Were There Too Many Dynamic Moves?

In part 2 of the breaking down boulder styles series, I look at how the properties of boulder problems varied over the 2024 World Cup season.

What Were the Most Common Characteristics of 2024 Boulder Problems?

In last week's post, I discussed how Matias Ochoa Marcos and I broke down the semi-final and final problems for the 2024 Boulder World Cup problems. We broke down each boulder into the zone and top sections, and for each section, we recorded 5 different properties:

• Wall Angle: The angle or style of the wall into slab, vertical, overhanging, corner and roof.
  
  We did not differentiate between slightly overhanging wall angles (20º overhanging) and very overhanging walls (40º or steeper).
  
  The one section we classified as a roof was on the Keqiao boulder wall, which was significantly steeper.
• Style: One of the four styles – technical, physical, electric, or coordination.
• Dynamic Move: If there was a dynamic move within a section, we recorded what type of dynamic move it was.
• Direction: The direction the boulder went in – left, right, or straight up.
• Hold Type: The predominant hold type of the section – closed, open, or pinch.

How Did the Properties Vary?

Let's start by looking at how the properties spread across the sections.

For both women and men, most boulders moved from the left to the right, but they are close to a 50% split for the top sections of women's boulders, and the zone section of men's boulders.

Open-handed holds dominated the boulders, with nearly 75% of the boulder sections being made up of open-handed holds. The men's boulders had more closed-hand holds than the women's.

There were a lot more overhanging sections than any other wall angle. We didn't differentiate between the amount of overhang, nor how setters changed the angle using volumes. Many of the walls have one or two slab sections, and the rest of the wall is overhanging to some degree.

While the boulders for women were evenly spread across the different styles for both sections, the men's were more polarised. The lower zone section had more coordination and physical styles, while the top section focused on more complex technical climbing.

Most of the sections had at least one dynamic move. Only the men's top sections had more sections without dynamic moves than with them. The most used dynamic moves in 2024 were jumps, or foot and hand moves, in the zone section.

Top vs Zone Styles

Because we split the boulders into two sections, we were unable to classify boulders as a whole. By comparing the styles of the zone sections with the styles of the top sections, we see how different styles are used within the boulder.

There were 40 different boulders for the women and 36 for the men (the men's Keqiao final was cancelled after the qualification round was affected by rain).

Again, we see a balance of styles for the women, except for physical boulders that remained physical throughout. For the men, if you had a physical or electric zone section, they likely had a physical or electric top section.

How Did The Styles Change Over the World Cup Series?

Finally, let's look at how these properties changed over the whole series.

To look at these changes over the series, we grouped the zone and top sections together, as shown below.

Keqiao for the women had the highest number of physical sections, followed by Salt Lake City. For the rest of the season, the technical styles dominated.

Prague was the most dynamic competition of the year, with the fewest number of sections without dynamic moves. The World Cup in Prague also had the highest number of coordination and electric sections of the series. In addition, Prague had the highest number of sections with closed handholds of any other competition.

Seoul had the fewest number of dynamic moves, with the highest number of technical sections throughout the season.

You can find the data on the different boulder styles on the Inside Climbing GitHub repo under a CC BY 4.0 licence. I look forward to seeing what you do with it!

Next week we will look at the success rates of different athletes across these properties.

News

• The IFSC announced that Santiago will host the first Speed and Lead World Cup in Chile from 23th – 25th October 2026. Santiago hosted the Pan American Games in 2023 and the Pan American Championship last year.
  
  Bern, Innsbruck, and Prague World Cups are also confirmed for next year. The IFSC hinted that more news on the 2026 season will be announced in the coming weeks.
• Sport Climbing at the World Games in Chengdu, China, start tomorrow. The World Games celebrate non-Olympic sports and formats, so only Speed Climbing will be featured in 2025.
  
  With all 3 disciplines getting their own medals at the LA28 Olympics, we have 3 non-Olympic speed formats at the World Games: the standard World Cup 2-lane format, a new 4-lane speed, and for the first time, speed relay.
  
  You can watch live on the World Games website or via the app.

Media Recommendations

Why Did USA Climbing Just Ban Trans Women From All Events?

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has issued clear orders. But evidence that trans female climbers have a competitive advantage is lacking.

ClimbingSam MacIlwaine

Sam MacIlwaine discusses the impact of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee ban on all trans women, which USA Climbing has complied with. Trans women are now banned from all USA Climbing competitions. She discusses the impact of the ban on the trans climbing community, which shelves the draft policy that USA Climbing has been working on with transgender climbers over the last 18 months.

45: Pete Woods, MC + Commentator — That’s Not Real Climbing Podcast

Pete is a commentator and MC who has commentated for several world cups and North American elite competitions. In this episode, we’ll learn about the art of MCing, times he’s gotten flamed online as a commentator, and we get a lot of insight into the financials of broadcast and climbing as a sport,

That's Not Real Climbing PodcastJinni Xia

Jinni Xia interviewed MC and commentator Pete Woods about MCing, commentating, and the financials of broadcasting climbing.

Jack talks with Ryan Henderson about French setting, developing route setters, and what you need to know when opening a new gym.

Julien Clémence shares his experiences of his home Boulder World Cup in Bern.

Yudai Ikeda has a session with Tomoa Narasaki in Miho Nonaka's new gym, Next Gen.

Where To Buy Tickets

Koper IFSC Lead World Cup

When: 5th–6th September
Where: Slovenia
Where to buy tickets: Tickets are available through the Slovenian ticket seller eventim (Google Translate is quite good). If you buy a finals ticket at the moment you get a semi-final ticket for free.

Guiyang IFSC Lead World Cup

When: 12th–13th September
Where: China
Where to buy tickets: Tickets are available locally.

Seoul IFSC World Championship and Para Climbing World Championship

When: 20th–28th September
Where: South Korea
Where to buy tickets: Tickets will be needed for the following (all indoor events):

• Paraclimbing Finals
• Speed Qualification and Finals - Women and Men
• Lead Semi-Finals and Finals - Women and Men
• Boulder Semi-Finals and Finals - Women and Men.

All other events are free of charge. Access to the venue is limited. Entry is restricted to first-come, first-served.

Tickets for the indoor events are available through Interpark Global. The indoor rounds are held in the KSPO Dome in the Olympic Park.

Nations Grand Finale 2025

When: 23rd–26th October
Where: Fukuoka, Japan
Where to buy tickets: TBD. The venue is inaccessible by public transport.

Laval IFSC Paraclimbing World Cup

When: 23rd–26th October
Where: France
Where to buy tickets: You can buy tickets for the Para Climbing event and the Continental Speed event here.