In reply to rocky crag:
> Having watched the recent Bern world cup and Koper IFSC competition I couldn't help notice how the boulder problems at Bern were set to favour taller female climbers over say 1.6m and some were virtually impossible for the climbers down at 1.54m.
Lets break this down then:
Problem 1: Ai has no problem, must be ok for 1.54m
Problem 2: Ai fails but Zelia tops it, Zelia is 1.58m, now there's no saying for certain that 4cm doesn't make it much harder, but is a pretty small difference and when Zelia is moving up to the zone hold, she looks just as locked out and struggling for momentum generation as Ai and when Ai does go up, it doesn't look like she has any trouble reaching the distance of the zone, just trouble getting fully over her left foot and catching it in control. My take home from this is that Les Francaise are slab masters and that's why they did so well on this problem vs everyone else (except Janja who is ofc brilliant at everything - oops, giving away my bias here!).
Problem 3: It's big explosive combination dynos relying on whole body movement and power generation (and precision). Personally I think this kind of stuff is crap but it's absolutely not a question of height. If you need any evidence beyond the obvious, Zelia basically completes the problem, just not quite managing to generate enough momentum to latch the final hold.
Problem 4: Powerful dynos again, but not combination dynos. Zelia actually latches the finish hold but can't hold the swing. If anything, you might actually argue that the start of this problem _favours_ shorter climbers because the feet are starting so high up and close to the hands that shorter competitors will be able to get weight over their feet for the launch generation by the legs more easily.
In every problem, the clear difference, at least afaics, is that Ai lacks the explosive power that is so much a part of bouldering (talking about relative to the other athletes ofc).
Correlation does not equal causation. Just because Ai is short and she did not do so well does not mean that one causes the other (just as well really, it would be terrible for comp climbers if they shrank every time they didn't do well in a comp...).
> In the recent Koper womens lead final everyone was looking forward to a show down between Janja and Ai Mori only to find that the final moves on the wall were incredibly height dependent. Janja completed the penultimate moves statically at full stretch then brilliantly completed the final huge dyno to top out but for Ai Mori she could not reach the penultimate crimps that Janja stretched too.
When I read this, I thought "hmm, that's not what I remember when I watched that", so I had a look back and I really can't agree with what you are saying here. When Ai falls, it is because her hand peels off one of those bad penultimate crimps, true, but both her feet are still on the footholds - she isn't dynoing, she is making a lunge/snatch for the hold. It's not possible to say for certain but everything in the video suggests that the difference is that Janja is just stronger/had more left in the tank - cutting loose going into the last section, shaking out a few moves below the top, looking more relaxed clipping the penultimate clip... the signs are all there.
The final move was a big dyno but I saw no evidence that the footholds would have been too far away for Ai if she had got there, she is known for being weak at big dynos but this isn't related to her height, it's just a feature of her climbing, each climber has their own strengths and weaknesses and looking at Ais frame, I am not surprised that explosive power is not one of her strengths - she is shaped like a wiry sport climber, not an explosive boulderer.
> is there any point in female climbers below 1.6m trying to compete.?
The problem with a bombastic question like this is it completely ignores the fact that Ai came second in the lead. She didn't crash out in a heat or semi-final, she came very close to topping the route, beat everyone except Janja and just a year ago actually did beat Janja in, hmm, 2 or more? lead comps. It's pretty clear that shorter female climbers can compete and win handily.
> How could better fairness be achieved?
As the commentators say during the competition, the setters have measurements for ape index, height, etc. for all the top competitors and they tie themselves in pretzels trying to make sure the competition doesn't favour tall climbers.
"It's easier for tall people" is about as tired, over-used and predictable a complaint as exists in climbing. There are times when it's true of course and times when it might be true/is debatable, but seeing it trotted out about climbing comps where there is no evidence of it at all is, frankly, depressing.
