This video got me into so much troubles with
no reason. Just sitting in the background and
helping them with stuff they needed in the gym,
nothing more. It was a solid rumor that IFSC
have an idea to do the qualification for Olympic
in the combined format. But sliding on a volume,
I don't know if it's necessarily climbing, okay?
It's hard to be an athlete in Germany. We say
the German mothers prefer to have engineers or
doctors or lawyers or accountants. I cannot teach
Alex Megos how to put a toe hook. He knows it
better than me. I cannot teach Yannick Flohe,
you know, how to become stronger. He can maybe
teach me how to become stronger. Welcome to another
episode of the That's Not World Climbing podcast.
I'm your host, Jinni, and I'm excited to introduce
my guest for today, Sagi Damti. Sagi has been
the German team's bouldering coach since 2022.
In this episode, we'll get insight into Team
Germany's training and challenges, hear why he
thinks the losses hurt the coaches more than
the competitors, we'll get a story about his
experience as an almost homeless person while
in the US, and most importantly, we'll debunk
his famous statement in the Magnus video that
Olympic qualifiers will still be in the combined
format for 2028. Lots of interesting stories
coming up, so I hope you enjoy this episode with
Sagi. I'm excited to announce that my sponsor,
Mad Rock Climbing, just came out with a brand
new pair of shoes, the Remora Pro. I was so excited
to try them on that even though I broke a toe
on my right foot, I had to at least try on the
left shoe. So I can definitely say that the Remora
Pro is better than a rental shoe. But really,
these are their softest shoe ever, which means
you no longer need to worry about standing on
sketchy volumes and comps. They also have a crazy
3D heel that allows you to get more surface area
when heel hooking and inserts that lock your
heel into the shoe no matter how hard you're
pulling. Feel free to message me if you have
any questions about the shoes or sizing and you
can use the discount code NOTREALCLIMBER for
10 % off your entire MedRock order. Back to the
show. What's been keeping you busy? Now, those
days, we are handling the preparation for the
world championship in Korea. Yeah, it's been
a pretty, pretty busy summer. I did the youth
worlds in Helsinki as well. So now facing Korea,
we do every week preparation for it. And the
second thing is that in Germany, they are super
planned. to the future so already now i started
to deal with um the plans for for next year for
the training season of next year and how we're
gonna handle everything budget wise and oh you
have to deal with budget too not really so my
boss is dealing with uh with the budget the the
sport manager But for him to establish the budget,
he needs to know what I want to do in terms of
settings, in terms of training camps and traveling.
And how was your vacation? Where did you go again?
I've been in Spain. Let's say the home for my
soul. Okay. Yeah, I love Spain. I've been there
for two weeks. So after the boulder season ended,
I could take... some chill time. Also, the athletes
took some chill time. And then directly from
Spain, I flew to Helsinki to deal with the youth
worlds. Did you climb in Spain? A little bit,
yes. I got to admit that the last years when
my, let's say, full -time job and mind is focused
on competition climbing. And it's getting harder
and harder for me to see it also as my hobby.
It started as my hobby and I really love climbing,
but then I find myself more and more feeling
that the climbing gym is not the place I want
to be in my free time. It feels like a little
bit coming to the office, you know? Well, what
about like climbing outside? It's more exciting
and it's nicer and I love it. But also, I do
it less and less, to be honest. I did climb outside.
I've been in some nice locations around the place
I've been. Nothing famous. And most of all, I
see it more as a chill day in the rocks, not
pushing too hard, just enjoying being in nature
and outdoors. Well, I guess I actually don't
really know your climbing background. So how
did you get into it? How long have you been doing
it? Like, did you ever compete? No, no, no. I
haven't competed professionally. I used to do
some fun camps, like in the gym, but nothing
more than that. I started climbing maybe 17 or
18 years ago, something like this, around the
age of 20. I don't remember if it was a bit before
or a bit after. And I came to climbing from a
different sport that I did. I was doing a lot
of skydiving and base jumping. And then from
there, somehow I got transferred into climbing.
And yeah, it was very cool. I was actually in
Italy doing some base jumping. One of the locations
that we wanted to jump from required you to climb
there. Never climbed before, never did it before.
It was a very easy climbing, like chill climbing.
And for me, it was very hard for the first time
ever to go and climb outdoors and lead climbing.
But yeah, eventually I loved it. I came back
home and started to do it more and more professionally.
And then how did you get into coaching from there?
So it was like a side hustle. I was a student
in university and I needed some, let's call it
some easy income as a student. And they offered
me in the gym that I climbed, they offered me
to take some kids classes. And I told them, I
don't really know. I was maybe climbing for a
year back then. And I told them, I don't know
how to teach climbing because I am not a professional
climber. And the guy told me, ah, it's okay.
You don't need to know how to climb. You need
to know how to work with kids. And this is something
that I do very well. For many years, I was a
guide in a youth movement. Also, my studies was
to become a teacher in school. So, yeah, I just
started like this with random kids in the gym.
And step by step, I liked it more. And there
was kids that wanted to push a little bit harder.
So I started like reading some articles and books
and figuring out some climbing exercises, something
that was foreign to me. And we kind of learned
it together. I learned how to coach. Then it
became more and more serious in my life. Also,
I kept doing it. Also, after university, I was
already a teacher in school. And I kept coaching
climbing in the afternoons till it came to a
moment that I felt I love it way more than anything
else I'm doing. And I fully committed to... to
coaching and route setting and yeah and then
the years went by i became more and more uh let's
say professional in the field and yeah so you
never had like a degree in like coaching or like
physio stuff or anything like that yeah so most
of the if we talk about uh coaching degrees in
climbing it's more rare uh we talk about uh sport
science so right yeah a lot of of coaches learned
the sport science i did not learn uh sport science
it's uh everything is let's say more autodidact
like i i just learned by myself the field that
i was interested in i did took some courses in
in a sports school but Not in a way of full degree
or any kind of certification or something like
this. These days I do have a coaching license
and a certification from the DAV, from the German
Federation. But again, I collected knowledge
for 15 years and it came by. Also, I think universities
is a fraud. In general? Yeah, yeah. I think it's,
especially those days, I don't feel it's needed.
I think there are better ways to collect information
and to educate yourself or get educated by others.
But yeah, I was never good at sitting in class
and listening to lectures for hours. Interesting.
Okay. Yeah, I guess I'm kind of surprised to
hear. I thought most of the World Cup coaches
would have some sort of background in exercise
science or have been a pro competitor in the
past. So that's surprising to hear. I don't know
if you know other coaches who kind of took that
path. My guess, I know a lot of my colleagues'
education and knowledge. My guess will be that...
um inclining i will bet 50 50 like i will bet
that 50 of us have the the formal uh university
education and 50 of us are more self -taught
or or have the experience from years of of doing
it anyway we are babies in in in the perception
of of sport you know this uh If we look at IFSC,
it's a federation existing for 20 years, like
since 2007. Anyway, it's a very young sport,
professional -wise. It's also creating one of
the difficulties in our sport that the community
is exploding, like climbing gyms all over the
world. It's becoming more and more, I don't know.
popular and commercial but from the other hand
um the professional people that are supposed
to push the field it's taking time so you see
a lot of genes spreading around like mushrooms
but you don't have enough people that uh root
set root set professionally or coach professionally
so uh but i'm sure that we'll start catching
up like with time Well, it's good to hear for
people out there that it's possible to get into
something like this without having a formal education
background. Yeah, for sure. And so then more
specifically, how did you become the German coach?
I don't know if it's interesting. I just have
my own story. I was in a training camp in Innsbruck
with my team from Israel, with the Israeli team
or some of the Israeli team. And I had some,
let's say, some meetings from other coaches around
the world, people that I know from the IFSC circuit
as a youth coach. One of them was Ingo Filswieser.
He is currently the sport manager of DAV. Back
then, he was the head coach of the German team.
And they were looking for a boulder coach, like
a coach that his specialty is bouldering. And
he asked me what I'm doing and if I'm interested
of this kind of position. My first reaction was,
no, thank you. I'm happy where I am. Most of
all, probably because to me it sounded imaginary,
you know, for me from a country that is... pretty
much disconnected in the climbing bubble, pretty
much disconnected from the world. And so it sounded
like big shoes for my small feet. And yeah, it
was a process of a few months when Ingo was pushing
me and trying to convince me. yeah to go for
it then they invited me to to come for a few
days of training in munich to see the facility
to meet with the athletes and this is what i
did i traveled with the israeli kids we just
came for a weekend in in munich and yeah i liked
it i like the atmosphere i like the the german
athletes and it sounded more and more uh interesting
to me and then eventually I sat with one of my
athletes in Israel, not personal athlete, but
Alex Kazanov is one of the best, let's say, Israelis,
still the only Israeli that have a gold medal
in a World Cup. Yeah, he was the first one, by
the way, in Tayan World Cup 2018. Oh, okay. Yeah.
And I sat with him and I told him, hey, I have
this opportunity, what do you think about it?
And he told me, no question that you should go
for it because we needed back then someone to
a little bit burst the Israeli bubble and go
above what we used to know. And yeah, with his
support and support from my personal friends
that knew how... How scared I am from going out
of my comfort zone and going to a different country.
I don't speak the language. I don't know the
people. I think it's not the hardest thing that
you could do, but it's hard also personally.
In my age, I was over 30. To move to a new country,
no friends, no family, no background there. It
was pretty random for me. Um, and yeah, eventually
I had to, to deal with all my, uh, imposter syndrome
and just like, uh, uh, go for it. And yeah, I
did, I did the interviews that they wanted and,
and all the background checks and everything.
And I, I remember the day that I got a call from
the boss of the AV back then. And he called me.
I was in Israel. It was morning. I was on my
way to the gym or still at home. I don't really
remember, but I answered and he told me, so we
are interested. We want to hire you. Would you
move to Germany next month? And I was like, you
know, I haven't even figured out like stuff.
Where would I live? What does it mean to move
to another country? I don't have a European passport.
how do i go through all the visas that like it
yeah and then i got uh a huge uh tummy ache and
a huge storm in in my belly and i was just in
bed all the rest of the day thinking what am
i doing like is it what am i uh the thing that
i'm supposed to do should i go there should not
and yeah i'm pretty happy that that I took the
opportunity and I think both me and the German
team are benefiting from, let's say, a different
mind and a different spirit than the German mentality
coming and trying to do new stuff with them.
Yeah, I mean, it's really hard to move. I've
moved around a bunch within the US, so it's different.
I can't even imagine moving to a different country.
But yeah, not knowing anyone, especially not
speaking the language, I feel like that's hard.
Did you pick up any German? Absolutely not. Wow,
really? You're pressing. It's like the hardest
point for me. My federation really wants me to
learn German. I am trying a little bit, but to
be honest, it's just my ADHD is not allowing
me to sit and study properly. I did catch up
some of the language in a way that I can understand
and connect some words together from what I hear.
To speak it out is almost impossible for me.
And yeah, for sure you can hear also that my
English is... maybe okay but my grammar is not
correct or maybe i'm using like the words not
in the most correct way but as long as long as
you understand me i think it's uh okay um so
yeah i have difficulties learning different uh
languages and i mean your english is fine i think
so My English is fine. It's considered to be
very low level in Israel. In Israel, the level
of English is very, very high. I failed English
in high school and then I failed English in university
multiple times before that. But yeah, I think
what I'm happy about, something that I paid attention
after working for four years in Germany and my
whole life are in English. I think today I came
to a new situation when I am not doing the process
of translating in my mind. So before I used to
think what I want to say in Hebrew, then translate
it to English, then saying it. And now I think
I'm becoming more fluent in the way that I don't
need to stop and think how to say every specific
word. Yeah, that's a good feeling. So I guess
for a lot of more casual climbers like me, it's
hard to picture in what ways the pros need to
improve. Do you ever need to give basic climbing
tips or reminders? Or is it just as simple as
showing them a video of them climbing and then
they know what to fix? No, no, no, no. Of course,
there are great climbers, but a different perspective,
it's always something beneficial. Also, when
those top athletes that I work with are climbing
on the wall, I'm capable of seeing stuff that
they are not capable of seeing. Just because
we have different perspectives, different kind
of, I don't know, understanding of movement,
because we are different people with different
morphology. But it will come. So, for example,
when I work with youth, so sometimes I will explain
basic stuff like... how we can pull better with
our heel, how to move the weight more correct
on the wall. With people like Jalik or Lucia,
Elias, like top athletes, it will be more a conversation
about how do you think we could make this move
better, what we can try to improve. And yeah,
of course, it's also in the physical part and
the technique part. But as a team coach, most
of my focus is how we compete, how we go to competitions,
how we perform, and what will be the team strategy
to, for example, to gain more spots for next
year or whatever. It's less the day -to -day
training. I do day -to -day training, but my
main topic is how we're going to take all of
your capabilities. advantages as an athlete and
bring them on the mattress on the right time
on the right moment i didn't come and say i have
new exercises how to how to do bicep curls in
a different way that will make your bicep stronger
you know every everybody knows how to train every
muscle there are no secrets so i think especially
in climbing most of the most of the effects that
you can give are more on the mental part You
know, I came to be the adult coach, not a youth
coach. So I work with Alex Megos. I cannot teach
Alex Megos how to put a toe hook. He knows it
better than me, you know. I cannot teach Yannick
Flohe, you know, how to become stronger. He can
maybe teach me how to become stronger. Yeah.
But I can teach them how to fight correctly,
how to come with a better mental state. to the
mattress. Now, sometimes you succeed, sometimes
you don't. It's all a big journey that we do
together. So do you have insight into the German
team's time spent on wall training versus strength
training versus handboarding or cardio, stuff
like that? Each one with his plan. No, no athletes
are the same. There is no right, correct. for
the time schedule for each athlete. It's a bit
different. But they are on the wall day to day.
There is no... Besides the full rest days, they
are on the wall every day. Of course, every day
has its own focuses or methods. And it also depends
on the time of the year. So before we start the
season... We, like everybody, we go through the
phases of improving power and improving technique,
and it's going side by side. For sure, I won't
spread our plans here, but to be honest, I think
it's also, let's say, hard to compare or to say,
hey, what Alex is doing, and I will do the same
and get the same results. It's not working this
way. And there are teams that are working on
very different stuff. What we see in our field
is also the root setting is really affecting
the abilities that we need to have. So, for example,
with the new style of setting, explosive power
is more important than it used to be in the past.
Of course, also in the past, we would train explosive
power, but now we do it way more. Okay, or reaction
time on the wall. Okay, so in these days with
all the crazy coordination movement and parkour,
reaction time is something that you have to train
really, really a lot, a lot, a lot, because a
lot of it is what's happening to my body in this
second and how should I react for the occurring
on the wall. And this is stuff that I can tell
you easily. 10 years ago, we would barely deal
with reaction time. How do you train reaction
time? Is that something you're, is that a secret?
Well, you know, it's not a secret, but there
is a lot of methods of how to train reaction
time. I think the best training for reaction
time, we should ask speed coaches. Because this
is like, yeah, you want to hear. I will tell
you a funny story. It's pretty embarrassing for
me, but I will be honest enough to tell it. Last
year, the last competition of the season was
in Korea, and it was boulder lead and speed.
In our federation, it was the last competition,
so we had some budget struggles, so we could
not send too many coaches. So I was responsible
for the first time. to also do the speed competition
oh no never did a speed competition before i
was literally sitting in the hotel the days before
reading all the rules because you know i i i'm
not so deep in the details like it's okay i know
how speed climbing works and everything's fine
but you know the the small the small stuff that
you need to pay attention to um then i was sitting
during the qualification I was sitting next to
Yasui, the head coach of the Japanese team. We
are friends. We are chatting about some athletes
and what's going on. And qualification, they
started running. And then I saw that the minute
they are jumping into the climbing, the clocks
that chose the time is like blinking in blue,
something that I was not familiar with. I didn't
know. what it means and after it blinks in blue
it goes back to the red color and running the
time and i was looking and i'm like something
is wrong with the clock there is a problem with
the clock and i was looking at yesu and i'm telling
him hey hey i think there is a problem with the
clock and i saw it again and again it looked
so weird to me that i stood up i marked to the
judge and then yesu is catching me in the back
pulling me back to my seat and he tells me saggy
It shows the reaction time. That's all. It's
okay. Everything is fine. I was sure that the
timing system is breaking down or something,
but actually, and yeah, I was not aware of it
and it's okay. I'm not a speed coach, but the
first thing that the clock is doing is showing
the reaction time. uh between the the last beep
that symbol then they can they can go and the
foot leaving the the pad it's okay i didn't i
guess i didn't know that either i don't think
i noticed it you you need to know speed climbing
but in this moment being a coach most of the
people in the coaching area they know me they
know i'm like heading the the the boulder team
of of germany And standing up and saying, ah,
there is a problem with the clock. And no, Sagi,
this is how speed climbing works. Yeah, it was
funny. No, that's understandable. It would happen
to me too. Okay, so yeah, earlier you mentioned
that you feel like one of your main roles as
coach is to help your athletes through competitions
emotionally. They are very emotionally charged
competitions. So what's your approach of... comforting
someone who just had a terrible round i i think
it's it's not a secret but i i think compared
to other sports the the mentality have a crucial
effect in climbing so you first need to kind
of believe that you can do the move before you
are actually able to do the move and i think
something that that i understood when I started
with coaching professional athletes in climbing,
is that climbing is an individual sport, meaning
there is only one athlete in the fight, correct?
It's not a team. And the problem with climbing
is that there is no one to counter your emotions.
So tennis is an individual sport too. And I'm
fighting someone. I see my fight. I see how he
reacts. I see that he's getting frustrated or
angry. And we are not just passing the balls.
We are also passing emotions between us and reactions
to these emotions. And it's the same with almost
every individual sport. Running, you see the
people run next to you. They are pushing you.
When you see an athlete coming close to you,
you have this energy to push a bit stronger.
And climbing is very different because we don't
have a fight, or at least we don't see our fight.
The athlete is alone against the wall. So he
has no interaction to counter his emotions or
to check, am I good, am I not good? Not more
than looking to the side for a second and seeing
another athlete climbing another boulder. But
you have no fight with you. From that, the conclusion
is that the athletes in climbing, it's a pretty
lonely sport. I'm alone. I sit alone in ISO.
I sit alone in the call zone. I'm not allowed
to communicate in the call zone, although we
see some communication in the call zone, but
it's not allowed basically. And then I go to
the field of play and I don't have an enemy or
a fight to go against. I'm alone. It's me against
the wall. And in this situation, I think the
best mental thing that I can do as a coach is
try to give the athlete the feeling of together.
Try to create a situation when the athlete hears
my voice, he gets the feeling of, I'm not alone
here. It's not only for me, it's for the coaches,
for the team. Eventually... I think that it's
also from a different perspective. It's how to
say it in English. It's easier to quit on yourself
than to quit on someone else. So when I wake
up in the morning, I say I want to get fit. I'm
going to run 10 kilometers every morning now.
So I go to my 10 kilometer run. If I'm running
alone, the... possibility of me stopping after
five or six or eight kilometers and saying that
that's enough for today it's good it's super
high compare that if we go together if we say
now we're gonna run 10 kilometers together i
don't want to quit because i told you we're gonna
run 10 kilometers together you don't want to
quit because you said okay saggy let's run 10
kilometers together and this mentality is We
are pushing each other to keep it to the end
line. But if I run alone, it's way easier to
quit on the way. So it's another element why
I want my athletes to feel that, yes, they are
climbing eventually alone, but they are not alone
mentally. There is a coach behind me. There is
a team behind me. when when you do something
not only for yourself only not only for your
win then a team spirit can can push you a little
bit harder it's true yeah it's it's an opinion
i'm i'm not uh bringing like i'm not saying it's
fact for sure there are some people that are
better off alone no i mean it's definitely true
but then i know in the past when i've i've had
like coaches it it does push me to try harder
but then if i try harder and i still fail then
it feels so much worse because i know that someone
was like behind me watching me and like hoping
that i did well yes and the athletes are i'm
really open with my athletes and the athletes
know that when i'm disappointed with their performance
they know i'm disappointed i don't Yeah, it hurts.
You know, it's life. No, no. Think about it.
The athletes are not the only competitors in
the competition. You know, I am a competitor
as well. I'm super competitive. This is why my
career is competitive sport. If I was not a competitor
myself, I would go be a mountain guide or teaching
climbing outdoors, not necessarily being on the
biggest stages in the world. To be honest, I
think, and I'm not taking anything away from
the athlete, from the specific athlete, but a
failure in a competition is way bigger to the
coach than to the athlete. And I will explain
it because let's say I'm coming to a competition.
I have 10 athletes competing, so five girls,
five boys. One of them maybe is doing good and
going to finals. Maybe two of them are going
to finals and that's great. So the athlete that
failed and didn't go to semis even, he's feeling
bad for himself. This is like one person perspective.
When my team, even when I have one or two athletes
in finals, I still have four or eight athletes
that lost the competition. So I lose for each
one of them. When I finish a competition, I lost
eight times. Not the personal one time. Now,
it doesn't mean that my disappointment is bigger
than the athletes. The athletes, it's basically
their life. They are giving everything. And to
put it on the table. Each one of the athletes
or 99 .9 % of the athletes that are coming to
fight in a World Cup, it's because they dedicate
their life and they dedicate years of their life
to this specific issue. And I'm not saying my
disappointment is bigger. It's just, I don't
know how to say it, wider. I don't know because
I feel bad for each one of my athletes. I think
the best World Cup that we ever had was Brixen
in 22. And Brixen 22 was a competition when we
had Yannick Floé winning the gold medal and we
had Hannah Moyle winning the silver medal in
female. It was amazing. It's an event that didn't
happen 10 years before in Germany when we had...
Two athletes from two genders. We had some medals
for Jan Hoyer, some medals for Jula Worm. But
both together didn't happen for many years in
Germany. It was a great success. Still, in the
end of the day, after finals, I did eight talks
with losing athletes that were disappointed.
And I was disappointed for them. And the end
of the day, with all the joy of the medals. It
didn't cover the big disappointment for the majority
of the athletes. Yeah, I see. Okay, I guess that
makes sense. I'll let you have that. Even though
you have four chances to win, it's still a lot
of losses. If it's interesting, I don't know.
But we were fighting for Olympic tickets last
year. We were fighting mainly for athletes. We
had more fighting for the ticket. The main athletes
were four athletes with the probability of fighting
for Olympics. And out of these four, we were
able to qualify three. So we got three tickets.
Now, every reasonable person will say, that's
a great success. You qualified three out of your
four. That's amazing. For me, it was a terrible,
terrible competition after the OQS. Because of
this specific athlete that didn't qualify, the
feeling of failure was bigger to me than being
happy for the three tickets. It's mixed and it's
hard. No, I think the losses always hurt more
than the wins. I think that's kind of how life
goes, unfortunately. Yeah, I mean, when I think
about it, when I see coaches at competitions,
they're often the ones who are most emotionally
charged, like even more so than the athletes.
I think a lot of times like the emotionally chargedness
of coaches comes down to like decisions that
were made at specific comps or like IFSC decisions.
What are some things that you want to see changed
as a coach? I think the main topic that all coaches
are dealing with now, it's what will be the system
that will qualify for the next Olympic for Los
Angeles 28. And the urgent topic with the coaches
commission, we are now establishing the coaches
commission. It's still not done. The application
process is done and we are waiting for confirmation
of the names by the board of IFSC. And I think
the first topic that will be on the table of
the coach commission is what is the right way
to qualify for Los Angeles? Because we have a
very weird situation, let's say, when IFSC is
the only federation and climbing is the only
sport that got upgraded in two ways for the next
Olympics. So we got another medal. And we got
more places for athletes. So we know that every
sport, they get two limitations, how many medals
they can play on and how many athletes they can
bring to the Olympics. Now, we are the only sport
that got both of them raised, but still not to
an ideal situation. So now with the new limitations
that we got, we're going to have a medal per
discipline. The amount of athletes that we can
put in every discipline is very small. Boulder
and lead are going to be 12 athletes per discipline.
Yes. And for speed, it's going to be 14. Now,
to IFSC and also to us, it's clear that a Boulder
competition cannot run with 12 athletes. It's
not enough. It's enough for a final. It's enough
for one round. But it's not enough for more than
one round. And what IFSC is trying to understand
is how to play with the amount of athletes that
they gave us. Because, for example, if I qualify
for Olympics, I am one athlete, but I can compete
in all disciplines. So actually, if 12 athletes
from bouldering will compete in Elite 2, And
the other way around, the 12 athletes that qualified
for LEAD will compete Boulder too. We will actually
get 24 athletes per discipline. And then it's,
of course, better. And now the big question is,
we were working so hard to get another medal
and to separate the discipline because, to be
honest, the majority of the climbing community
don't like the combined format. But now it will
be ridiculous that we got another medal, but
still we will tell the athletes you have to do
both because it's still combined. It's just another
medal. So the question will be, how can we play
with this situation? And how can we make it more
established in a way that elite competition can
run with 20 or more athletes? same for the boulder
um and there is no good answers by the way nobody
figure out like a magic solution here okay so
i know like in that famous quote famous video
in magnus's video you spread some public rumors
that olympic qualifiers for 2028 will still be
a combined format so now it's like it's not for
sure it's it's still being decided This video
got me into so much trouble with no reason. If
you're interested in ad -free episodes and would
like to unlock over four hours of deleted scenes,
including one where Sagi talks about how his
cultural background shapes his coaching for Team
Germany, do consider helping support this podcast
on Patreon. Back to the show. I was not supposed
to appear on this video. I was just sitting in
the background and helping them with stuff they
needed in the gym, nothing more. It was, yeah,
but it was a solid rumor that we started to hear
in the beginning of the season around China and
Brazil World Cups that IFSC have an idea to do
the qualification for Olympic in the combined
format. But since then, If we understood IFSC
correctly, we had a conversation with Markov
Skolaris, the president of IFSC in Bern, and
he said that they understand that it's not going
to happen in a combined format, but we still
need to find a way how to make it happen. Of
course, there are athletes in our field that
would like to compete in both disciplines. Like
we have athletes that... are controlling both
of the disciplines and they are pretty good and
that's nice but it's not the majority so we can
mark maybe three to five athletes that really
can do both disciplines in a really good way
but the majority of athletes does have like a
specialty discipline and yeah but I have no new
information about the new ideas. I'm sure there
are some ideas in the background, but I'm not
aware of it. But again, this is relatively a
big problem. If we talk about small problems
that will come to coaches' commission, it will
be, for example, this year we had a new pointing
system for bouldering. So now we don't have a
zone, we have a 10 -point mark, and then after
the 10 -point mark, we have the top with 25 points.
For each attempt, it's taking down 0 .1. So first
problem, nobody likes to see numbers after the
dot as a ranking. This is one. It's not important,
it's just visualization. But the main problem
is that in the old system, attempts to tops and
attempts to zones didn't have the same meaning
you know so so attempts to to top were more important
than attempts to zone so now what we did is actually
attempts to zone attempts to top meaning the
same the 0 .1 and we got this year because of
that so many ties during the competition like
we saw multiple semi -finals with 25, 27 athletes
instead of 24 because of all the ties that we
had. Actually, in the first World Cup of the
season in China, during the semifinals, because
of all the ties that were created, the head of
delegation in the competition already started
a discussion in the semifinals how we will handle
a situation of 10 or 11 athletes in finals. And
it's problematic, not necessarily for the sport.
Yeah, the final will be very long if we have
10 or 11 athletes, but also because IFSC is broadcasted
in multiple medias and you cannot say the final
is going to be from 9 to 10 and then suddenly
the final is from 9 to 11. Like, we're going
to get cut off before the competition is done.
Well, it hasn't happened yet where that many
people went into finals. No, we had, by the way,
we had nine people in finals. Oh. We were very
lucky this season. We were very lucky. But it's
clear that it needs to be changed. And there
are easy solutions to it. Attempt to zone is
0 .1. Attempt to top is 0 .2. The other way around,
there are easy fixes for it. But if we talk about
ties, you know that this year for the first time
in IFSC history, there was a tie for the gold
medal in female lead in Wuzhang in China. It
was a historical moment. I don't think the athletes
like this historical moment because IFSC was
not ready with two gold medals. But yeah, it's
the first time ever that doesn't matter if they
went for count back or time or anything. Everything
was exactly, exactly the same. It was an interesting
incident. Yeah. Although that one wouldn't have
been fixed with like, I mean, the point system
didn't change for that. So it was just a crazy
moment. I know you had also mentioned that you
kind of think. I think this is kind of a hot
take. You think that even as a bouldering coach,
you think this is like getting into no longer
real climbing territory. We can talk about it.
Before that, I will say, if you are a route setter
and you watch this podcast or hear this podcast,
please know that I think route setting is amazing.
And I think route setters are amazing. being
professional and artist and all of that. And
it's not criticism towards woodsetters that are
trying to invent new moves and push the sport
forward. But yeah, I do think there is some kind
of movement when we cross the border between
climbing and different kinds of sports that are
great sports but are not climbing. Parkour is
not climbing. It's crazy cool. I love it. It's
great to watch it. But it's not necessarily climbing.
But for me, the main problem, let's say, is all
kinds of moves like sliding. Okay, so climbing
is about... controlling your body is about positioning
your body is about your strength about your body
awareness now to put a huge volume on the wall
that is dual texture and ask the climber to slide
on it i i feel it's not more and and again it's
a subjective perspective of mine like the the
next guy will tell you no it's climbing and it's
super cool um and it is cool but i think that
for example And I have more examples, but sliding
on a volume, I don't know if it's necessarily
climbing, okay? It can be cool moves that people
are doing, but I don't know. What else takes
it too far for you? So stuff like... that we
already saw in competitions and that I don't
like. For example, handstand on the wall. Well,
that's not allowed, right? That's allowed. There
is no rule against handstand. There was a competition.
It was Salt Lake 23, if I'm not mistaken, or
23 or 24. I don't know. 23 for sure. Salt Lake
23, the setters set a handstand and the head
judge canceled the boulder because for his perspective,
it was not safe because falling head down to
the mattress, it's not a safe situation for him.
But we did saw this move coming in. It was the
quiff last year or the year before. And then
they did the handstand and. It was super cool.
Really. I liked watching it. I liked to see the
athletes trying it. Is it climbing? I don't know.
What do you think about this year's change in
allowing downward dynos? For me, I have no problem
with jumping down. I have a problem if it's a
high risk for the athlete. So, for example, this
year in the World Cup in Bern, we had the discussion
around the boulder final number two or three
with the crazy spin in the top of the boulder.
And we saw some very harsh falling. The problem
was not necessarily the move, but the whole constellation,
like the mattress that they provided there were
very, very new, so very, very stiff. And because
of this, hard falls in an awkward position with
your body can be very dangerous. Some of the
coaches did a safety appeal. And I think also
the competition was delayed a little bit, a few
minutes, until IFSC figured out the issue and
then decided to allow it and to let it go. Yeah,
I don't like when we take unnecessary risks.
on the body of the athletes. I mean, in that
burn situation, are you happy with how it turned
out? I mean, because I don't know what they would
have done if they got rid of that one boulder.
I feel like that would have been hard to deal
with. So for me, I don't think what they have
done, how it would affect the results or anything.
For me, if it's risking the athletes, then it
shouldn't be there. For me, the safety appeal
should have accepted and the boulder should have
been cancelled or at least be considered only
till the zone although there is no rule talking
about it. But it's happened so rarely that a
boulder is getting cancelled in a competition.
I saw it happen twice. Once because of weather,
like the wall was wet on this side. And then,
of course, they cancel it. And in 2017 or 2018,
I don't remember exactly, in a youth competition
in Graz in Austria, there was a dyno to the top
hold. It was dangerous. People knew it was dangerous.
People saw the risk of it. But the competition
ran until one athlete fell and broke his foot.
It was a very hard incident. And then the boulder
got canceled. After an athlete completely broke
his foot, it was not a delight to see it. I think
this is another, we talked about it before, about
the sport is exploding, but there is still not
professional people running in this level. So,
for example, we have no concrete rules or guidelines
about how stiff the mattress should be or how
soft the mattress should be. It's all kind of
stuff, kind of rules that we are taking from
other sports, but we don't have professional
people handling this specific issue. I'm sure
that IFSC have it on its table. It's just that
you need to run after many, many, many stuff.
And I'm sure this subject will be addressed soon.
Good to know. Yeah, just going back to, I guess,
like the kind of movement we see in competitions
nowadays. I feel like in my mind, a lot of the
athletes growing up in youth nowadays, I feel
like a lot more of them want to only climb on
plastic anyway. And maybe this is something they're
more used to now. So maybe it won't really be
how you think so. I think I was a history teacher
in school. And I think you should at least know
your history. I have no problem with development.
I have no problem that climbing is now competition,
competition, bouldering. It's not bouldering
outdoors. Those are two different sports that
you train completely different to those kinds
of fields. And I have no problem with that. But
I, I do think that we, yeah, we, we came to a
point. That now, as you said, there are many
kids that are, we call them gym rats, you know,
that they are jumping amazing. They are doing
crazy parkour stuff. They can switch their hands
like 10 times before they stop. They do beautiful
stuff. But if you take them to magic wood, they
are not capable of climbing a 7B, you know, because
then you need to be static, control your body,
hold the crimp, deal with the pain of holding
this sharp crimp. But I think like most of, I
don't know, developing sports, I'm accepting
it. It's okay. It's a different sport what I
do now than what we do outdoors. And of course
there are, you know, it's a different generation
and it's completely okay. I don't want to be
this, you know, this... old generation that says,
oh, the youth is hearing terrible music. You
know, the same that my father told me that my
music is terrible and his father told him. It's
just a new generation. And I think I have two
options here. And it's something that I tell
my athletes when they are frustrated with the
style of setting. I say, well, you know, this
is the game. It's our choice now if to play it
or not to play it. And if we don't want to play
this kind of game, it's okay. Don't play it.
Go outdoors. Go do what you want to do. But if
we choose to play this game, we have to recognize
that this is the game and this is what we need
to do. The first thing that comes to mind when
I hear that is that... I know Yannick was very
outspoken about the setting being a little bit
no longer his style and no longer powerful and
hard crimps and stuff like that. Yes, Yannick
has a lot of feelings about this new generation
of bouldering and where does it take him. And
many times he heard me say, this is the game.
If you want to play it, this is the game. And,
you know, we need to start working with the next
generation. Yannick Flo is an amazing climber
and I think easily top three when we talk about
power and his ability to climb. But now in the
competitions, you are not judged by your power
anymore like it used to be. You are judged by
new parameters and a thousand new abilities that
you need to have. Sometimes it's hard to catch
up when you don't start as a young kid with this
kind of style and movements. And this is, you
know, this is something interesting. When we
look at the athletes that are more... Old, old.
Yannick just a few days ago celebrated 26. I
wish I was 26. It's not being old, but I mean
the older generation, you know, they had their
own style. They had their different style. And
it's not only Yannick, you know, it's also Yoshiyuki
and it's also Jakob Schubert. And it's athletes
from the old generation or the older generation.
that used to have a different kind of climbing
on the wall and there were winning competitions
with the old style and now the style changed
and you have two options or you adapt or you
just go away that's both of them are completely
acceptable some of the athletes are capable of
of adapting some some not and You know, for example,
Yannick, he loves climbing so much and he loves
competing so much that I think for him, for example,
all the hard work that we did in 24 to qualify
for Olympics was not bicep curls. He is strong
enough. Most of the work that we did was... handling
the new moves how to how to find myself in dynamic
coordination movements how to do slabs this was
the majority of the work that we did and i think
we were pretty successful with doing the best
we can with this um and i don't know if you know
this year for example he decided not to compete
in bouldering because for him bouldering he needs
a break of it and that's that's completely fine
and lead is more let's say more basic style or
more um fitting to what he likes to climb yeah
and it's really important to like uh what you're
climbing otherwise you have no chance you know
even if you are winning off all the time but
you don't like it then you're not going to to
survive you know and these athletes they are
dedicating their life so hard to to this sport
that they need they they like it you cannot wake
up in the morning every morning to do hard trainings
and and uh be wear down all day long and and
be you know it's it's tiring you are skipping
friends you are skipping nights out you are not
drinking like a lot of stuff that if you ask
me about my early 20s i love to party you know
i i was i was all over but if you are a professional
athlete athlete you're skipping a lot of these
uh pleasures not all the time but but yeah so
you need to love what you do do your athletes
not drink i know that some athletes in the in
the circuit love to drink a lot so i guess um
my athletes sometimes they drink it's not nobody's
a nun you know but uh they they don't drink like
normal people in their age uh drink they don't
get first of all i think maybe they hide it from
me but i think they don't get drunk in a way
that you don't remember what you did the next
morning they drink a beer here they drink a beer
there um sometimes after the competition we will
go drink like If we won, we want to drink and
celebrate it. If we lost, we want to drink to
drown our sorrow. I have one or two athletes
that are not drinking alcohol, but not as a principle.
They don't like it. This isn't like a thing that
you have a requirement for the team or anything.
Okay, good to know. Yeah, just thinking about
the German team as a whole for a second, are
there any unique challenges you feel like the
German team is facing right now? I'm thinking
what will be the correct way to present these
challenges. I think every team has challenges.
Also, the most successful teams in the world
have their own challenges. Specifically in Germany,
I can say it in my perspective again, that the
main struggle is the way that professional sport
is perceived in Germany. Okay, so it's hard to
be an athlete in Germany. We say the German mothers
prefer to have engineers or doctors or lawyers
or accountants. It's less like that. But also
my mother is kind of the same. My mother still
calls me every weekend and asks me, Sagi, when
will you stop with this climbing game and go
do your real job? So yes, it's hard. And the
biggest struggles that we had the last... year
is a budget struggle we are lucky enough that
our mother federation the dav is a relatively
strong organization also financially so they
could cover a lot of our problems but but most
of them are are still open and we have some budget
struggles as i told you a huge country like germany
and when when the the dav by the way it's the
biggest climbing federation in the world. Wow,
really? Yes. And it's one of the top five biggest
sport organizations in Germany. But we still
struggled. For example, last year in Korea, we
still struggled to send another coach that will
do the speed. This year, it's the first year
when some of the German athletes have to pay
their own competitions. yeah till last year everything
was fully paid all the athletes all the work
everything this year started to change our budget
is in a struggle situation and now the a team
is getting paid the the lower ranked athletes
are um self -paid for some of the the the situation
so it's not so easy um yeah it's not so easy
budget wise but Again, we are far from being
the only federation that is struggling with finance
in our community. The Japanese team, by far the
number one team in the world, have huge struggles
with budgets. What do you think necessarily happened
between two years ago or last year and this year
that, I guess, made it harder with the budget?
For us specifically? For the DAV? So, first of
all, uh inflation you know okay the the ifsc
circuit is becoming more and more expensive we
are required to um go to further and further
places all around the world and the schedule
is getting bigger with the countries that we
need to arrive to and from the other hand um
we need to stay longer in in in each event so
so um for example we started this season with
World Cup bouldering in China, then lead World
Cup in China, speed World Cup in China, and then
lead World Cup in Indonesia. And we had to keep
all the team for so long in Asia. And this year
suddenly appeared a competition in South America.
We were in Brazil for the first time this season.
And a week after it was Salt Lake. And actually
to arrive from Brazil to Salt Lake was more expensive
than arriving from Europe to Salt Lake. So under
these circumstances, and, you know, now we are
going again. The end of the season, we go to
Korea. It's a lot of money that teams are spending
on this circuit around the world, traveling and
traveling. And yeah, our field is still not commercial
enough to earn enough money for it not to be
a problem, you know? Yeah, I see. Yeah, we saw
a lot of federations coming with less athletes
to competitions. You know, they have a quota
of five and five, but they are coming only two
and two because this is the budget they have.
And it's a true struggle here in Germany. I think
maybe it will be solved the next year or two.
Olympics is helping a little bit, but yeah, not
as much as we need. I think I've heard that the
IFSC wants to do it in these new areas to like,
I guess, expand reach and expand like the global,
something globally about climbing. It's coming
from Olympics. The base of Olympics, it's the
five continents coming together. So yeah, IFSC.
needs to spread out. And I think it's amazing.
I loved when I saw Brazil on the schedule. I
was super hyped about it. That's amazing. Although
I'm not sure that it's going to happen again
next year. Oh, in Brazil. Yeah, I don't think
so. Not because the IFSC don't want to, probably
because the local federation is struggling with
raising the budget to produce the competition.
World Cups are also very expensive to produce,
you know, till 2019. We had the legendary World
Cup in Munich every year. The Munich World Cup
was one of the biggest ones. He always finished
the season. There was a huge party around it.
It was a really hyped World Cup. And yeah, the
DAV stopped doing it because the cost of producing
World Cups, it's getting crazy. Do you know the
cost right now? Yeah, I'm just not... I'm just
not sure that I should speak in numbers, but
I think that the basic World Cups are costing
federations more than you think. It's a lot of
money. I think it easily can come to a million.
I'm sure that federations, yeah, they're doing
it cheaper because we are taking shortcuts. But
I think it's almost impossible to produce a World
Cup these days with less than 400 or 500. Oh,
that's more than I thought. Because the last
I heard, it was like 100 ,000. So that's much
more than I thought before. Also depends in the
location. So for example, I believe that Salt
Lake is relatively cheap. Because they own the
facility, they do what they want in the facility,
and so cheap. But if you look at the new World
Cups, look at Bern, look at Prague, those venues
are being, not how you say, they build them for
the competition. They rent this park or they
rent these huge stadiums. Only the rent for these
stadiums, it's tens of thousands of euros. They
build a portable wall, everything. Yeah, it's
getting pretty expensive. Okay, so moving on
a little bit, I guess we already talked about
the Olympics a bit, but thinking more about 2028,
what are you excited to see? Or do you have any
predictions? First of all, I've never been in
Los Angeles. I'm super excited to go to Los Angeles.
Oh, great. It's a great place. I've been in the
U .S. four times in my life. And all the four
times were in Salt Lake. So I need to spread
around a little bit. What am I excited to see?
First of all, Olympics with three medals. It's
something that we wanted for many years. And
I'm very excited about that. Also, I want...
this Olympics to kind of symbol a new era of
bouldering specifically. I think the format that
we are working with now is not a good format,
not for Olympics and not generally commercially.
And I hope that the IFSC is working on bringing
better formats. You know, it's scary to think
about a new format because we need to change
everything. The base of the format is not good.
If I ask why we compete on four boulders, nobody
knows why it's four boulders. Why we give them
four minutes on the boulder? I don't know. What
I know is that what's... I think it's wrong with
the format. And again, I love competitions. I
love boulder competitions because I'm a boulderer
and I understand what's happening. But think
about it as a non -athlete. We present no fight.
So the majority of people in the world are going
back to our nature instinct. We like to see fight.
We like to see blood. The first sport documented
is gladiators, okay? Sure. We need to see two
people fighting each other, not necessarily boxing,
but you know what I mean. And when we see a climber
climb, we don't see the fight. This is why speed
climbing is so interesting because we see two
athletes fighting each other. So you don't need
to understand if the hold is good or bad. You
know who is winning. And we don't have it in
bouldering. Also, it's hard to get the perspective
you need. But in bouldering, you really don't
know. If you are not a climber and you don't
know, oh, this big sloper is so hard to hold,
it's nothing for you. And so this is a big element
that I think we are missing. We are missing the
fight to see two athletes. fighting each other
and we can easily tell who is the the winner
or who have the the advantage now or whatever
and the second thing because of the format that
we use today think about the absurd situation
that you are in finals and yanya is in finals
okay yanya is coming out flashing all the boulders
okay and you are coming out and you are struggling
to even get the zone So what we see as audience
on the screen, we see our best athlete, the star,
the Messi of climbing. We see it 20 to 30 seconds
on the screen. And then we see four minutes in
a row of the worst athlete just failing on live.
And, you know, can you imagine a situation that
the football game is the camera is not running
after Messi and just focusing on a random. No,
it won't happen, you know. So we actually give
more screen time to the less attractive athletes
and less screen time to the best athletes that
we have, to the stars. And this is a weird concept
in general. And we should think how, and what
I think is... It's not about changing it, small
changes, like saying, okay, let's do it two minutes
or let's do three boulders. It's not these kind
of changes. We need to have a new format to this
game. And it's not easy to do something like
that because it's hard to shake away old perspectives
and how we perceive bouldering these days. But
it will have to change. It will take some years.
It will have to come. Do you have like an idea
of what you think would be most ideal? Yes. Okay.
You don't want to share it? I don't want to discuss
it. I'm sure a lot of people in our industry
have great ideas. So it's not like I'm saying
I have the best one, blah, blah, blah. I have
an idea for a format that I will think will be
more attractive to audience. The reason I prefer
not to talk about it is because I'm trying to
push it. Like I'm trying to go to IFSC with these
ideas and to test them. IFSC is doing test events
in the end of every season. So last season, yeah,
last season there was test event for speed formats.
You heard about it? so yeah so it it happened
in in spain and they did an event they invited
athletes it was not with points or going to the
record or anything it was just a test event and
they tried to to test new formats for speed like
relay speed or group speed or those stuff uh
this year in in the end of uh in october We have
a test event for a new format for Boulder and
Lead happening in Japan. Oh, okay. I had no idea.
Yeah, for a group format. Something new. I'm
not saying if I like it or not, just saying IFSC
is trying all the time and testing those formats
all the time. It's not broadcasted or anything
ever. Maybe it will. No, I think it will be broadcasted.
You can find all information on the IFSC. They
did a press release about this competition two
or three weeks ago. It's involving only the six
best teams in the world ranking from last year,
not from this year. And they are invited to just
come and... and test the event to see if the
format is working or not working. Wow, I feel
so out of the loop. Did they broadcast the speed
one last year? I don't remember. I'll need to
take a look. No, no, the one in Japan, because
it's a collaboration with a local company, I
think it will be broadcasted. I'm not sure. Okay,
I hope so. That'll be exciting to see. Okay,
so then moving on a little bit more into, I guess,
your own personal life. I know you travel a lot.
Do you like traveling? How do you handle it?
I know some people struggle with that. I love
it. I love it. I love traveling. I actually hate
being on the same point for too long. I love
traveling. I'm sleeping amazing on airplanes.
I have no problem with that. I know that people
struggle. Not me. I can literally fall asleep
before the plane is taking off and wake up in
the landing. I'm really proud of it. Do you have
any tricks? Yes, sleeping pills. I'm joking.
I don't use those. No, there are tricks, not
tricks, but methods that we work with athletes
before we go to countries like USA or Japan.
You are starting to work on your internal clock
before you go to these competitions. You try
to get tired to the flight so you can handle
it better. Some athletes are using, not sleeping
pills, but melatonin. Oh, sure, yeah. Not sure
if I'm saying the correct word, but it's like
a sleeping hormone. Not sleeping. It doesn't
work for me. Yeah, there are all kinds of, you
know, warm milk. I don't know. It's helping as
well. Yeah, there are methods, but I actually
love traveling. I love this opportunity that
I get in my job, in my work time to visit so
many different countries. Yeah, but... Of course,
during the competitions, you're getting exhausted.
And it's a lot of... Sometimes days of flights
are feeling like the biggest waste of time in
your life. You come to the airport and you wait.
And you go through security and you wait. Then
you sit on the airplane and you wait. And everything
is... Yeah. Yeah, do you have any favorite travel
stories? In 22, it was my first season with the
German team. And we had some issues. The Federation
had some issues fixing my working visa in Germany.
It took longer than they thought. And then we
actually came to a situation that I flew to the
World Cup in Korea. And then we figured out that
I cannot go back to Germany. My visa is not fixed
yet. I already spent all the time that I'm allowed
to stay in Europe. And I actually can't go back
to Germany. So the solution came from the Federation
is the next World Cup was in Salt Lake. So they
flew me directly from Korea to Salt Lake. And
I was in Salt Lake two weeks before the team
arrived there, just sitting in the most trashy
hotel room ever. Yes. And just waiting. It was
actually very funny. I waited for the flight
in Korea. Okay. The flight was delayed six hours.
So I was just waiting for six hours for the flight.
Then I took the flight. I was landing in Dallas.
Okay. And the flight was, I don't remember exactly
how long, but very long, like more than 10 or
12 hours, something like that. I landed in Dallas
and I had exactly one hour to run to catch my
connection. Originally, I had a lot of time,
but now I have one hour to catch my connection
between Dallas and Salt Lake. And I was waiting
in the huge line for the border control for the
passports. And I came. I know you are American.
I love America. I love USA. You don't have to
say that. It's okay. You can be hard sometimes,
especially on the border control. Oh, yeah. I
came to the border control. I give him all my
documents. I'm with an Israeli passport and a
German residency. And the guy was checking my
papers and he looked up to me and he say, so
let me get it straight. Yeah, you are Israeli.
And I'm like, yes. But you live in Germany. And
I'm like, yes. And you came here from Korea?
And I was like, yes. And he said, I have some
questions for you. And then he took me to the
side. It took way more than an hour, all the
questions. I had to show him pictures and approvals
from IFSC that I'm going to the competition.
It was a long story. Of course, I missed my connection
to Salt Lake. And actually, I arrived to Salt
Lake in the middle of the night the day after.
It was 2 a .m. I came to the hotel that I was
booked in. And they tell me in the entrance,
sorry, we have no room for you. And I was like,
what do you mean? I'm booked for like two weeks
to this hotel. What do you mean you have no room?
And they say, well, you were late more than 24
hours. the reservation is canceled and we have
no room for you 2 a .m and i'm like okay come
on so can just just give me a room and can we
fix it in the morning i will be here first thing
seven eight in the morning whenever you want
and we will fix it and he said i have no room
to give you man there is there is no availability
and i was like okay so i took my bag i throwed
it on the couch in the lobby and i told him then
i will just stay here Till the morning will come
and we will fix it. And eventually it was nice
enough. He took me to the employer's room where
they can rest for an hour or two. Yeah, I was
super hungry. It was the middle of the night.
I told him, thanks a lot. What I can eat here.
It was my first time in Salt Lake 22. what I
can catch up to eat. And he said, well, you can
go to the vending machine and eat some Pringles
or you can go to the McDonald's across the street.
I said, okay, it is what I have now. It's the
middle of the night. I'm going to buy some fries
and a burger and it will be fine. I go to the
McDonald's. Of course, the restaurant was closed.
You have to go in the driveway, the drive -in.
Only the drive -in was open. I was standing between
cars to go to the window. And then I come up
to the window and the nice lady there tells me,
sorry, I cannot serve you if you're not in a
car. I've heard that before. I look at her. I'm
that close to crying. No joke. It was the worst
20. No, it was 48 hours since I left Korea. It
was just. The worst time of my life. I looked
terrible. I was exhausted. I was more than 24
hours just waiting in airports. And I told her,
listen, I've been through so much and it's so
hard for me right now. I'm just hungry. Can you
just please, please sell me some food? And she's
like, let me check it. She goes to the back.
And she comes back with a to -go bag, brown McDonald's
bag, full with fries. I didn't order it yet.
I didn't ask for anything. She gives me this
bag and she tells me, have a safe night, sir.
And I'm like, yeah, okay. I'm bringing my wallet
up and she's telling me, you don't need to pay.
Have a safe night. And I'm like, oh, that's super
nice. I never know that it's... They're so kind
in America. And I'm walking with my doggie bag.
And the next thing I see is a group of homeless
people with the same doggie bag as me. And I'm
like, okay, she thought I'm anomalous. So the
first thing I did the day after is to go take
a haircut and shave my beard. But for sure, this
was the worst traveling I ever had. I asked for
favorite travel stories, but okay, that's fine.
I think it's the best one. Now I can laugh about
it. Back then it was pretty terrible. Sorry for
that terrible experience. It might be even worse
now, given all the border protection stuff. So
yeah, let's get into some of the audience submitted
questions. I didn't know that we have this thing.
Okay, yeah, let's go for a question. So first
one from Instagram. This one might be controversial.
I don't know. I don't know where it came from.
Opinion on the situation of the athletes in Germany
that hate the DAV. I don't know what that means.
I need some context. Yeah. So it's never easy.
to a balance between what an athlete need and
a federation that have other priorities than
what the athletes need necessarily. So we need
to understand the structure of DAV is a huge
federation and competitive climbing, it's maybe
the smallest, how do you say, part of the federation.
The DAV have huge, huge things going in the world.
They are managing the mountains of Germany. They
are responsible for tracks in the mountains,
for the huts in the mountains. It's a crazy big
and very interesting federation. And competitive
climbing is the smallest dot on this DAV map.
To put it in context, I'm guessing that this
question is coming because the last years that
the money support that we're getting is less
and less, and we are coming the first year ever
that athletes need to pay for their own competitions.
And of course, we have some struggles. And in
the core of DAV, they are not very competitive.
So competition climbing is not as important as
climbing, as a culture, you know? So the culture
of climbing is more important than winning this
medal or winning this medal. It's not on the
top of their priorities and it's conflicting
with athletes that for them, the top of the priority
is... this and they are dedicating their life
for the sports and then you know they train for
years and prepare and and now saggy as the coach
decided to send them to a competition in china
and the federation is saying well that's nice
and that's very cool that you have some achievements
but you need to pay it by yourself and when we
are talking about going to a competition in china
we are talking thousands of euros that you need
to pay from somewhere Also, I think it's a bit
of an online wording, or I don't want to say
propaganda, but I don't think athletes are hating
DAV. I think they have conflict, they are not
agreeing on everything, or maybe they have personal
problems with specific people. But DAV as a federation
is... Maybe I will get in trouble for saying
it, but DEV is not a competitive sport federation,
you know. It's an alpine federation, you know.
And they exist since 1869 as a federation. And
this climbing sport came to them like, you know,
this federation is almost 200 years old. Almost,
you know. This sport came seriously like 20 years
ago, and it's just something that the Federation
is catching up with. I think it will take two,
three, four years for the Federation to maybe
a little bit catch up with what's happening.
And then I imagine or I hope the situation will
be better in a few years. All right. Sounds good.
Um, next couple of questions will be a little
bit more climbing related, not so heavy hitting.
Oh, I love heavy. I have no problem. I think
that was the only heavy hitting one. Um, so the
next one, just, uh, talk through the thought
process on an appeal, both against another athlete
and appealing for your athlete. I think as like
viewers, we don't get much info into how that
works. It's pretty simple and different coaches
have different agendas about that. So for me,
I appeal only if it affects one of my athletes.
So for example, if I appeal an American athlete
and the appeal is going through and it makes
my athlete being 24 in semis instead of 25 out
of semis, I will go for this appeal if it has
meaning. If it's not affecting my athletes, most
of the time I will choose not to appeal. But
sometimes, and it's not my personal agenda, it's
just because I know the other coaches, sometimes
appeals are coming for IFSC to notice a problem
in the rules or to, let's say, educate the judges.
If in qualifications you see a judge that is
not judging zone positions correctly, even if
it's not affecting your athletes, you want to
appeal about it and to make the head judge notice
because this same judge will judge your athletes
in the next round in semifinals and you want
him to be more correct. But it's not a secret
that... a lot of coaches are doing a strategical
appeals and a strategical appeals their point
is it's like a big check game you know we we
try to get the best advantages that we can get
for our athletes um so and and this is sometimes
people don't know it this is the main job of
a coach in a competition since we are not allowed
to communicate with the athletes you know so
if i'm sitting in the coach area And I'm not
allowed to communicate what's the difference
between me and the guy sitting in the audience
taking a video with his phone, you know? This
is kind of my main job, is to look for the holes
in what the judges are doing and to bring it
up and to fight with it. And I can give an interesting
example now from Helsinki, from the semifinal
in Bouldering, okay? I had an athlete ranked
number eight, meaning going into finals. Okay.
And the French team had an athlete ranked number
nine or 10. I don't remember exactly where she
won, but she was below. Then the French coaches
decided to appeal for her to get a zone. Okay.
That she didn't got. Okay. Now the appeal went
through, IFSC went through the judging cameras
and then decided, yes, it is a zone. And it made
the French athlete go to eighth place and drop
down the German athlete out of finals. Never
mind that if you, after the competition, when
we checked the videos, the judges were wrong
and it was not a zone. So during the competition,
I had nothing to do about it because we are not
allowed to appeal against an appeal. If an issue
has been appealed once, it's not allowed in the
rules to appeal against about it. After the French
submitted an appeal for them to give her a zone,
me as the German coach, I have nothing in my
hands to do. Interesting that the day after,
the same French athlete stood on the podium.
So this appeal by the coaches had a lot of meaning.
It's not only that they brought her from not
going to finals to go to finals, they brought
her a medal. And so this is why appeals are so...
a lot of times emotional. Sometimes you see it
in the camera, you see the coaches arguing with
the judges. Of course, sometimes appeals don't
have this much, this much, uh, uh, importancy,
but most of the times we are fighting for the
next round. We are fighting for the chance for
a medal. My job is to know the rules so good.
So I can find where the judges are missing, you
know, and to play with it. Any harsh feelings
there with getting appealed? Of course, harsh
feelings, yes. I argued with the judge a lot,
and after she didn't accept my arguments, I also
discussed it with other judges around the world,
getting their feedback about the videos. So,
of course, I feel bad for my athlete, but...
most of us coaches because we know each other
so well you know yeah it's most of the coaches
i see them more than i see my family you know
during the competition rounds we we spend so
so much time together we have to be also friendly
with each other and you know in the end of the
day when i am broken after a hard competition
and for example uh nico januel the french coach
is broken from a difficult competition we will
sit together and we will be each other friends
not only in a professional level most of us are
able to be professional about it so now i'm not
angry at the french coach the french coach did
his job and he found the hole in the system and
he took it and he made a medal for for for the
french team and this is his job i have no bad
feelings toward The coach. So towards the judge.
Yes. Okay. Also that there are some judges that
you like their character, some judges that you
don't like. But in the end of the day, we have
to remember two key issues. First of all, it's
nothing personal. The judge does not take the
decision against me. You know, he took a decision.
A professional decision in his perspective, even
if I don't agree. So nothing here is personal.
It's all professional. And the second thing,
it's a game. We are here to play and have fun.
Sometimes we lose, sometimes we win, but the
main issue is having fun. Good to hear it's mostly
okay. Okay, let's do one last one. I know we're
kind of running low on time. So what do you do
in ISO? Sleeping. Okay. No, it's of course a
complete joke. What I do in ISO. So I prepare
my athletes for the moment of competition. So
we do warm -up together. We do activation for
the body. If it's lead, I'm giving them circuits
to get the pump out. If it's boulder, we are...
trying to expect moves. And yeah, we are most
of all warming up. Second of all, it's also a
very friendly place to mingle with other coaches.
I can tell you that sometimes ISO is very boring.
If you're going to ISO at 7 in the morning and
your athlete is climbing at 11, you are not warming
up for four hours. You have it like two hours
and then two hours you are kind in a waiting
position. Well, but are you usually in ISO or
like usually you'd be out in the coach's area
in the mats? It depends. So we need a coach on
the mats from the minute the competition started
because we need to take care of appeals from
the first athlete that is climbing. And also
most of the times we need a coach in ISO taking
care in all of the athletes are getting warmed
up, blah, blah, blah. Usually what most of the
teams are doing is all the coaches are going
in ISO when it's open. And then when the first
athlete is starting, half of the team would leave
out to take care of appeals or to watch the competition
and some of the coaches. And we change between
us. Me and my dear colleague Fritzi, she's the
love of my life. She's the lead coach. We change
between us. The round of the boys, I'm going
out, she's staying in. Then the girls, I will
go. We change. There is no specific. Cool. Okay,
so let's wrap up here then. Thanks for joining
me today. Do you have any last -minute words
of wisdom you want to get out there? You know,
the graveyard is full with people that thought
they are irreplaceable. Oh, okay. You asked for
wisdom. I don't remember. How does that apply
to competitions? Oh, it's not applying for competition.
I just think it's a really wise thing to understand
in your life, you know? Okay, let me think about
it. You want wise climbing wise. I mean, that
one's good too. I need to think about that one
for a few days. I will give you something else.
something that you discover when you work very
very very hard as a coach yeah that most of the
time uh the win of the athlete is the athlete's
win but the loss of an athlete you share it so
it's the loss of both of you and it's it's a
hard position in the for for coaches you know
because There's only one guy standing on the
podium and it's the athlete. It doesn't matter
how much hard work coaches are putting behind
this athlete. But when you lose, you all lose
together. Okay, that's good. And I will still
think about the other one. I haven't heard that
one before. Never, really? No, yeah, no. It's
for the concept of people that are giving me
ultimatums or telling me... If you do that, then
I leave. And I always like saying, hey, everybody's
replaceable. Yikes. No, I think it's a good,
humble position for people to work with. I know
that I'm replaceable all the time. No, I think
that makes sense. A lot of people get really
invested in their work and they feel like they
have to give everything to their work. And then
it's like, well, they don't really care that
much about you necessarily. So I get that. Okay,
cool. Do you want to let people know where they
can find you? So six or seven months ago, like
beginning of the season, I deleted my social
medias. Not because blah, blah, blah, just because
it was destroying my dopamine and harming my
sleeping time. And I said, okay, I just have
to get rid of it. But rarely I slowly start to
check. I check my DMs on Instagram from time
to time. Naknik setting on Instagram. But, you
know, there is always ways to get to me if people
want to. Sounds good. I will leave that in the
description. Well, thank you again. And it was
great to chat with you. Yeah, thank you. It was...
way way easier than i expected i was a bit terrified
in the beginning 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 big 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