uh, communication or like you need to always
be in the interview or like in the, in the like lead up to it, lead up, I think, or that's like
what anxious attachment is. Like you need to be constantly reassured that you're like, okay. Or
like the person is so this explains like the nine reminder emails I've gotten like in the last day.
Okay. Gotcha. I understand now. See, I didn't know that it sends that actually. I haven't been
sending anything that might be like the calendar invite. You've, you've programmed the system well
to do what you internally want it to do. Good job. No one's told me that that happens.
But yeah, that like doesn't happen to me in my personal life, but since starting this podcast,
I get so worried when someone does not like respond to me or if like I had them on and then
they're like busy after, um, and they like, don't respond to my message. I'm like, oh my God, they
hated the podcast. They hate the interview. They don't like me. They don't want it to go up. They
don't want to post it. They're like not happy with the conversation. And so that, that's the biggest,
that's probably the biggest low light for me. I like, don't know how people feel after.
How do you feel like you've had a real blunder though? Cause like there are two, there are two
things that I remember saying that I regret and that I should apologize for. They weren't necessarily
like mean or offensive, but I felt like, Oh, that didn't come across the way I wanted it to,
to that person. And I feel like I may have possibly hurt them. And I'm almost certainly
overthinking it, but there are two people in the universe who I really need to just message at some
point and be like, Hey, I haven't heard from you since we spoke years ago. I just wanted to make
sure you don't think that I think you're a total idiot or something like that. I don't know. There's
just a couple of things like that. I don't know if you've, if you felt that way. No, that I don't
think that's happened. At least if I think I say something stupid, I can edit that out. To the
person, I think I tend to err on like the safe side, but do you want to go into what stupid things
you said, or is that too haunting for you? I feel like I should apologize to them personally, but one,
one was, I just made a, I made a quip. I think it was a conversation about like, you know, talking
about who our candidates would be for maybe like best boulders ever some, like some like fairly
just like hypothetical conversation. And I think I, when they gave their answer, I suggested like,
Oh, I'm surprised you didn't say this person, which kind of suggested that I thought they had
a really basic outlook on like climbing, like, Oh, I assumed you would have picked this name
because you're dumb or whatever. Like that's how I was afraid it would be read. And then the other
one, I'll just say this out loud, cause it's so, so stupid, but just like off the cuff. And this is
where you really forget some of these climbers are young, but I forgot Colin Duffy was like 16 at the
time. And I just made a joke that he has big ears, which normally just in general, I wouldn't be too
harsh about that. Like my, like where I come from, people make fun of each other's looks to our faces
all the time. And you're just like busting each other's balls. But like right after I said it,
I was like, Oh, this guy's a child. Like I think of him as a, as a climber that's been on the scene
for like as long as I have, even though he was only 16. But instantly I was like, you know what?
That was too far. Yeah. There's just like little, little blunders that come up and you're like,
okay, at least I'm going to learn from that. I'm going to remember when I'm talking about these
young athletes like, you know, Cheyenne So or I am more like, especially if I'm making jokes that
I would consider appropriate for adults, I have to remember, even though they're like pro athletes,
that is a kid. And I do need to like dial in a certain amount of restraint when it comes to,
you know, you know, for all the talk about red S, which is kind of like code for a lot of,
it's not quite the same, but it kind of falls in the same stream as like body image issues.
And especially when we're dealing with kids, that's like, absolutely not stuff that some dumb,
like at the time 27 year old should be tripping in on like the looks of a 16 year old kid. Right?
So that's a mistake I am doing my best to not make ever again. Fortunately, I don't think anybody
ever like watched that episode. So, I mean, it wasn't like in front of them. No, it wasn't.
It was just one of those things that you're just like, oh, I'm an idiot. And why did I say that in
front of a microphone? Like that was recording, right? Well, I mean, the nice thing is that you
could just edit it out. I don't know if that was on my show that might've been on somebody else's.
I think, yeah. But anyway, I mean, you can always ask them to edit it out, but yeah, I guess that's
kind of the good part of having the show. Cause then you can make yourself look however you want.
Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that doesn't happen to me too often because
my podcast is focused a lot more on, I guess, like me learning about the competition space.
And I thought your whole brand was roasting teenagers. I mistook your podcast. I thought
that was the whole thing. No, I would love to have like a young climber on. I think that would be
really interesting, but yeah, if that becomes my brand, maybe, maybe I shouldn't do that.
They would get clicks. It would, but yeah, I think one of your greatest like strength,
strengths and abilities with your podcast is your ability to open up discussion and discourse on
things that happen with Incomps, whereas mine is more just like interviewing and learning about
the person and what they do within the competition space. But yeah, since that's kind of more of your
focus and you talk about what happens within Incomps, what are some of your competition hot
takes? If you were to ask like the plastic weekly crowd, like the, the regular viewers and like
people that might make memes about this stuff, it's probably that I am pretty,
pretty cautious about using words like greatest of all time and like legend and all those kind
of things, which is funny. I don't know if you watched the IFSC debuted their,
their podcast just like yesterday or something. And within the first 10 seconds, Matt, who is
excellent at his job, Matt starts by lamenting like the overuse of the term legend and then proceeds
to call Sean McCall like the goat, which just made me want to blow my brains out. Because I think,
especially with my concern about like the history of climbing, I think it's really important that we
kind of hold back on being too generous with our compliments and the titles we give people,
lest we forget how important it actually is when those real people show up, when we have those
incredible highs. If you've been calling everybody a legend for the last 10 years, and then an actual
legend shows up, what's this new viewer going to be able to tell the difference, right? If we call
every of the six, like, you know, finalists at a Boulder World Cup, for instance, a legend, like
every fricking kid, every 16 year old kid, Mejdi is a legend already or something like that. And
then a genuine legend, somebody that competed for forever and won a ton of golds, you know,
like Killian Fishuber comes on stage to maybe hand them a medal. And then you then try to call
Killian Fishuber a legend after using the exact same word for some 15 year old punk that like,
maybe bluff their way into their first ever finals. What does it even matter? Like, what do,
like, it's just like an arms race to the most superlative title for athletes. So that does
require like a certain amount of awareness of the history of climbing, which just due to my own
personal interests, I happened to delve into that. And I don't expect everybody to do that.
It's not, you know, it's not everyone's responsibility to do all the research
themselves, especially, you know, for something as like unrewarding as this. But yeah, I think
my biggest hot take was like, especially like 2019, when everybody was like, oh, I'm going to
call it the goat. I was like, hold off a second. Like if you're going to declare somebody the goat,
here's the mental exercise I need you to do before you drop that title. Okay. If Yanya is
the new goat as of June 2019, whenever it was that she won Vail and swept a boulder season,
if that made her the goat, who was the goat until that happened? Who was the goat before Yanya?
And not many people could even suggest another name in that category. And that was really
disturbing. I don't think that title, because I can't think of a higher title, what is the
better compliment to give an athlete aside from like greatest of all time, time, time.
That's a really big thing to put on somebody. And so in my like hot take world, that's really
disrespectful to drop titles like that. If you can't even think of like, who was the goat right
before Yanya or you can't name some other candidates. I think that's like, that's way
too close to hyperbole for a title that important. I think that's like an inappropriate use of it.
And I should just clarify all that by saying, I'm not saying Yanya isn't one of the best athletes
that climbing has ever seen, or that she may become or maybe she is, but I think that's
she may become or maybe she is the greatest climber we've ever seen. I just think you have
to actually understand what you're saying when you give somebody that title. Because in my opinion,
there is no bigger title that is the ultimate achievement for anybody that touches climbing.
And so that really frustrated me. So anyway, now you've got angry Tyler on the podcast now.
But yeah, that's probably, that's probably like the biggest hot take that I can think of. I don't
know. There might be some other ones out there, but yeah, get rid of isolation. That's another one.
Please excuse this brief intermission. But I would just like to remind you that if you are
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Anything helps to push this podcast out to more people and get even more amazing guests on.
Back to the show. I guess first of all, what you mentioned about Yanya, they're not being a previous
goat before Yanya. Doesn't that kind of make it more meaningful that people like are starting
to call her a goat? Because like, if there was already a previous one, and they're just like
jumping between people. So this is this is my my question is, I so climbing like bouldering has
been going on at a World Cup level since like officially 1999. But technically like 97, let's say.
So for all of those years, and again, people just refer to Yanya as like the goat without
any qualifiers. I don't know if they're talking about lead climbing or bouldering or both. I have
no idea. But for all of those years, say again, I mean, kind of like both is the point like,
sure. Yeah, fair enough. My concern there is that there are other female athletes who have excelled
in both lead and bouldering. So before Yanya hit the scene, even though that discussion was not
taking place on YouTube or taking place on audio podcasts, there was somebody who in different
people's opinions was the best of all time. Right. And maybe it just came up, you know, in
live journal feeds, or on somebody's blog, on somebody's flash website that is now defunct
and broken and lost to time. But before Yanya, there was a previous best climber. And just
because current viewers might not know who those people are, it's not good enough to just be willing
to drop that title on somebody, right? Like, maybe the conversation hasn't happened for for all these
for all these new viewers, maybe they weren't aware of who came before. But it's really important
before you grant somebody like the greatest, like, let's say, let's say somebody granted you or me
the greatest competition podcast of all time, but they have never heard any other competition
podcasts aside from ours. That isn't a relevant title to give to either of us, right? I don't know
if they knew about shock talk. I don't know if they are aware that podcasts have only been around
for so long and you have to look back to like the, the, like the spot setting blog, or all these
different old, you know, blogs and websites that covered that stuff. I think the important thing
to realize is that there were climbers that came before Yanya that did incredible things. And just
because we don't know their name, it doesn't mean we can just forget about them and skip over them.
I think to call Yanya the goat, I think it's only appropriate to give somebody a title that big.
If we can look back at those before her and say, yes, she has actually earned that when you compare
Yanya to, for example, a Sandrine Lavey, who was dominating from like 2001 to 2006, or even further
to like a Liv Sansos, like let's say 90, 99 to like 2001, 97, I guess. Those are other names.
Those are like before Yanya, those are the people you would have considered as the best of all time
that were like interdisciplinary that did both bouldering and lead at a very high level.
And those names are pretty much forgotten. So it just hurts when Yanya gets called the goat,
but the people dropping that title aren't aware of the people that came before her.
So that was my only real grift with the, with the goat discussion was that I think that's a huge
title to give to somebody. And it's really important to reflect on who she's overtaking,
you know, for dropping her that, that honorific. But yeah. And now I've gone too far in this discussion.
Well, that makes sense. Cause I mean, I would say I'm more of like a newer viewer. So I don't
like those previous people. So that's good to know. Do you think it's still like too early for the title?
No, I don't think like I, my same, the same things I say now are important. So let's say Yanya ends up
with a hundred gold medals, right? More gold medals than anybody in history. Like that's like
many times more than anyone else. I still think it's worth being able to name the people that came
before you. Right? Like if somebody says, Oh, Yanya won a hundred gold medals. No one's ever done that
before. It's still worth knowing, okay, who's in second place and how many medals do they have?
Right? Like that's a basic answer that I think you should be able to find before, before dropping the
title. But in general, I do think Yanya is probably the greatest female lead and Boulder athlete we've
ever seen. The hard part is there's very few people in history that have done that. And it might
actually be a historical anomaly in climbing to have athletes doing both. So prolifically,
when the Olympics goes to individual disciplines, which we're all quite certain at will at this
point, and as the fields get bigger and there's more serious competitors, I can totally see a
world where you have to focus on just lead or you have to focus on just Boulder in order to
be among the best. Setting has changed over the decades, the nature of competitions and
the incentives for doing one discipline or another, they have all changed. So it's possible we're in
this unique little pocket of time where we have all these talents who do both, right? This may
not last forever. It hasn't been a very common thing to see repeat finalists in both lead and
Boulder in a season. That's kind of pretty out there. And maybe that'll stop again. Who knows?
Well, I think that might mean like a future goat would be someone who
can do all of that despite not having to. Maybe. Yeah. And that's the, you know,
with these kinds of like subjective titles we give people, that's the hard part is comparing
someone in the future who's in a totally different situation than those today, right?
The two names I mentioned, Sandrine Lave and Liv Sensos, there was a very different time of climbing
for, for Sandrine, the format was entirely different, right? For both disciplines was a
totally different way of competing. The field was very different and there were different amounts
of competitions each year. There were generally more comps for most of her years each year.
So it was easier to rack up a higher medal count than someone like Yanya, for instance.
And for Liv Sensos, her bouldering wins when she swept, it was a 97 or 98, those competitions were
entirely within like France and Switzerland. It was a much more, you know, Eurocentric
comp scene. The field was much smaller, but she won all those medals in the same way that Yanya
did. So yeah, the context is really different and that's where it's hard to parse, right?
If it was as simple as just Yanya has X number of medals, Sandrine has Y and Liv has Z, it would be
a simple conversation, but yeah, just the nature of the way it's all evolved, it is much harder.
Yeah. Yeah. And then also what you were mentioning about getting rid of isolation. Why?
Yeah, that's like where me as a comp organizer is the driving factor for sure. It was interesting
and Sean and Matt did their podcast yesterday and that was something Sean mentioned to a similar
question. For me, one of my goals with bouldering specifically, although it's relevant to lead as
well, is to make the competitions a kind of format that requires less formal organization.
And ISO requires a little bit more space and it also requires more separation between athletes.
It puts restrictions on who's allowed in certain spaces. So like if you just kind of imagine
maybe your home gym or gyms nowadays are like bigger and bigger, so it's maybe not as much of
an issue, but the idea of having to like close off an entire wall so nobody can see it often
means for different gyms that the venue is just closed and that they're not allowed to be in
gyms that the venue is just closed and nobody's allowed inside. So being able to open up
settings so that people can watch the setting or the setting isn't necessarily blocked off
would be great. Not having to store athletes who are warming up in a separate room, in a
separate building, like the Salt Lake City World Cups, the climbers warm up at the USA training
center and then they get put in a car and driven to the venue where they have a secondary warm up.
That's a huge logistical just like waste of time that also costs money, right?
And then lastly, just from like a crowd and spectator perspective, honestly, I really like
the idea of the crowd being able to yell beta at climbers who are on the wall. That sounds
like a blast to me because most people give shit beta in the first place, but I think that would
be a lot of fun. Now I don't think there is a comp format necessarily where the only change you make
is just like cross out the isolation part and just use the current World Cup format. That's just like
an element to a bouldering competition that I think would be really interesting. And the formats
would probably have to be different and there's a bunch of different options for that.
Garrett Greger has played around with some of those options. He had a Portland boulder rally
a couple of years ago with that kind of concept. I think the guys at the boulder fields did the
same, but I think that would be an interesting like kind of shift. Yeah, I think one time I saw
this competition. Maybe it was like the World Games or something where they didn't have isolation and
it was just it was on it. Yeah, possibly. So you like literally just want that because of the
logistical. Yeah, logistical and I think it opens up I think it makes you think differently about
what a boulder comp is. I think right now where it is very much like the athletes are only competing
against the wall. They don't get to see each other. They don't get to climb in response to each other.
I don't really love that. And I think if you get rid of ISO, it gives you more options to how
a boulder competition for instance would run. So that's just one element, I guess. Yeah.
You don't think it'd be like harder for route setters to create separation
if they could all see each other climb. I think that's a super relevant concern if you use the
current format. Yeah. So if let's say you are forced to climb a boulder for five minutes,
and I just get to watch you for five minutes and then I go after, yeah, I'm gonna have a way better
chance of topping thanks to watching you, you know, run some run some attempts on that thing.
That's totally true. And that's like one of those reasons why it's probably not compatible with just
like a regular World Cup format. You would probably have to make some other changes.
But yeah, I think that's something when people talk about comp formats, it's kind of important
to consider like, don't necessarily start with the current format. I think a lot of people's
habits are to take the existing World Cup format and want to change individual lines
and just make these little adjustments. I think those can really stack up and create problems.
It's often just easier to say, what do I want the experience of the climber to be like? What do I
want the experience of the route setter to be like, or the audience member to be like, and start
building honestly from scratch. And that's a really fun mental exercise to think about, okay, what do
I want scoring to look like? What is the best boulder and how do we get them to demonstrate it
in an hour? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what that would be like. I've also seen some like flash
competitions. Like one attempt comps, you mean? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I love
that. That's super fun. Yeah. Now, so long as I guess the one thing I'll say is I don't enjoy
the competitions where they get to try the boulders before the comp. I super, super hate that.
But yeah, like a comp format we thought would be really fun one time was just to just imagine
this as an experiment, okay? A boulder wall with let's say nine boulders on it. And every competitor
gets exactly nine attempts total. And which boulders they get to use those on is up to them.
You can use one attempt on every boulder, or you can use some of those on just boulder number one,
some of those on boulder number two and boulder number three, and you ignore the next six, right?
So now obviously there are like lots of different considerations about how you're going to route set
for this, but it's really interesting if you start just like pulling apart comp formats,
completely and just start from fresh. Like you and me, you and me, nine boulders in front of us.
We both have nine attempts. Are you going to climb first? Are you going to wait for me to climb first?
Which boulder are you going to choose if you're allowed to choose, right? Maybe we just say there's
no running order. You just get to start on whichever one you want and you don't have to go in a
particular direction. And you can just watch Tyler climb for 30 minutes before you try your attempts.
Like, yeah, I think it's really fun when you start thinking about this stuff. And you also start to
realize like, oh, there's a lot of comp format ideas I can try just with me and my friends at the gym.
You're just like, Hey guys, there's a new set on the wall. Let's try this thing. We get nine attempts
tonight and we see how many tops we can all get, but you just get nine attempts. So I think that's
something people should try out is just like, try a new game with you and your friends and see what's fun.
Well, I mean, you are the one who organizes competitions and works at a gym. So I think
you're the one who should take that on in my own little way. Yeah, yeah, I try to.
Yeah. Okay. Some other hot takes I wanted to see if you had opinions on. A lot of people talk about
not caring about the overall title anymore, I guess, like the season title or like not caring
about world champs, other than it being an Olympic qualifier. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Yeah, I guess I do. Like starting with world championships, it's one of those things you wish
you could do every year, right? That's the one sad thing is it certainly feels structured at this
point to be a qualifying event for an Olympic games, which is a little frustrating. I would love
it if every year we could have a culminating event where we get to see the best climbers in the world.
I think that would be a lot more fun than having it every two years. For the overall,
this is a hard one because in climbing our circuit has like relatively few events.
And I think a lot of the awareness of this topic, it's curious, maybe it's not a coincidence that
this conversation has come up when F1 has become this new sport that so many of us now have a much
better understanding of than we did before. And that sport has a very clear, very important season
ranking across the entire year, but they're dealing with something like 20 to 25 races,
I think, every year. And the way it's structured out is there are some drivers in F1 who they might
get no score for a bunch of these races because they crash or they come too low in the placings,
but you're still able to be competitive even though you miss a few events.
In climbing where lately we're pretty much averaging about six events per year for each
discipline, if you miss two events and then you have a abnormally low event in one of the other
stops, you're pretty much out. So having an overall season with this number of events is
actually functionally really difficult to make it genuinely competitive.
So you're going to end up with a lot of situations where because there's so few events and you earn
so many points for each one, you can be in the final event of the year and there could be like
10 different people that could win, right? Conversely, you can get to the end of the year
and Yanya Garmbrat is at the event and she can be miles ahead of everybody else, but because she
missed two events in the season, she is just not in consideration, right? Two events, just two events,
and that puts her out. So I think our overall season has some work that needs to be done before
it could be considered a really clean kind of spectator product to understand. I think more
focus does need to be put on it because generally the top three people each season had really great
seasons and we should laud those people for a great performance. And the basics of this are we
should show that overall season podium at the end of the year, right? We should actually see it. I
think it was last year or the year before where we didn't even get to see them award the bouldering
podium for the overall season. That's too crappy a way to end a year, right? So we at least got to
show those performances. But I think one cool thing that's happening this year, and it probably
won't happen every year in the future, but this year ends with an event that is all three
disciplines. The final event of the year is going to be speed and bouldering and lead. So this really
cool thing is happening where all of those storylines for all three disciplines are going to end at
the same time. And I think that is also a nice improvement where even though technically it's
not a world championship, depending on how the year plays out and depending on who's too tired
from the Olympics and decides they don't want to show up and depending on who's got the points,
you could end up with that final comp of the year having like all the big stars in attendance
fighting for those overall points and having all three disciplines doing it. And it kind of becomes
this quasi world championship unofficially. So I'm a little scared. The other two things are kind
of tough to talk about because there's just these practical problems with them. But that's one thing
I'm really psyched about this season for is ending it with a speed boulder and lead World Cup. It's
been since I think 2015, Haiyang in China was the last time there was a World Cup that had all three
disciplines in it. So it's really rare. It's really, really rare. But we get one. So I'm psyched.
Yeah. Do you know why they decide to do that this year?
So if I remember right, the last World Cup is going to be in South Korea. They are the hosts of
the 2025 World Championships, right? So I think what it is, is if you're going to host a world
championship, you must, the country that's hosting the World Championship must have hosted events,
I believe in all three disciplines in the year before. So it's a really, really rare event.
In the year before. So it's basically written into the book that if you're going to host a
world championship, you need to prove that you are capable of running a speed event and a boulder
event and a lead event in the year leading up to that. So I'm pretty sure that's probably why it's
all happening that way. Korea hasn't held a lead event in I think about 10 years as well, like
maybe 2014 or something. We know they can do boulder and speed because we've seen it the last
couple of seasons, I think, but they need to prove it on lead. And so for whatever reason,
in terms of like when in the year it is, I don't know why necessarily the IFSC put it at the end
of the year, but I believe that's why you're seeing all three happen at one event.
LSW Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, when you were talking about the F1 stuff and having like a bunch
of competitions, I didn't know they did that many. That's like an insane amount. I can't imagine
at the state competition climbing is in right now that that would be feasible at all considering
how expensive it would be for athletes to attend these and then like not even win much money from
them, especially given their current budgets. So.
CB And there's also not a lot of countries that are able to host world cups. Like hosting world
cups is very expensive. So it's just simply not an option for the most part.
LSW And I think that also reminds me of like the environmental impact that people are talking
about when it comes to going to competitions. I think that was a big thing with the like
Neom games in like Saudi Arabia. Yeah. Any thoughts on that one?
CB I was just really surprised that the environmental angle was the one that everybody
had a problem with for that event. I shouldn't say everybody because I know like within my
discord, possibly within your discord on the maybe the comp climbing subreddit,
people mentioned the facts that like, oh, hey, this competition is entirely paid for by the
Saudi Royals who have a terrible record of killing journalists, jailing people for tweeting,
and just an awful human rights record and are diving into all of these different sports right
now because they're in this genuinely unfortunate position where their economy is driven entirely
by oil, which the entire world is trying to get away from. And they're realizing, oh,
shit, we've got this giant country full of people that need jobs and we can't rely on oil. We have
to diversify, which is like a fair objective for any country, right? But the way they're doing that
is we're taking our oil money and us as a, you know, a Royal family, we're going to buy up
as many sports properties. I shouldn't just say it's everything. It's technology, it's business.
They are trying to just like take these different parts of the world's economy
and take it into their kingdom so that they can basically treat it as their own and kind of
sustain their country, which is fair. The frustrating part is, you know, in my opinion,
the IFSC is a sport organization that is desperate for funding, which is true for the most part.
It doesn't have the funding like a lot of other sports that will change with the Olympics, but
most sports money like always seems to be a problem for whatever reason.
So we are exactly the kind of people that would be like, yes, absolutely. Please, please give us
whatever money you can take and we'll absolutely host this competition. And I think that same
instinct among climbing fans, which may trend towards a more like, like liberal worldview,
where we would care about the environmental impact of our sport, even though, you know,
every sport out there from the NFL to F1, most of these sports have ginormous environmental impacts.
It's interesting that that, that, that instinct in us to worry about the environment and to care
about things like that also was a little drastic, like surprisingly silent when we took a call up
and basically white labeled the world cup in Saudi Arabia. There are trans climbers, there are gay
climbers, there are climbers who in the last couple of years have been, well, we can take Iran,
for example, we've had climbers that have been deeply oppressed by their governments. We have
climbers who have been punished because Russia, for example, you know, Russia does a crazy thing
by invading a neighbor. And now those climbers are punished because of that action. It's surprising
that we were okay with going to Saudi Arabia and thinking like, yeah, this is a good thing. Hashtag
discover neon everybody. We're psyched to be here. That was a little surprising. I thought there would
be a bit more noise from everybody. Yeah. In talking to athletes and talking to people involved,
there is a, the word is, is, is lost to me right now. It's on the tip of my tongue.
So I'm just going to use the word acceptance. It seems like there is a reluctant acceptance
that this is what pro sports is, especially if you're involved in like the Olympic world,
where for whatever reason we decide we want everyone involved and we claim it's about peace.
But, you know, we ejected Russia for what, two years and now, now they're back.
We're willing to have all of these national partners that have, you know, objectionable
human rights records from Saudi Arabia, the China to whoever you want. You get out a ton of people
on this. You get out the United States that list at different parts in their history, right? Like
that's, that's not a stretch. So it's, it's interesting to watch the climbing community,
not just the athletes or the organizers, but also just the fans have to think about that and decide
whether these things are important to us or not, whether you're not, you're going to watch neon.
Yeah, it's interesting. The environmental impact is a totally fair question. I would just say,
um, and maybe there are people suggesting an alternative and I just haven't seen it,
but I think you do have to ask a practical question like, okay, do you want international
competitive climbing? Well, we need climbers from different parts of the world to meet up
in the same spot to do this, right? Um, so that's just a practical limitation that has to be like,
honestly discussed. Yeah, I don't really know how we would get around that, but, um, yeah,
I definitely was surprised that it was the environmental issues and not like the,
the political issues that people were discussing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for elaborating on that.
I feel like I didn't even know that's like the reason why they started to create the games. I
just thought they were like, oh, it's fun to host sports. Yeah. I won't like, I'm not going to like
retread it or go too deep in it, but yeah, Saudi Arabia just economically has a really big question
that they're having to deal with. Um, and, and there's nothing wrong with trying to rejuvenate
your economy. Um, but it means for a lot of us, uh, Saudi Arabia has tons and tons and tons of
money, like so much money, and it is all controlled directly by their government.
So when an event is held by a government company, you're saying, okay, we're, we want to team up
with the government directly. Right? So this isn't just a competition being held, you know, by, by a
gym in the Netherlands or a gym in the USA. This is a gym being held in the Netherlands that is
paid for by the government of the Netherlands or the government of the USA. And it's up to us
whether or not we want to take that money. Cause that paycheck came basically directly from the
kingdom of Saudi Arabia straight to the IFSC. Um, and we got to decide if we want to work with a
government like that. Yeah. Very interesting food for thought. Um, okay. Last, uh, competition hot
take the new red S policy that came out. Yeah. Did you get a chance to look at that? Uh, so
months ago, I looked at the IOCs, um, policy that they put out. I can't remember what it's called,
but they did like kind of a recent, uh, rewrite of their red S policy. Um, interest, and I can't
remember her name, but one of the big doctors in this is actually from down the road at McMaster
university in Hamilton nearby. I think her last name is Mount joy. Um, so it was cool seeing like
a local connection to, to this stuff. Um, yeah, I'm really excited that we have a much more specific
policy that lays out quite concrete steps for how it's supposed to work. Um, like any policy, the,
what we're going to have to judge them on is how it is implemented. Um,
federations get to perform most of these tests on their own. Uh, so we have to see if federations
are keeping their athletes interests in mind, or if, uh, if they're going to fudge some numbers or,
or be a little less than truthful for the sake of maybe keeping some of their best athletes in play,
which earns those federations money. So that's something to be wary of is if you have your best
athlete winning all these goals and they're an Olympic hopeful, you might get a ton of money
from your country's government because you have an Olympic metal hopeful. Um, whereas if you take
them out of play because they're unhealthy, you lose a lot of money. And that's, that's just like
a genuine conflict of interest that we have to be aware of. Uh, and then lastly is how the random
tests work. Um, who's going to be performing those, how often they're going to, they're going to be
performed. How is that stuff going to be enforced? So I'm really optimistic that we have an improved
policy. I'm really excited that the athletes were so involved in it. That is awesome. Um, but now
we have to judge it on how it's implemented. And that was really the weakness of the last one was
there was a policy, but all of a sudden it stopped being enforced. And that's when all the trouble
happened was when nobody was enforcing it anymore. So over the next year, the next couple of years,
let's see how it goes. So cautiously optimistic, I guess, is what I would say. Maybe I misread it,
but I thought that this was done this like testing and everything was going to be done at the IFSC
level. Yeah. So on the second page, um, national federation responsibilities. So step one is
basically you guys do the tests. Um, and then, uh, all that stuff kind of gets sent to the IFSC
basically just saying, Hey, this athlete is good or this athlete is not. Um, the random testing is,
is monitored by the IFSC. Um, but yeah, so, so there's still some national federation
involvement and stuff. I just thought, I also just thought like a questionnaire was kind of funny
because you could just lie, right? It's like pretty obvious what they're looking for. So,
yeah, yeah. And that's, that's where that random testing is really important. We, you know,
is that random testing going to be frequent? Is it going to be impartial? Uh, and, and is it going
to be enforced or is it going to be the kind of thing that athletes can just appeal to the ends
of the earth and, and, and effectively like nullify it? Like, yeah, they tested me and they said I was
in the orange zone or the red zone, but I'm just going to take it up with every, every judge and
every court of arbitration possible and basically just get away with it for, for years, like don't
really know. So we kind of got to see it play out. We'll see how it goes in the upcoming season.
And speaking of the upcoming season, I'm sure you have a lot of season predictions.
I'm terrible at this. Like if I participated in like sports betting, I would be out so much
money at this point, just based on what already happened in terms of Olympic selection. So I
guess, first of all, I'm not sure if you have any insight on this. I'm wondering if a lot of athletes
will be pulling out of competitions leading up to the Olympics and after, and what, like how that
would change the season if people aren't present.
Yeah, I don't have any insight. And I also, all I can really talk about is kind of what we saw in
29 or sorry, in 2020. In 2020, I think Alberto Ginez Lopez was the only Olympic athlete to attend
like almost every comp before the Olympics itself. And so the joke was he tired himself out and was
going to perform like shit. And then of course he becomes the gold medalist somehow at 2020,
of course, a year later. I don't know, but I'm sure most of them will take some time off. The
early part of the season is going to be interesting depending on when athletes want to peak,
obviously. So some athletes may postpone their season up to the OQS events, but I guess most of
them are going to compete just as a warmup, see where they are as some like basic testing, get
back in the flow of competing. It's going to be the events around the Olympics where I would expect
you start to see more and more names drop off. Whatever the last world cup is before the Olympics,
there's that if you want to place a bet on like, oh, at this comp, you'll see somebody win a gold
medal who's never won a gold medal before. Whatever comp that is, that's probably a pretty good bet
that you're going to see a first time gold medalist at that last event before the Olympics as they
start to transition. Now I say that and some differences from last time. I don't know what
Paris is like in the summer, but for Tokyo, there was a lot of concern that it was going to be very
hot and we were going to have to do a lot of travel to get used to that. And so maybe since
most of our athletes are European, maybe you're going to see more competitors since they're in
Europe already. It might not be as big a deal. I don't know. We'll see what happens because the
circuit still does travel around quite a lot beforehand. So they might skip some continents,
but that's always been something that a lot of athletes have done is skip a leg here and there
based on their own personal condition. But yeah, we'll see what happens. I think attendance will be
cut off a little more than usual though. Do you like watching a competition where there's
lesser known competitors? No, not really. I think I'm definitely a bit of an elitist when it comes
to watching comp climbing. I really do just want to see the best six climbers over and over.
Honestly, if you just gave me a women's final, just Yanya, I, Chayun, Brooke, Natalia, and Jesse
Pills or pick your six, Laura or something like that, I could watch that 10 times, 10 times a
row. I don't care. I don't need to see new names coming up just pipping up for a single final.
I forgot Orienne, I guess. Sorry, Orienne. Yeah, that's a harsh one to miss, especially
because she just won the French national bouldering champs today. She's a great athlete.
The French national bouldering champs today. Yeah, I would happily just watch that field climb over
and over and over. I don't care too much about new faces. When they show up and start being
regulars, that's awesome. But I don't watch a ton of national comps. A lot of people seem to enjoy
the story of, wow, isn't it cool that this person is having the best comp day of their life and they
made it to finals. I don't really care about that. I much prefer to talk about these are the best
climbers of this generation and let's find all the little differences between them. Let's see who
needs three attempts on this kind of move and only one attempt on that kind of move. That's the stuff
I love is the very best climbers. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think a lot of people would agree with that.
I think that's one of the reasons why I really want there to be a newish climber who just suddenly
explodes on the scene and then can stay there for a really long time. Because I think that would
garner a lot of interest and talk within the climbing community, but also maybe outside of
the climbing community and grow the sport. I just really want Serato to go really far or totally.
Yeah, I think that's super fair. The athletes that I will always have a special place in
my heart were the ones who debuted in 2019 because that was the first year that John and I did the
debrief. Specifically, I, Maury and Chy-Yan Suh both came out of nowhere that year. I, Maury,
not so much. She only got one bronze medal or something like that, but Chy-Yan Suh, never seen
her before. Yanni Garnbret just won the entire World Cup boulder season and she's a lead climber
at the time. You're a lead climber. You just won the whole boulder season. Now you're coming to
lead. You're obviously going to win it all. Then this little kid from Korea absolutely destroys.
Getting to witness that was amazing. I think you may find, I don't know which year was your
first if it was last season, but my guess is you may end up developing a connection with somebody
like Serato the same way that I feel for Chy-Yan where it's like, oh, you came up the same year
I did. For that reason, you're like, you mean a little bit more to me. But yeah, there will
always be those new people. They'll come and it'll be a shock when they show up and it'll be amazing.
Well, the thing is they have to stay because especially with the Olympics, I guess I'm just
thinking about how Michael Phelps is huge and he stayed in the scene for so many years and
got so many medals. I feel like that's what we need to grow the sport and for people here.
Because who watches swimming? Yeah, nobody. I think that's something we should be really
conscious of is like not a lot of people watch climbing. And so I think like going back to the
format thing, it's worth rethinking our format. Maybe we don't have to feel married to this. We
have room to experiment. It's really important to grow viewership. But yeah, I think having Yanya is
exceptional. The only thing more you could ask for her is that she would be American.
There is just like an American bump in media coverage and like, yo, the US media,
if they have an incredible athlete, they will blow them up on every billboard and they will
become like international names regardless of what sport they're in. If Yanya was American,
she would be a superstar. She would be Simone Biles. It would be unbelievable.
But I think Yanya is that person. Yanya is a generational talent for sure. So I think
we're really lucky we have her and I expect the next like kind of five or 10 years is probably
going to be more like, you know, the way climbing history, especially in women's field is you usually
have like two or three athletes that are all right at the top together and no one is necessarily
dominant. So I think this Yanya period will slowly trickle off and you'll have a couple names.
But I think enjoy Yanya while she lasts as being like the singular dominant athlete,
because it may be a long time before we get somebody else like that.
Yeah, I guess the only issue is that she's not American.
Yeah, exactly. Maybe we can convince her to, yo, get her to marry an American guy, get over there
and yeah, we'll do whatever we have to. Yeah.
Be good for the sport.
Yeah.
Who are your favorites for the Olympics?
It's much harder on the men's side. For the women's, I would, there are caveats to all these
things always, so I'm not even going to bother. Yanya Garbritt is my pick for women's lead.
I think it would be silly to pick anybody other than Alexandra Miroslav for women's speed.
For men's lead in Boulder, bro, I don't even like, that's such a crap shoot and that's the
beauty of the men's field is like, you can make a list of seven names and they've all got a chance.
I think Serato and Rakuh is looking like an excellent choice though.
And then for the men's speed, I love that. I love having,
it's hard for me because the two Indonesian guys, I think of them as a duo. I'm not sure I want
Kiramel or Vedrik to become like way, way, way better than the other. I love having them as this
duo that are kind of neck and neck and win for their own different reasons and have different
personalities. So I don't, I would really like it if it was an Indonesian one too. And of course,
we already know that that's not going to happen because they're not both going to be at the Olympic
Games. For men's speed, yeah, that's a tough one. I'm not really sure who I want to go with for that
one. Okay. I'll pander for my men's pick and speed. This one goes out to those in the know,
but yeah, I'll pick Sam Watson for it because you Americans could really use a win.
That would help us a lot, frankly, as a sport. So you're my pick. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I guess it's less likely on the lead and bolder side. Actually, that reminds me,
one of the surprises for me qualifying for the Olympics was, I think, the fact that I was
calling so early. I mean, eventually, sure, but I didn't know he was having, I mean, he wasn't
having like a super great season. No, this was a terrible season for the American men, like, yeah,
for, well, American men in Boulder and lead specifically, not so much speed, but yeah.
Yeah. Was there any other athlete that you were like surprised about qualifying?
I think I would probably say like for the lead and stuff, I think really just Jesse Pills being
right at the top. That's probably the one name that I didn't quite expect. Like I thought that
top three would be more along the lines of like Yanya I. Brooke or Yanya Brooke or Yan or something
like that. So Jesse is always like right there on the edge. And of course she's always relevant
whenever she's in a final, but I think she would have been like, like fourth, fifth or sixth for me.
But yeah, I think with a lot of these events, like especially in the combined,
I don't feel too surprised anymore at most of the results. Yeah. I don't know.
Okay. Yeah. I think for me, as a newish viewer, I know Jacob is super decorated,
but I just like haven't seen him compete that much the past couple of years. And so I did not know
he was going to, yeah, I didn't know he was going to qualify so early.
Yeah. I think Jacob is, is one of the unsung heroes and the, I think the time you should,
like, I don't think there's any content around this, but he did, he won seven lead world cups
in a row in 2011. He would have been 21 years old and he was competing against guys that were like,
kind of like six to 10 years older than him. And he absolutely dominated that season. He didn't
win the world championships because it was like Ramon, like one of the Spanish guys that won that.
But if, you know, like if Yanya's, if Yanya six in a row was impressive in 2019, like Jacob is
right up there winning seven out of seven in a row, but I think it was like a 10 world cup season
in 2011. Like there used to be like way more world cups. A lot of these years you would like fit in
10, 10 lead world cups in one year plus a world championships. Yeah. And I think he's, I think
that's what was kind of messed up is Jacob Schubert's peak. His like peak in terms of
metal count per season was 13 years ago. Yeah, that's crazy. And he's going in a still as an
Olympic favorite at this time, right? Like there he's not, he's, it's not worth underestimating him
like at any corner. He can turn up whenever. And I'm not necessarily saying he's consistent
because he isn't, but Charlie Bosco like kind of mentioned leading up to the last Olympics that,
that Jacob just has like a big game player mentality. He suits up for the big moments.
And when it comes to world championships, he is ready on those days. I think you have to go back
like over like 12 years before you find a lead world championship where Jacob wasn't first or
second, the guy shows up. He is unbelievable. So I wouldn't necessarily put them as my bet to win the
world cup. I just said it would be probably Serato and Raku, right? But not going to be shocked to
become second or third or first. You never know, man. He's, he's incredible. Okay. Yeah. Really
good to learn about the, the history of competitions. I feel like you were a great person to ask about
all these things. So yeah, going into the discord questions, we have a couple here.
So do you think there is an absence of professional climbing media and our non-professional
channels doing an adequate job at filling that space? What do we need to do to get content to
the next level? I don't think there's a lack of climbing media. I think there's a lot of like
really good climbing media. I think as much as like the, you know, us being like a fashion item
is kind of annoying. And I know that will die off and like Gucci and whatever, they're not going to
do climbing stuff in a couple of years. This is a fad and we're not going to matter to them anymore.
I think the public is generally interested in like climbing media. I think climbing outside is
beautiful and the personalities are incredible. And that kind of adventure content is standout.
And we have so many good people involved in, in climbing media in general. But if it is narrowed
to competition, the climbing media, then it's obviously a really different question.
The hard part is like, there's not a lot of people doing it. I'm really glad you're here doing some
of it. Like we need everybody we can get for real, right? Like every voice matters. But the hard part
is like how many of us are doing it as a living, right? You know, John Bergman, he has his,
he's in a lot of different types of climbing media, not all competition to try and make things work.
You know, Delaney Miller also is not just competition climbing. When she does comp stuff,
it's unreal. But she has to do a lot of like outdoor stuff as well. And I'm sure she enjoys
it actually. I shouldn't make it sound like she, she's like just a comp person. Same thing with
Natalie Berry. Like she has to straddle both worlds. Like, you know, she's doing the hill
climbing stuff in the UK, which sounds to be just awful. But she's also possibly right now,
like the journalist of records when it comes to competitive climbing media in English at least.
So yeah, there's not a lot of people doing it. Most of us are casuals. Like I do this in my part
time, like for half a year at a time. And again, this isn't your living either at the moment,
right? So I think, and just to go back to what I said to you earlier, like I used to be really
critical of lots of different commentators in climbing. Almost every single commentator that
there has been in like the last 15 years, I've had different problems with them. And then eventually
you come to realize that this one person is the only commentator for like world cup climbing.
And it is totally unreasonable for me to expect Matt Groom or Charlie Bosco or whoever
to be exactly the kind of commentator that I want. There's lots of different styles of commentary.
There are lots of different voices that people might like. Some people like talking about
history. Some people like talking about movements. Some people like the personal stories.
Some people just have different inflection. And so long as our sport has a single commentator,
there's always going to be people that think there's someone better than Matt Groom or whoever
else is doing it, but it is just one guy and he is burdened with having to be the best he possibly
can be for all of the people watching. And I think that's just like an important reminder that
the more people like you or like me who are willing to add their voice and create content
in competitive climbing, there are people that were waiting for your voice and waiting for your
interviews. They didn't like my stuff. They didn't like somebody else's stuff, but your stuff is
exactly what they wanted. Right. And the same thing could be said for some people for my stuff
and so on. And so I think if anybody is interested in any way of creating any media around
competition climbing, absolutely do it. Whether it's like, whether you want to do like data
journalism and visualizing stuff like Rory is at Inside Climbing. If you want to do, you kind of
mentioned like this, your angle is sort of, I'm new here. I want to know everything about what's
going on. Like get me in the loop. To my thing, which is a lot more kind of lately, it's been
commentary and analysis and criticism and stuff like that. Like we need everybody we can get. So
even if you can do one YouTube video, you know, a year, or if you're writing a column for a blog,
like hop in there, let us know that you're doing it. We'll share it. Like every single person makes
a difference to, to making this the kind of sport that more people want to watch. So yeah,
to answer the question, no, I don't think there is enough competition climbing media. And that's
always going to be hard because there's no money in it. But if you've got the time and you got the
time and you got the interest, please, please hop in. Cause yeah, every voice will have some people
that want to hear it. So please do it. Yeah, that's really nice. I think that's a really
good way of putting it. I don't think I thought of it in that way. I, I guess the way I felt
was kind of like, especially with the, like the podcast coming out on the official IFSC channel,
I was like, oh, well they're like doing this. Like maybe I don't need to do it anymore.
No, don't, don't stop. Don't stop. Like, oh, I mean, Mac room, he's great to talk to. I'd love
to listen and talk, but yeah, that's, that's a really good way of putting it. Um, next, uh,
or I guess last discord question. Um, what do you think about the role of gyms as a place that
people start careers and how do you see the role of that space for the next generation of teachers?
I'm going to pull from Chris Danielson and I'm just going to go with something he, so there's a guy,
if I'm being too pedantic, I apologize, but I'm just going to roll with the angle. There's a
root setter in the U S named Chris Danielson. Um, he used to be a really big name in organizing
the competitions in the U S he was really involved with USA climbing. And if I remember right, he was
the guy that really started the root setting, uh, accreditation process in the USA, like being a
level one root setter or a level four root setter or so on. And he wrote, was it like a gym? I can't
remember if this was a blog post or like a, uh, uh, an introductory, like chapter to like a, how
to root set book or something, but he made this great point that I hadn't thought of. Um, and
it's really simple. He just said, like, if you want to start root setting, start root setting.
And his point, which he fleshed out, I'm pretty sure was there's nothing stopping you from going
up to a boulder wall at your gym, a spray wall or a set wall, whatever, and use the holds that are
there to just make up a climb for yourself or for your friends. There's nothing stopping you from
doing that. Um, as more and more gyms have spray walls and kilter boards and all that kind of stuff,
it's even easier to have like a really dense area of holds. Right. But if you want to learn root
setting, it's not so much about turning wrenches as it is being able to look at a wall and predict
movement and see like, where do I need holds in order to make different moves happen? Um,
and his point was, if you want to start root setting, don't wait to be hired. Don't wait for
somebody to, to, you know, his root setting is really tough to get into professionally. There's
not a lot of spots to do it. Just start root setting, start being the guy that's put out
more boulder problems on your spray wall or your kilter wall than anyone else in your gym. Just
start doing it. Um, and the same thing kind of goes for coaching. If you climb with friends,
start paying attention to what feedback matters to you when you're climbing. Like when somebody
gives you a really good tip or a really good hint, why didn't you see that? Why couldn't you,
you know, uh, why hadn't that come to you before they said it? And what advice can you give to
other people? Um, if you're bringing a friend to the gym for the first time, how are you going to
cater to their experience to make them want to come back a second time? Are you going to be the
person that walks up to like, you know, let's say, yeah, like, okay, you bring a friend into the gym.
They've never climbed before. They're probably going to be climbing like VBs, V zeros, V ones.
Are you going to go up and climb every VB V zero V one and flash it before they get a chance to
get on it and they get on those and start falling? Is that going to be like how you present them to
a climb or are you going to say, yeah, climbing is really fun. No matter how long you've done it,
it's always hard and you'll let them climb the V zero and fall on it. And you will climb your V four
or your V seven and you'll fall on it and you'll help them relate to the fact that like, yeah,
I'm better than you. I've been doing this longer, but don't be embarrassed about falling. Right.
I think the biggest thing with climbing gyms is that whatever thing about climbing you're interested
in, the gym is just a big sandbox for the most part. And you can start exploring whatever pathway
you're interested in without being hired, without, you know, calling yourself a coach or without
calling yourself, you know, a gym owner or a root setter. You can just start paying attention to
like what people's experience in gyms are and start paying attention to how you set boulders.
And you can start your own career just by getting that practice and doing those things.
So for people that are psyched about working in climbing, don't wait until you get a job
to try being a root setter or try being a coach. Like just do that stuff with the people that you
climb with anyways, and see if it's something you like, see if it's something you're good at,
and just express yourself through being a climber at the gym rather than needing to be staff
necessarily. And if you do love it, I hope you do get a job out of it. I hope you manage to get paid
and get to do the stuff you love. I know that not many people get to do what I've had a chance to do
just because there's not that many gyms and not that many jobs at each gym. Like that's hard.
But do it anyways, if you're psyched, just do it anyways. Gyms are for you to play in. So
do that, I guess. Yeah.
Awesome. Well put. I think that's a great note to end on. Very inspiring. Thank you.
Very inspiring. Thank you. But yeah, I think that's all the questions I had. Thank you so
much for joining me. And anything you want to shout out or let people know where they can find you?
I'll leave your podcast link below, of course. Yeah, you can. If you haven't seen Plastic Weekly
on YouTube, subscribe to it and watch the videos that you like. Aside from that, if you watched
Ginny's podcast, just keep watching it. Keep watching the comps. Enjoy it. If there's stuff
you like, then tell people about it. Make sure people in climbing feel good about what they're
doing. And if there's stuff you don't like, consider doing something yourself. Let's build
this thing. Let's do it. Awesome. Okay, great. Thank you so much. And it was great to have this
chat. Yeah, thanks Ginny. That was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for making it to the end of the
podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed. Otherwise, you are a super fake climber.
If you're listening on a podcasting platform, I'd appreciate if you rate it five stars and you can
continue the discussion on the free competition climbing discord linked in the description.
Thanks again for listening.