Welcome to Behind The Wall, a weekly newsletter published every Saturday highlighting my favourite interviews, videos, and media from the world of competition and indoor climbing over the past week.
As it is the first edition, I have also added some extra links from the previous week.
Next week, we will have the first competitions of the year in Keqaio and Wujiang, China. You can read about who to watch out for in Keqaio and follow us on Instagram for live updates in our stories.
I know there is lots of great content out there that I don’t know about. Let me know at behindthewall@inside-climbing.com, and I’ll give you a shout-out if I feature it.
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The Drop
- Best April Fool’s Day Jokes: This week, we had April Fool’s Day, which reminded us not to take everything we see on the internet too seriously. Adam Ondra introduced O-grades and UKClimbing announced that Slow Climbing will replace Speed Climbing at the 2028 LA Olympics. Boulder Co. Auckland added deep water soloing to their bouldering centre, and Armadillo Boulders debuted the 2025 Moonboard set, the easiest Moonboard to date.
- That’s Not Real Climbing interview with former IFSC commentator Charlie Boscoe: Hear from Charlie Boscoe about what it was like commentating on IFSC competitions back in 2016, why he stepped down from commentating, and what changes he thinks the IFSC could make to improve the competition climbing.
- A day of training with the Ukraine national champion Jenja Kazbekova: Watch Josh Rundle struggle through a 5-hour training session with the Ukraine National champion and CWIF 2024 winner, Jenja Kazbekova, to see how a World Cup climber trains.
- Erik Noya Cardona Interview on “Starting from the bottom”: Learn about Erik Noya Cardona’s journey to becoming a professional speed climber after moving to Spain from Venezuela in 2017 and his friendship with Alberto Ginés López, Olympic Gold medalist.
- Movement Hub #1 – World Cup Insight: Alex Megos and Chris Hanke started a series breaking down complex World Cup-style movements. The first video focuses on a laché swing jump onto a volume/macro, which gets increasingly scary, leading to an interesting discussion on what is the point of these moves.
- Emma Hunt's interview on “Vertical Running” with Style Blueprint: Learn about 2024 Olympian and USA Speed record holder Emma Hunt, including how she got into climbing, what a typical training day looks like and what three things she couldn’t climb without.
- Campbell Harrison Interview on Off the Podium: Campbell Harrison sat down with Ben Waterworth on the Off the Podium Olympic Podcast to discuss his journey to the Paris 2024 Olympics after not making it to Tokyo 2020.
- Comps.tv: The first competition of the season is next week. If you can’t watch it live, then Comps.tv is the best way to find the right YouTube links to the rounds you are interested in. You can filter by year, gender, and discipline to find exactly what you want.
And some more from last week
- Toby Roberts Training in Japan: Watch World Cup gold medalist Toby Roberts climbing and struggling at the famous B-Pump Ogikuko gym in Tokyo, the “hardest climbing gym in the world”. Roberts described the climbing as “being repeatedly punched in the face”.
- Oceana Mackenzie Interview on Off the Poduim: Oceana Mackenzie sat down with Ben Waterworth on the Off the Podium Olympic Podcast to discuss how reaching the final of a World Cup convinced her to become a professional climber, what the Tokyo Olympics was like and what she is looking forward to most at the Paris Olympics.
- IFSC Website new look: The IFSC website has been refreshed to improve the “digital experience” in the run-up to the Olympics. There are still problems with the site, though. News from before December 18th 2023, event data before November 2023, and details of the Speed World records are missing. While these get re-added, the best place to get all the information on past and future events is the IFSC results service.
- The Outsider – Svana Bjarnason’s journey to the Olympics: Learn about Svana Bjarnason’s return to competitions to qualify for the Olympics for Iceland through the Universality pathway. She is coached by World Cup gold medalist Jorg Verhoeven. Bjarnson needs to reach the top 36 in the OQS to win her Universality Olympic ticket.
- HoldRetex: Alex Waterhouse, former International Competition climber and co-owner of Contact holds, launched HoldRetex last week. HoldRetex uses the same hold re-texturing process that Contact Holds offers in the UK to fill in holes and re-texture worn plastic holds so they can be reused again and again, extending the lifecycle of the holds. The service saves 50–70% of the cost of a new hold, and some people even prefer the new texture to the original one.
That’s a Wrap
I hope you enjoyed the first edition of Behind the Wall. Let me know what you think at behindthewall@insideclimbing.com or DM me on Instagram.
See you next week!
