Women's Boulder final highlights || Innsbruck 2023

A stellar lineup of Olympians, multi-medal winners, and first-podium chasers competed in the women's Boulder final in Innsbruck, where trophies for the Boulder season were also awarded.

[LetsChat]

Four flashes in a row is both an amazing accomplishment (Great job Janja, you deserve the win) and a horrendous feat of route setting for a world final competition (i would have like to seen problems where the shortest climbers can at least *reach* the starting hold, absolutely ludicrous). High jump is a separate sport than bouldering, who knew.

[hansmeier]

There are already four Olympic jumping disciplines. IFSC invented a fifth variant: the high jump from a soft mat.

[lucaseder]

Would it be possible to get a commentary from the route setters? The bias towards height on the jump move of W1 and the toe catch on W4 was crazy. It was really disappointing to see such a bad set at this competition which disadvantaged Ai and Brooke to such a strong degree.

[hazu]

Congrats guys. You finally found the perfect format for highlights, there's story telling, we see all the boulders entirely, the rankings. Very enjoyable to watch, please keep at it !

[klock]

I want to applaud the camera team. This is one of the best filmed events, both bouldering and lead climbing. Perfect angle. Perfect coverage! Keep up the good work!

[haickibaicki]

Very good highlights! I love seeing the boulders

[seaweed-soup]

Semis was a well-set comp with
- difficult, balancey, committing slab
- hard presses/mantels
- committing footwork
- balancey coordination that depends on body positioning, ability to generate with legs, and hand strength (not purely ability to reach)
- hard dynamic movement that presented opportunities to also be done as hard static movement (test ability to read boulders and adjust for your strengths)

As a result we saw climbers of all sizes both topping and getting shut down on all different boulders — so interesting and engaging to watch. Finals, on the other hand, was completely one-dimensional, boring, and stressful! It was honestly a huge letdown and you could tell there was a traumatic effect on most of the athletes.

Maybe IFSC needs to consider adding roofs/caves to the walls. I hear the argument that it's hard to set a truly difficult boulder problem on a 45 or 60 that will actually challenge the climbers, although I question whether that is true.

Also, are there other issues at hand that are hindering the setting team's ability to set well, consistently? Lack of diversity in the team, probably? Are people over capacity / burnt out from the schedule? Especially this packed Innsbruck week? Maybe there should have been another weekend in between Brixen & Innsbruck. IFSC, whatever it is, please do a deep debrief and identify the issues because this was miserable to watch.

[addictingfishy]

My heart really broke for Brooke who had such a disadvantage with height. It's not pleasant to watch climbers not be able to do a boulder because of something they can't control. The setting was pretty ridiculous and I was disappointed.

[xyloon]

i am enjoying this highlight way more than the last ones. keep it like this

[Christiextvdfan]

It’s so unfair we can’t watch the live streams here in Czechia 🥺 great work to all, Janja once again dominating 🎉

[luciapseudonym]

3 over 4 boulders were jumpy boulders and very morphological. Ai Mori didn't have any chance to send the last boulder because she was too short and couldn't hook her foot under the yellow hold. She was very penalized, while Jania took lot of advantages because all boulders met her climbing style. But this style looks more like parcour than climbing. Honestly, I don't think the route setters did a good job.

[arrrriba]

Janja is such a role model for me, just amazing climbing

[ianwoodvine]

All the hype about the potential competition between Janja and Natalia after Natalia won the title last year and then Janja comes back from injury and does that 😮 truly the GOAT 👏👏👏 such a disappointing set from the setters - they basically handicapped 40% of the group before they even started climbing

[bakiotarra]

Janja might need a different league or compete with handicap... pure domination

[Elmnopen]

The fact that they made it so difficult for Ai Mori on the first folder ruined the entire competition as she was a serious potential. Ruined it.

[ScratchRick]

Extremely unfair routes for the shorter girls...

[sauronspaz]

As much as I respect these athletes, as a climber myself I find current routesetting boring and unappealing. I understand that pulling from mono to mono might not be great for the show, but the current trends in routesetting have very little to do with climbing.

[tischersf]

Routsetting was really unfair at this final. Shame on them.

[jeffreychongsathien]

I'm starting to think this whole "World Cup" and medal format thing might be inferior to a global league format (with different size classes, of course).

[raph.c]

This competition is a joke...route setters should not be invited back.