![]() ![]() A zone hold is an approximate midpoint on the route. Route setters usually try to test different aspects of the climbers’ abilities on each boulder problem. Unique boulders are set for men and women and are changed between the qualification and final rounds. No rope is used, but the floor beneath the boulder wall is heavily padded.Įach boulder problem has a designated starting position which includes mandatory placement of all four limbs at the bottom of the wall. The uppermost hold is considered the “top” of the boulder. An athlete is determined to have topped the boulder when he/she places two hands on the top hold and maintains control long enough for a judge to give a signal that the ascent was successful. Between the starting position and the top of each boulder is a “zone hold”. The object of bouldering is to scale multiple short (4.5m, about 15 ft) but challenging routes, called “boulder problems”, with the fewest attempts in a given period of time. It is equal parts a mental and physical task, as athletes must have the strength and balance to use the holds, but also the intuition to understand how to manipulate their bodies to solve the problems. Prior to each round of competition, route setters design and set the problems, which are kept hidden from the athletes until the start of competition. Times are largely irrelevant in this phase as long as a climber ascends the wall quicker than his/her opponent, the exact time does not matter. Semifinal winners advance to the final while losers face off for rankings 3 and 4. The winner of the final race is awarded the top ranking in the speed disciple, while the loser takes the #2 ranking. A false start on either climb, however, results in the athlete being ranked last in qualification. The climbers run in pairs for expediency but are not affected by the result of the adjacent climber’s ascent.ĭuring the eight-person final round, the speed climbing phase becomes a single-elimination tournament. Athletes are initially seeded 1-8 based on results of the qualification phase and face off in quarterfinal matchups consisting of 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, and so on. Winners of the quarterfinal matchups advance to the semifinals, while losers face off for rankings 8-5. Each hold is the exact same size and shape and is placed in the same spot on the wall every time. This is in stark contrast to bouldering and lead climbing, where each route is unique, and athletes are not given any information about the routes until the competition begins. For speed climbing, though, athletes memorize the path up the wall and practice the ascent ad nauseum so that muscle memory takes over on competition day. Speed climbing is also the only Olympic sport climbing discipline that uses an auto-belay system for the athletes’ safety.Īt competition, two parallel speed walls – lane A and lane B – are placed beside each other. Athletes climb in pairs, starting simultaneously on the sound of a buzzer. A false start is declared when an athlete leaves the ground less that 0.1 seconds after the buzzer sounds, which accounts for the limit of human reaction time. A false start has different implications depending on the round of competition (see below). At the top of each lane is a touchpad that each climber must contact to stop the clock.Įach athlete has two attempts (one on each lane) during the qualification phase to record the fastest possible time. Athletes are ranked, quickest to slowest, using each athlete’s best time. The speed wall is identical at all competitions. The aim of speed climbing is to scale a 15m (49 ft) high wall as quickly as possible. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |