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Helping climber understand competition climbing.
Rory Potter 00:00
I'm Rory and welcome to the Inside Climbing Podcast. In this episode, I talk with Charlie Boscoe and Danaan Markey, who recently launched the Pro Climbing League.
Both have been in the climbing scene forever.
Charlie worked at Epic TV before becoming the IFSC commentator between 2016 and 2019. It was a bit surreal talking to him, because to me, he's the voice of climbing, because I started watching climbing competitions back in 2016.He's also worked with National Geographic, Red Bull, Adidas and Strava.
Danann is an Irish climber and previously was one of the German bouldering team coaches. He's also commentated for the IFSC, including the Edinburgh 2022 Lead and Speed World Cup, which I actually went and saw.
We talked all about how it started, why they wanted to create it, and how they convinced investors to invest in a climbing league. We also talk a lot about the new format, which pits athletes head to head on identical blocks.
Let's jump in.
Rory Potter 00:51
Where did this idea come from? And why did you keep going with it?
Danaan Markey 00:58
Can we start with Stasa?
Charlie Boscoe 01:00
Yeah, so it came about originally when Stascher Gale, the Serbian climber, now retired from comps but still super strong, introduced down under the line.
Danaan Markey 01:13
It's the Vontsemer.
Charlie Boscoe 01:14
I don't remember it. I don't remember where we went. I think we went out for some beers or something. Yeah, that was it, the Vontsemer in Innsbruck, I forgot the name temporarily, and we just got chatting about, hey, what do you think climbing comps could be? What do you think could be made, what could be added to the current comp scene? And it was kind of remarkable how similar our take on it was, and I think there was a lot of overlap. I had not been thinking about it formally in any way, but I went to 100 World Cups, a lot of World Cups, and they're amazing events. You've been to some of them, but you do find yourself thinking, this is awesome, and the Olympics is awesome, but I feel like we could, there's other stuff we can do as well.
It doesn't have to just be this. And Dan and I was having similar thoughts and turned out what we both had in our minds, albeit they were quite ill-formed thoughts and kind of random ideas were pretty similar. So you get talking and I think there's a, I've realised there's an amazing power to actually just starting something. So when you're sitting in a pub and there's two people with no capital behind them, no money, no experience of running a comp series, and you go, if we ran a comp series, what would it look like? And it's insane to say that, and it's a ridiculously naive thing to think you can do. But actually, why don't you start going? Who would you invite? Which cities would you have it in? Which venues would you go to? What would your format be? Once you actually start thinking about it, kind of makes it real. And I think that's something we went through and it seemed real at the start. I think we spoke to a couple of people really early on and we were basically going, yeah, we've got this comp series, we're ready to roll. And then actually realise it's 5,000 things you hadn't considered. And we just kept plugging away. But specifically, Dan Hunt just kept plugging away. Dan Hunt's persistence is unlike anything I've ever seen. So I tip my hat and if we're going to talk about persistence and the journey, that should definitely be Dan Hunt.
Danaan Markey 03:32
Yeah, if I was going to add like the grounds that got me there at that time, I think both me and Charlie are basically climbing lifers and every part of our life and career has somehow been involved in climbing and I got connected to the international comp scene quite early on and just really loved it. Really loved meeting everyone, seeing how psyched they were, seeing this global community.
But I'd say maybe a key thing that really affected my thinking around it all was I was helping coach the German team for a while and that's how I met Stacia, how I got connected to Charlie and this that and the other and I just saw how much work and commitment all of the athletes were putting into that role. They all moved to Munich and they signed up to university but they didn't really go and their mission was to be there and compete on the team and none of them were making any money from it and even if they were to ever win a competition that's not going to give them much of a way. So it really affected me to see how much they were putting in for not expecting anything in return and I think that was a really starting point, a grounding point for me starting to ask some questions of like there's so much passion and so much effort here. Surely there's a way that we can turn that into something and use it to give back to them and those were the questions I was asking and whenever I met Charlie I think this has happened a couple of times in this journey where you kind of look someone in the eyes and you realize like oh you're thinking the same thing as me and I don't even think we, I don't know if there's a point where like oh yeah we're just gonna do this or like oh we're gonna start now we just went we were just going immediately from that point we're like okay so what's the next thing and yeah quite a journey. It's basically the routine was every year we thought we were going to do a comp, didn't do a comp and then like just go and research every part of the industry and the community and how business models in the sport works and pretty much about three cycle of and then it started to get really serious so I think that's it kind of where we started from.
rory 06:18
Can you remember the moment which you had where you went from, oh, this could actually happen?
Speaker 2 06:23
Well, we had several of them and it didn't, so we had, well, we should not name names, but we had partners, people were involved. What was the first one? Not delivering on, no contracts were broken, but people said they were going to get involved and then decided not to. So we had our hearts broken by it a couple of times, kept thinking we were there.
And I think the weird thing, and I think this is really true of actually your life and your whole career is, and you don't have some big moment where you go, yeah, we did it. Like today we've gone public, five years work, it's out there with the Pro Climbing League is happening, we've got the athletes, we've got the partners, we're ready to roll. And all day, I'm just calling people and texting people and replying to emails and dealing with things. And so there is no hallelujah moment where you suddenly realise you've made it. And I actually spoke to a friend of mine who runs a business as well. He said exactly the same thing. He said, I remember thinking, if I could quit my job and this was my job, that'd be amazing. But then he goes, I did it. And on Monday morning, I had to come in, start running this business. It's like you never, I don't feel like you'd ever feel like you got there. And I think you see that with athletes. You see it with anyone who's done something challenging, I don't think many people have that moment where they just think we've done it. But it sure is, it was a pretty nice feeling today, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 3 07:55
Yeah, I think the more you get into it, the more you really become that person that thinks about this all the time, sees what needs to be done, understands the work required to get there, the further you go from thinking about, oh, imagine if we did that, or imagine we were the people that organized this thing. That just stops to exist.
And all I think about is what I need to get to this event, what I need to do after the event. And I definitely love every single moment of it and everything that's on the table. But there's that kind of, I don't know, that dopamine hits that doesn't exist and the idea that has gone away long ago.
Speaker 2 08:43
It's very fleeting. I definitely I know in my alpine climbing career, I had a couple of things when I first arrived in Chamonix. I thought if I did that, every sunrise will be different. But for the rest of my life, I'll just be Zen.
I'll just say I did that. I can just walk on air for the rest of my life with my head held high. What do you know? You do it three days later and back looking at the weather forecast. Well, that was good. If this next weather window is good, I'm going to do this even bigger thing. You do the bigger thing. You don't care. It's so. It's sad. It's a shame. It would be great to kind of enjoy the moments more. But I think once you've been in it so long, you just always think about what's next. And I hope that honestly, joking aside, I hope we're always thinking about what's next. You never want to sit on your laurels. I want to every PCL event. We want to tear it apart and go, what was good? What was bad? What could we do better? We want to you don't want to you don't want to think you've made it.
Speaker 3 09:37
Um, actually, yeah, I think that, that is a lesson you kind of learn in climbing quite early on. Like you have this idea of that's that, oh, if only I could climb eight eight, that would be the dream. That would be the ultimate take. And then you do it and you're like, okay, what's next?
What's the next one? Or do some crazy high ball. You're like, wow, defy death. What's the next one? I actually, I was, um, interviewing, uh, Fred Nicole once and he, he get, he was like one of the most philosophical things ever. He basically put up every King line in, uh, eight and above in bouldering. And um, I was like, Oh, what's, what's like your favorite of sense that you look back on? And he's like, I don't have any. And I was like, what do you, what do you mean you don't have any? He's like, no, I have times where I, uh, had a really good day climbing, but I didn't climb, I didn't get up anything. And I had times where I climbed the thing, but it wasn't the best day climbing, but every time I just look for the next thing. So, uh, there's, there's so much philosophy that carries through to what we have now where we're just looking at the next job being done.
rory 10:49
Which thing was the most challenging which you didn't think it would be?
Speaker 2 10:52
That's a good question. Have you got one that springs some mind down on us? Or shall I take the first run at this? Because I think I have an answer.
Finances. Because I've always been interested in business and finance, but it's very easy when you've got this dream to spin the numbers how you want them. So you just think, well, we could put this in a big arena. We can sell 10,000 tickets. If each ticket costs £50, we've got £500,000 and we're away. And then actually that's not how it works at all because you've got to put a deposit down to book the arena in the first place. You've got all these costs up front. You've got to actually sell the tickets, which means you've got to be credible. And so I think understanding the financial realities of how this all works was a really big challenge for me. And as I say, so we initially we thought, oh, we'll put the broadcast behind a paywall and then X thousands of people will pay to watch it. And that's more money. And actually, it's really hard to sell 10,000 tickets and get 10,000 people to pay for a live stream. And even if you could, most of what you've got to pay for, you've got to pay for beforehand. And so understanding timelines and financial models, for me, even as someone who's always had a very keen amateur interest in business investing, done a bit of investing, that was really eye-opening to me. And we've learned so much about sponsorship models, broadcast models, event models. I mean, just quickly while we're on, one of our partners, Neil Wyatt, he deals with the physical event, basically. So Neil is not really a climber. He goes to the climbing gym occasionally, but he's not steeped in climbing. And Dan and I have been talking about this and a mutual friend of mine and Neil said, give my friend Neil a call. He used to work for Live Nation. He used to work for the BBC doing their live events. He'll help you out with some event advice. And I remember calling Neil up and saying, hey, Neil, yeah, so we've got this climbing event series, just sort of run past you, what it's like to run an event, sort of see if you had any input. Neil basically said, you have no idea how to put an event on. Neil is the nicest guy in the world, but by the end of the call, it was just immediately obvious that we just had no bloody idea how to put an event on. So yeah, that kind of technical, the event side, the financial side, for me, it's been a really big learning curve.
rory 13:40
How excited were people that this was a climbing competition in specifically, rather than just a competition happening?
Speaker 3 13:48
Oh, so selling it to non-climbing.
rory 13:51
Yeah, like I'm assuming a lot of the sponsors and some of the people you worked with were not necessarily climbers, or I know Red Bull were involved in lots of climbing. Outside of that, I'm sure you've worked with lots of people who you have to convince that, yes, a climbing competition is something which people may actually want to go to.
Speaker 3 14:08
So I'd say the most interesting category of groups that we ran through that with was investors and specifically venture capital and private equity and that was I think the funny the thing that I learned as I had zero understanding of how that world works is investment only happens in the niche that that group or business invests in and so there's like brick and mortar climbing gym investors and then there's like sports leagues investors and almost all the times there needs to be some kind of like proven model that you're pursuing and the thing that we started to uncover as we were trying to figure out this industry is that there's no such thing as a climbing league investor it doesn't exist so we were basically going to either lifelong climbers that had a bit of money or VCs that just had no concept of what was going on and that was trying to explain to them one just the scale of the sport I think they they do have this idea that climbing is a lot smaller than it is now and if we when we kind of get them to understand the scale of the sport and the commitment of the community and the strength of the community that's the that's how you start to get them across but it was um it's a very funny world that they just ask they ask all the questions as if you were in a perfect world they're like oh why don't you just pay for your own broadcast and then you can sell it ESPN why do you need Red Bull I don't think that's I don't know what context you have but I don't have that um that was uh that is like that's a very current project at the moment and um I think there's this kind of tide of them starting to understand the industry I'd say the biggest factor by far is the explosion in the number of gyms and they're they're seeing that and they're any everyone in London either has tried climbing or knows someone that is climbing and this is super consistent so that there there is that there's that turning now of they're starting to kind of get like okay this is a uh there is something here but yeah those those like big giants that we couldn't even get in the door because um they just there was no concept that a climbing competition could be
rory 16:50
It's one of these tensions, I feel like, because I feel like climbing itself as the grassroots has really grown and has become such a, like, I think the IFSC quotes, like, 40 million people climb worldwide or something, like, several years ago, and that has almost certainly, like, increased massively since then. But if you look at other niche sports, like surfing, for example, surfing has supposedly around 20 million people who've surfed, and yet surfing as a professional sport is far more developed than climbing is, in terms of, like, they have their own problems, but as a, like, the WSL is maybe, like, five times the size of the IFSC in terms of just revenue, and they have Lexus sponsoring, like, their whole series.
Speaker 2 17:33
you're basically repeating our pitch that we make to the venture capital firms back to us which is look at this sport that's smaller than ours but has a really big successful private league
rory 17:46
with climbing, I feel like there's this contrast between the size of the recreational sport and how small competition climbing is within that. How does that grow? How do we grow outside of that little bubble?
And so this is why I'm really interested in chatting with you guys about how you've managed to do this, because actually doing this thing is hard. You've also been really bold in calling it the Pro Climbing League, which suggests that you're going to have more than one competition.
Speaker 2 18:16
Well, for a start, we are having more than one competition, but yeah.
Speaker 3 18:20
Well, did you know that the main definition of league, should we look it up quick? I think everyone misses this.
We are having more than one. But the main definition of league, if you want to pop it into Google, is a collection of people, countries or groups that combine for mutual protection for cooperation. So League of Nations is the main example. But to kind of go back to your question before, like I'd say, that this is based in just the business model and the structure of major sporting events and leagues. There's Federation leagues and then there's commercial professional leagues. The Federation League is managed. It's the pathway to the Olympics, but it's managing lots and lots of member federations. It's a huge, huge thing. And they have different sponsorship models. A lot of it's built out of Rule 40 in the Olympics. It's just an entirely different enterprise altogether. And then you'll see the sport, the more professional leagues. That's like Premier League football, Ironman Triathlon, NBA, NHL, NFL. There's a lot more freedom in those models and they can really move fast and they can deliver very different business models. And that's where a lot of money and growth and sport comes to support the whole field.
rory 19:52
So what is your vision for?
Speaker 3 19:54
The vision for the league, right. Constantly growing and changing, changing. Basically, it's... I've spoken to everyone I can in the climbing world and tried to get a feeling for why they do it, why they love it, what connects them all, what is that larger thing. And a big, big part of it is that kind of support structure for them.
And so when we're building this model, yeah, we want to host big, exciting competitions, but as well, as much as possible, integrate into the industry. So working alongside gyms and... worth creators and anyone that can get involved and allow them to have a platform to help make a living from the sport. This is the kind of vision I have from it. So, yeah, growing, really taking advantage of, like, non-endemic resource, but then delivering that across people that really love climbing. That's what I'm fighting for, and that's the real north star of it all. So, yeah, we... Big events, I think, is a really good way to get started, but there's lots more that we... at least we say now, famously. Lots, lots more that we want to do and build and just connect to the climbing industry across.
Speaker 2 21:26
Yeah, and I think it actually touches on something you were kind of hinting at earlier, Rory, which is, I think what we don't have right now in climbing is a real strong connection between what you see in a comp and what you do in a gym. And I think that if you, it's our assertion that if you can link what you see in a comp to what you do in a gym, then there's something huge there.
And thinking about, we all grew up in the UK, my hero was Alan Shearer. I was a Blackburn fan. When I was playing football in the playground, I was Alan Shearer. So when I was doing my sport, I'm thinking about my hero. And I think that's something that we would love to achieve with this. Obviously, the events are a huge part of what we're doing, and they're going to be super exciting, amazing events. But beyond that, I think somehow connecting those events to the everyday experience of climbers and making the comps a little relatable. It is a bigger part of people's day to day climbing life, I think is a huge, a huge element of this.
rory 22:38
So this first event really looks like an exhibition event where you invited a load of athletes to kind of come and play in your new format in London at the end of February.
Speaker 2 22:51
I would push back on that. I don't see it as an exhibition. It's the first event of a hopefully long-running League series and the format has been tested with real people. We've got a rules expert, a climbing rules expert, such things do exist apparently. Currently beavering away on the rule book which I put together and I actually just spoke to him. He said it was pretty good but there are some holes in it and he's there. I was kind of pleased. He called me up because so I need to talk about the rule book and I said oh no he's going to say it's terrible but actually he said it was pretty good but there are some holes in it.
So we've got an expert going through that. We've tested it with real people. We view this as a real sporting event. I know what you mean but to me this is a format that's had an awful lot of work and research and an event that is the first of many.
rory 24:00
Let's get into that format then. So this format is quite different in that you are looking at having athletes compete side by side on the same block, which not many comps have actually done.
Like Adidas Rockstar's the very final is like the only one I really know of, which has done this seriously.
Speaker 2 24:20
Yeah. And Rockmaster, obviously, albeit the lead duel in Arco, it's a different thing, the lead duel, because they do the same route multiple times, but similar thing. I cannot imagine how many hours of my life have been spent on Zoom calls with Dan and discussing what our format should be. Should we have lead combined with bold? No, lead's too difficult and we can't make it work format.
Well, we can't make it different enough. We couldn't get lead to... Okay, let's do bolder, right? Bolder's easy, smaller venues, smaller walls, easier to understand. Can we do points? Should we do knockout? Should we do... Side by side, we wanted to... One of our big ideas, and I still think it was a good idea, but nobody else liked it, was to have a high ball boulder. So you would have like an eight meter high boulder, say, above a foam pit. So you effectively get that multi-minute battle of lead. I still think that's a really good idea, but nobody else is buying it. So I let it... Yeah, it's like, you know, the woman that broke your heart, you got to let it go eventually. But I still think that would be cool. But so yeah, we spent a lot of time. I've got all these spreadsheets I found recently of potential scoring systems and timing. It was a nightmare, to be totally honest. But eventually we kind of, with help, hit on a side by side format. And the key point with it is it's not speed bouldering. Adidas Rockstars, I went to three or four of the Rockstars events and they were amazing events. But as soon as you put a buzzer on top of a boulder, you are basically demanding that somebody tops a boulder. As soon as you're demanding a top, you are demanding a certain level of difficulty. We want this to be really hard. It's got to be proper climbing. It's got to be real climbing. It just happens that instead of me going, then you going, then Dan I'm going, two of us go at the same time. But the theory around the climbing is no different to a World Cup or anything else. It's real climbing. You're testing who the best climber is. They just happen to be side by side because that's a better viewing experience. And it also adds this massive new element to it. And whenever we've tested the format out, the way the climbers interact is this whole new thing, which you've never seen. Because if you take Rockstars as an example, basically either they both flashed it and then it was just who flashed it first or one of them fell off and knew they were going to lose because the other one was busy flashing it. But to have a boulder that are hard enough that people are falling off repeatedly next to each other introduces so many behavioural aspects to it, which are really interesting. And what people do, even the limited number of tests we've run a handful, the way people interact with each other is this whole new thing. And I really enjoyed that element of it. So it was a long journey to hitting on this format and we ploughed a lot into it. One thing I would say about the PCO, by the way, is everything's up for review.
Speaker 2 27:39
If we run this and we think, hey, it'd be better to have the boulders this way around or this height, we'll change it. We'll make it better.
But this is what we think for the first event is our format, but it is totally open to being tweaked and we welcome any and all feedback afterwards, apart from, oh, God, it's that guy from the IFSC culminated again. I hate that guy. Matt Groom is so much better. Any feedback apart from that is more than welcome.
Speaker 3 28:09
Yeah, I would just reiterate Charlie's point. I think if there's anything that like really defines this on this is everything, every decision we've made, there's some piece of research behind it.
There's some kind of like either report that I've read or trend that we've seen or group that we've tested it with. I don't know if there's anything we said, oh, we just like this and so we're going to do it like this. It's been constant, constant research and then just giving up on your darlings to come up with a better product.
Speaker 2 28:50
Yeah obviously everyone has an opinion and every time we turned left we could have gone right and every decision you make you could have made the other one and you end up where you end up and eventually you just have to say we've done all the research we can we've spoken to everyone we can we've tested it and this is what we're doing if we just carry on having a committee we'll just we'll never have a format and so I saw somebody said to me well you should measure attempts not time you know the winner should be on the number of attempts not time you think I cannot describe how many hours we spent discussing whether it should be attempts or time we're not just plucking these ideas out of the air you might disagree with them and maybe you'll make a point that makes us change our mind in the future that's we're totally open to that like we we are not sitting here saying we've got all the answers but I can just assure people there's been an awful lot gone into this format and the hardest thing is making something simple and we wanted our format to be awesome but simple and that's such a hard combination you if you can add complexity you could make an insanely cool format but it would take someone like you with a maths PhD to understand it so yeah it's had a lot of thought
Speaker 3 30:02
we've spoken to other people that have thought about it a lot a lot. I'd say a lot of the key factors that were kind of decision points in the format.
A lot of that actually came from speaking to most of the national team coaches who all spent ages thinking about this as well. Quite a few of them came to me and were mentioning like, well we could really look at just doing it by time rather than attempts because on average the attempts equals time if they're like resting properly and things. So there's like, it's not just me and Charlie Chatter, there's all these other people that are thinking as deeply about us and yeah it's actually a lot of the coaches that made us change our minds from our beloved Highball Thorpe in the past.
rory 30:54
I do like the highball idea, it's like indoor psycho block, but not quite as high and probably harder.
Speaker 2 31:02
Yeah, I'm still attached to that. But I think like you look at the most popular game in the world, soccer.
I live in Canada, we call it. The pitch, the pitch is as big as it is. The goals are as big as they are. The game is 90 minutes. You have 11 people. You could, if someone invented soccer from scratch now, people have said goals should be bigger. Pitch should be smaller, less players, more players. Eventually, you just have to say we've listened to a ton of really smart people. I've written it all down and we've tested it all. And this is our call. But yeah, we're open. Let us know what you think when you see it.
rory 31:41
If you're successful, you can have another leak, which is the hypo bouldering one. Right, thanks.
Speaker 2 31:45
queue. Yeah, yeah, it's got nothing to do for the next five years. I might as well just start again.
rory 31:54
One of my favorite things about the format, which I think is I cover all of the different disciplines, so speed, lead, boulder, and start a paraclimbing this last year. And the one thing which speed has over the other two disciplines is that you have two athletes next to each other, neck and neck, and they push each other. And you can see that in the competition, how they push each other. And so often, when people go outside and they're climbing on the same blocks, they push each other. You see someone do a block, you immediately have more energy, you have more focus to do it. And so often, you go and do it just the next time you do it after seeing someone do it. And having that competition played out, I think, is really interesting.
And having that relationship, because climbing isn't just physical, it's also technical, and it's working out not just what to do, but also how to do it. And seeing two athletes doing that side by side, and in this format, you see the chemistry between those two athletes, and how they interact, and the affect, which we don't really have in bouldering. It's the athlete against the wall, which in some ways is quite pure, but also makes it a more difficult competition, because they aren't competing against each other directly. Whilst in your format, I think it's really interesting to see that competition. I think this is why people like the rock masters lead duel, because you're seeing two people competing at the same time.
Speaker 2 33:23
And I think this space is 100% space for both. We don't see this as one or the other us versus the current format. This is just something different and there are some elements of our format that aren't as good and there are some elements of our format that we think are better but it's just different and it just introduces different elements.
It has a different feel but yeah one other thing we had a few kind of north stars. Can you have multiple north stars? We had a few goals. There's only one isn't there? Yeah I suppose there's kind of a north and a north northeast star yeah but we wanted to have direct competition like you say in Arco and one thing is we see these amazing boulderers but we don't see them compete. I see you get a go then I get a go and we wanted to see them against each other and we also wanted a really clear moment where someone wins. You don't want to say we didn't want a format where we went oh actually 20 minutes ago someone won and now it's become obvious.
So yeah your analysis of our format I think is very accurate. We could have saved ourselves a ton of time Dan, just rung him up. So what do you think?
Speaker 3 34:44
Well, I think you're so right on that interaction, the interaction between the two athletes, and it creates so many cool emotions and tactics that we haven't seen before. One of them, that's really cool, we saw in our simulations was actually, it keeps it quite head-to-head, usually if one athlete figures out the beta, then the other one kind of gets it, or can see somehow, and actually it keeps both people pretty head-to-head in around, which is really exciting.
And then maybe one of the really cool things is, if both athletes have, it's usually their first go and it's an intense powerful climb, and they come off and they have to rest, that rest is intense, because basically whoever gets on first is going to have a serious advantage, but they're both really tired, and so there's just this really tense resting moment where you're trying to rest, and in other formats, it's okay, sit, cool, everyone think about something else for a bit, because they're going to rest, but in this format, everyone's like, oh my God, who's going to get on first? And so the moment where historically has been not what you want to see in an event actually is super exciting and intense, so that's just one of a few.
Speaker 2 36:22
I don't know if anyone's used the phrase intense resting but I just love it, that is now just for the rest of the PCL that is how it will be described. Rest intensely.
Yeah, this is one of the tensest moments when nothing's happening. Yeah, it's incredible but to give you another example, we set a boulder in one of our simulations and kind of hard to read, it was kind of tricky, there were two possible methods and one of the guys, so the pair walked up to the boulder and one of the guys just stepped back and watched the other one which obviously is the highest risk tactic ever because if they do it you're just standing there, you just look like an idiot standing on the mat but he actually gambled and won and the guy, his opponent tried to do the move, couldn't do it, fell off and this guy jumped on and did it. So there's all things like that where you just, beforehand we were speculating, we said do you think they'll actually just stand and watch anyone? Because we tried not to brief the climbers, we didn't say hey you've got to have loads of attempts so we can figure out if our timing system's right, we just gave them the format and just said right just do what and one of them did and I think that is something you will see in PCL events is if there is a really tricky boulder or if you think your opponent is not a great readie, you're just watching make a mistake but obviously it does have the catastrophic potential for just turning around to the crowd and you're like well I don't know why I bothered coming out, haven't left the mat. So yeah there's all sorts of weird little behavioural, almost sociological elements to it.
rory 38:11
I got into surfing last year at the Olympics because like Tehupu is an awesome place to go surfing and that day was incredible and just yeah I really got into it and ended up following the WSL a bit and the surfing format is very similar to your guys format in many ways in that you have two people competing obviously and climbing there's a fixed climb on the wall for them they have a fixed period of time and waves come and it's who can surf the best on those waves and so you'll have at least before they made some real changes people would have to compete for which wave they wanted to surf in order to do the best and you end up with that kind of gamesmanship which some people love some people hate but ends in conversation no matter what and often that's what you really that's often what we want in sport we want to have something to have a conversation about and we want to talk about and so when like the referee messes up it's you can get really angry about the fact the referee messed up with your friends and you feel part of that community but you're never going to quit your sport because the referee keeps messing up
Speaker 2 39:12
And we shouldn't shy away from competition in climbing. It's a climbing competition. Someone is trying to win. That's why we're all there, standing in that crowd, watching and cheering. It is a competition, and we shouldn't be afraid of saying that.
Basically, every other area of climbing can be a little competitive, but it's essentially non-competitive. You're not trying to beat the person next to you. So if we're going to run a climbing competition, it's a competition. You are trying to win. That's fine. That's what you're there for. So we don't shy away from the directness of competition and the intensity and the potential controversy, hopefully not bad controversy. But the discussion points around that, we don't shy away from that at all.
Speaker 3 40:04
I think also a really key one to add is we kind of discovered this as we were doing kind of brand therapy on the business. A lot of this format essentially the defining point is this new type of pressure between you and the other athlete and when you actually look at climbing as a sport you realize most of the history of the sport is coming from pressure moments.
So if you're out in the Alpine and you've got a weather window coming in, you've got to perform now otherwise you're screwed. If you're doing some trad climbing and you're pushing out above your gear and you don't know where the next cam or nut's going to go, you've got to perform now under the pressure. This is for us a similar type of way to hark back to that, that's okay there's someone else beside you and you've got to perform under the pressure.
rory 41:03
So one of the areas where, which is right for controversy, because it's already right for controversy, it's my favorite thing. I love root setters. They're my favorite people.
Whenever I go to climbing comps, I love talking to root setters. And this format obviously is really interesting from a root setting point of view in that it feels like the challenge, the root setters sort of job in some ways is harder. It's different. It feels like, so there's two different ways. You have like the style or at least the modality of the clients, which I'm assuming there's a style change between each round within your competitions or is that to be decided?
Speaker 2 41:48
Well, the walls move, so the walls can change angles, so we can change style. Yeah. Yeah, it's not just going to be one type of bowling, for sure.
rory 41:57
Okay, yeah, so is that just like different boulders across the competition or since within a round you have a fixed climb? That's my understanding of it at least.
Speaker 2 42:08
Yeah, so in whatever, the semi-final, there's just the semi-final boulder.
rory 42:14
do you have any guidelines on like the styles of climbs you have for the different rounds or is who yeah who sort of has input into what types of climbs go on for different climbs different rounds i mean
Speaker 2 42:31
Well, I mean, ultimately, it's a call of the head setter. You can't you can't be overruling the head setter.
But obviously, I'm reluctant to disclose too much information so that people go, I know what's coming in Roundwater, but we we have we'd like to set traditional, powerful, good, good boulders. And now there obviously is a lot of nuance and detail within that. And we do have some guidelines around what around style and how many cruxes you have and things like avoiding weird starts. I've got such a beef about weird starts. But yeah, it's a huge, it's a huge route setting challenge. But I think every comp really relies pretty heavily on the challenge is different challenge. But you are still kind of gambling on the recess is getting it right. That's almost unavoidable, I think.
Speaker 3 43:40
I think it's a really interesting concept in when you're like really getting deep into format discussions that format and route setting are actually just two sides of the same coin and if you were to brief a route setter hey I've got a competition and the athletes have one minute to climb this boulder or hey like they've got to do this boulder by the end of the week you're gonna see a very different challenge on the wall hey here's this new set of macros you've got to use hey here's a bunch of jibs and wooden crimps that you got to make a comp out of and these all will just as much like shape how the formats delivered and that's a really it's that there's this very little like quantification of route setting happened I think there's still not really a good way good structure to quantify how it's done but for sure it's really interesting to us to gather data of like okay what was the intention of the route setter and what was the outcome afterwards and really try to build a bit of a library that we can understand like okay what's the difference between cause and effect throughout this but it's it's a like when you start to dive into that question it's really interesting how much format is defined by setting and there's really a lot to learn there so I think we're just being aware that there's a lot to learn when trying to navigate that.
Speaker 2 45:19
Yeah, I think route, so route setting isn't, isn't art, but I think there's probably a bit more of a science there than has previously been discovered. And as Dan on said, I think it would be super interesting for us.
Uh, it will be super interesting for us when we say to our route setters before the comp, how many tops you think you'll get? How do you think they'll do it? How many attempts will it, and see if they're right and see if moves were done, how they thought they'd be done, because I, it's, it's our assertion that if you do that enough times, you're going to start to, to get some learnings out of that first comp, maybe you don't have a big enough sample size, but when you've done 10 and you realize that, Hey, every time we set this style of Boulder, we get this unexpected outcome that we'd never predict, but we're always wrong. And we're always right about this. I think there are some patterns to be seen there, uh, but you've got to equally not get in the route setters way because they are, they're the experts. Yeah.
Speaker 3 46:15
We got to obviously always let the head setter make the call they need to make, but it's just a funny note in terms of how much we're trying to think about this when we did the first venue tour. We walked into the main hall and stood in front of the stage.
I think it was the first time ever the production manager got asked. I went up to him and was like, so what's the humidity in here whenever it's filled up with people? What sort of temperature do you reach at this point on the stage? He was just absolutely dumb-struggling, but I've seen this in comps. It was, I think, one of National's comps where they sat in a venue which was pretty damn cold and then once it filled up with a thousand people and they turned the lights on, the lights blared right at the wall. Basically any climb with black holes did not get done. These are the things that we're thinking about when you're delivering a big event that conditions matter. What's the conditions that we're going to set and how's that going to compare to on the stage? Yeah, there's a whole lot to learn over time.
rory 47:36
And what do you think is the most challenging aspect for this format for root setting?
Speaker 2 47:40
Oh that's a good question. I think we'd like the boulders to be topped. Flashes aren't great because people just walk out and it's done.
So you're trying to create a boulder ideally that is top-able but there are multiple points where you could fall off because we don't just have a zone or a top so right now there are really only two measurements of progress. So you're trying to create a boulder that can be topped, isn't flashed and has multiple places you can fall off and doesn't have any weird starts where people can't reach the holes or end up having to go upside down or something. So it's quite a specific ask for the route setters I would say and obviously as you get into the final rounds you've got to be more right because that's the final boulder and when you've got a format with four boulders you can essentially make a mistake on one, maybe two of them but we can't make a mistake with our last one. So it's a very high pressure and quite a unique set of circumstances.
rory 48:57
What happens if neither climber tops the boulder in the time?
Speaker 2 49:02
Well, this information is available on the proclimbing.com and this is part of our. So timing is four plus. First thing to say, everyone like, well, not everyone, everyone I've spoken to likes four plus.
If you leave the ground within four minutes, even if there's one second left, you can finish your attempt. That's the old traditional four plus timing which World Cups used to have. What was the question?
rory 49:28
So if neither climber tops the boulder in the round, what happens?
Speaker 2 49:33
Yeah, what happens? So it's who got to the highest hold. So every hold is basically in play. And you're going to say what if it gets at the same hold, and then it's who got there first.
And again, so like someone said, oh, it should be attempt. Well, then you lose that winning moment because I might have 10 attempts and you might have one. But actually, I get there, or you get there first, but then, you know, whatever. I've tied myself in a knot trying to think of the situation. But you know what I mean? The person with the more attempts might get there first. So yeah, it's weird to measure attempts in our format, it should be time.
rory 50:23
The whole time attempts things is a weird one because it always depends on what boulder it is in terms of what actually matters and they do kind of become the same. So like on physical boulders like you pretend in four even four plus minutes you might get three goals max where your last one is you leave a second before the end.
It's the biggest problem that my current this current issue kind of with the four dead structure is you get two attempts really you don't have time because it's so physically draining and even then the first attempt is nearly always the best one. So you either flash it or you don't do it.
Speaker 2 50:55
Attempts time is such a weird thing, but It it also what I was trying to say is it depends on the format So time is right for our format doesn't really it's right for every format attempts can be the best So in the ifac's current format attempts is entirely appropriate because of the way the format is set up It's just it's right for our format because we want a format where you see Rory won because I saw him get to that hold and he got there before dan ended so he wins Um, it doesn't mean it's right for every format
Speaker 3 51:29
I think as well, this is a bit of a tangent, but if you try to look at why have we decided that attempts is the highest value of being good at climbing, if you try to bring it back to outdoor bouldering or sport climbing, I guess there's that, the concept of the on-site is this kind of holy grail for a lot of climbing, but you can ask some serious questions of like, okay, what if like one climber has one attempt a year and does it after five years and another climber just puts their heart and soul into this climb for a month, 100 attempts and they get it done. Who's like better at the sport?
Who's more passionate? Who's this that or the other? And there's yeah, when you really look into it, there is a lot of like, oh, why have we decided that it's just attempts that we decide one person's better than the other from, but it's kind of a tangent. It's definitely a rabbit hole that we don't really need to go into.
Speaker 2 52:37
But it's a good example of every element of root-setting format, whatever. You could discuss a hundred times and you've got to make a call and maybe you're right and maybe you're wrong but you make it, ultimately you've got to say this is how it is.
But it is a subjective judgment but for sure it fits our format better. It's your format.
rory 53:02
has an awful lot of similarities with lead climbing. Tell me more.
So one of the things you could easily say with bouldering is that we want bouldering to be bouldering and we don't want bouldering to be the lead climbing. You've heard this criticism before, I can see, Charlie.
Speaker 2 53:14
I've heard lots of criticism, I'm just racking my brains for which specific criticism is... No, I'm kidding.
rory 53:21
Gone. So the top is what matters in bouldering.
And in bouldering, the difficulty between different moves is not the same. And so what happens is you have one move which will be a lot harder, will be the crux, which is than the other ones. And so if you have a system like, say, lead climbing, where you weight every hold equally, you then end up, and often traditional routes where you have more endurance, you end up on a climb where you have a, so in lead climbing, you have that gradient, that sort of standardized scoring format, and everything's kind of even. But in bouldering, because different moves are a lot harder than other ones, it can easily mean that if you just count holds, then someone getting one move further is not that much different than actually someone doing that move just before it.
Speaker 2 54:13
I see that point, but you've got to...
rory 54:18
score them somehow. You chose your format and like it is probably one of the things which is some people will love this like plenty of people after the IFC added two zones were like well why can't we have even more zones why can't we just score every hold and some people love that format and then there are those who are like we should just have tops no zones why do we have zones we should just have tops and count that that's the purest form and so you have to score it somehow and you have to make a choice and I'm sure that is of all the things like learning about your format is kind of it is very much like lee climbing and you get the benefits right of that you get the benefit of the top being an awesome moment I was lucky enough to go to the Edinburgh World Cup which I think Dan and you were commentating at
Speaker 3 55:00
Oh yeah, it was.
rory 55:01
in back in 2022, I think.
Speaker 2 55:04
and in the world's coldest climbing gym.
rory 55:07
Yeah, up in Edinburgh. No one did anything really particularly good.
Loads of people fell off, and then Jesse just tops it. And it was such a moment when he just topped it, and you're just in that crowd. And that's one of the best things about league climbing, is that when you get that climber who tops it uniquely, it's just this incredible moment. And your format really has that, because someone's going to get to the top first, and you get that moment,
Speaker 2 55:33
Yeah. And I've heard lots of people saying, well, bouldering's about getting to the top or nothing. We should just scrap everything. You either top it or you don't. And that's a perfectly valid viewpoint and you can make a strong case for that.
But I suppose having worked a lot of climbing comps, you kind of see behind the curtain a bit. And there's actually a group of people who have to decide who wins. And if we say it's tops only and everyone tops the boulders in the same number of attempts, you are absolutely hooked. So when designing a format, you always have to stay in reality. So it's really easy to say on the internet, I'd have the format this way. But actually, we've got a camera point at this and there's some broadcast company who are paying to watch it. And we've got to decide who wins. And so you always have to mix reality with the dream. And ultimately, you have to say this is a rule. And in some ways, all rules are arbitrary. I mean, climbing shouldn't have any rules, outdoor climbing. But you've got to introduce some if we're going to have a sporting event.
Speaker 3 56:48
The only thing I have to add is, if the only thing that matters is a top, then every climb should have a buzzer and that's all you're working towards. We've got two, two and a half hours and we want to put on an amazing show and how do we really test the athletes as much as possible and get them excited and motivated and make sure it's not a load of speed climbs and how do we be realistic on what's deliverable, what can the route setters actually make to know that we're going to get a good event and good competition.
To me, if it's only tops then you're just, at least in terms of how much the world knows about route setting so far, you're setting either a load of buzzers in a speed round or an impossible task.
Speaker 2 57:42
In a way, all of climbing is pretty arbitrary, isn't it? If you've got a boulder that curves over to 10 degrees, where's the top of the boulder? You have to walk 20 yards to get to the top of this massive boulder. Is that the top, or is the top the last hard move, or is the top the mantle shelf, or if you're alpine climbing and you climb this hard route, but you don't go to the summit, did you get to the top? Ultimately, it's all slightly arbitrary.
And you can't... And I got no problem saying that, and I think occasionally, and there's a long-standing trad, alpine, whatever, climber, I've played this game, and I'm as bad as anyone for sort of making up these arbitrary rules, but there's an element of artificialness to everything we do as climbers. And, yeah, sometimes you've got to step back and have a little bit of a sense of irony and just go, wow, we're really arguing over this tiny little thing that really... Yeah, where is the top of this piece of rock, you know? It's not the highest point. It's the bit where the hard bit ends. But what's the hard bit? Well, the hard bit is... Oh, my gosh. So you've got to slightly lean in to the kind of silliness of the whole thing, really, in a way. Accept it.
rory 59:08
One thing I'm really curious about actually, so inside the IFSC qualifiers, they often will try and set similar blocks for each group, but because the wall is kind of a normal-ish competition wall with different varying angles and the panel size aren't particularly big, it's really hard to set two blocks exactly the same. How are you guys trying actually making sure that you're setting two blocks which are exactly the same?
Speaker 2 59:33
a lot of double checking and measurement because we have methods of doing it, but for some reason they don't always feel the same. It's what the route setters have said to me. No matter how accurately you measure it, or no, sorry, unless you're incredibly precise, the climbs can feel different. So there is, despite having technical solutions to doing it, there is always an element of literally just measuring it with an angle measurer and a tape measurer and then trying it and they end up the same. And the other thing I would say is no matter how it's done, it is a time-consuming process.
But we have some quite cool ideas for how we might do it faster and more effectively in the future.
Speaker 3 01:00:21
When you asked earlier about the hardest part of resetting for this format, I was going to say, usually the setters seem to think it will be fine, and I was like, don't underestimate the duplication. And we're putting a lot of time and research into trying to think of new ways to deliver this. And there's a lot of cool work going on now. And we're pretty psyched on some of the ideas. We've got longer term to deliver that, but it is a key and difficult part of this. And so when we preset, we're making sure the setters do have extra time and there's specific points to make sure that they're really properly duplicating the boulders because, yeah, it's super important. And we're not underestimating that job.
And we think there's going to be really cool ways to do it in the future. But at the moment, it's the same way that the boulders are saved and reset for any competition. It depends on the wall across the hold and that part of the wall.
Speaker 2 01:01:30
You've got to put a lot of time into it, so in the IFSC's format, because you have different qualification groups, it's fine if they're five mil apart. With our format, our route setting team, it's above my pay grade, our route setting team spent a lot of time making sure that they are absolutely identical.
rory 01:01:53
Thank you for clarifying that, because I think it's such a, it's just something everyone always asks, and I foresee they always ask me like, why can't the voters be the same, because they try, and they're not. They just really aren't like, and you can see them like in Seoul and they had enough space in some of the panels to set really similar blocks.
And you have one block which was topped by like one or two people and the other one like no one got anywhere on the slab and the qualifiers.
Speaker 3 01:02:19
Yeah, we like speak to a lot of different industries when researching like different technologies to do this and they're always surprised like by the precision that's required. I've seen so many, it's maybe one of the most interesting parts of the World Cup that last two minutes before the round starts and the setters are changing something and they're shifting it like two degrees, two millimeters.
And so yeah, when I tell different people in different like tech industries, I'm like maximum three millimeters is too much. It has to be really exciting.
rory 01:03:00
So thank you both. Is there anything you want to add about the competition coming up in February?
Speaker 3 01:03:07
Well, what have we got? We've just gone live. We're super excited with the announcement. We're going to go live with ticket sales on the 8th of January. That'll be a big moment.
We've got a qualifier comp coming up in London in the end of January, which we're also super excited for. And then, yeah, those days around the main competition, I think there's going to be a lot going on in London. So, yeah, there's one big event, but I'm trying to connect to every part of the climbing community as we build up to that, because I think that's the real value there. So, yeah, there'll be a lot going on.
Speaker 2 01:03:49
Yeah, and for me, just unbelievably excited. What's been a climb of 20 years, what's in this industry basically my whole career and just to have this massive new project, big arenas, new format, crowd going crazy, Red Bull filming it, best climbers in the world. It's just it's going to be awesome. I wish it was February the 28th now.
Although I feel like I feel like I'm going to be maybe a little nervous on February 28th. I'll own up. There's going to be a bit of nerves, but yeah, just amazingly excited that this kind of 20 years ago when I started climbing, it's all dusty, red brick, old churches was the climbing gym. And here we are with an event like this 20 years on. And to actually get to go to this event is pretty exciting.
rory 01:04:40
Thank you for listening. I enjoyed making the podcast previews before so, so I thought I'd continue making these. I'm not really sure what this will end up being, really, but I'm enjoying making them, so I'm gonna keep going.
In Seoul, I lost my voice on the first day of the comp, so podcasting during the event really wasn't happening, which was my initial goal. It was also probably a bit too ambitious. I did record a number of interviews during the competition with athletes and root setters, and I hope to combine these into a collection of podcasts about the World Championship, which should start coming out early next year. Cheers.