This week is part 4 in a series where I break down boulder styles from the 2024 World Cup series.
This week we continue to look at how well athletes succeeded across the different attributes, focusing on hold type.
Open vs Closed Holds - Crimps vs Slopers
When we say closed holds, we really mean in-cut crimps that athletes can close their hand around. Open holds include slopers, which require athletes to keep their hand open to hold them.
In part 2 of the series, we saw that there was a big discrepancy between open and closed hand holds, with over 70% of all hold types being open across the zone and top sections. Similar to part 3, we only include athletes who have competed on at least 4 sections.
There were 16 sections with closed hand holds compared to 52 open hand holds for the men. For the women, there were 12 sections with closed hand holds compared to 64 open holds.
The man with the highest success rate at closed crimping in 2024 was Sam Avezou, followed by Mejdi Schalck, Adam Shahar, and Yannick Flohé.
| Athlete Name | Country | Count | Successes | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam Avezou | France | 5 | 4 | 80.0% |
| Mejdi Schalck | France | 4 | 3 | 75.0% |
| Adam Shahar | United States | 4 | 3 | 75.0% |
| Yannick Flohé | Germany | 4 | 3 | 75.0% |
| Maximillian Milne | United Kingdom | 7 | 5 | 71.4% |
| Tomoa Narasaki | Japan | 12 | 8 | 66.7% |
| Dohyun Lee | South Korea | 11 | 7 | 63.6% |
| Sohta Amagasa | Japan | 8 | 5 | 62.5% |
| Anze Peharc | Slovenia | 5 | 3 | 60.0% |
| Jakob Schubert | Austria | 5 | 3 | 60.0% |
Natalia Grossman had the highest success rate of any woman on closed hand holds. She was followed by Naïlé Meignan and Annie Sanders.
| Athlete Name | Country | Count | Successes | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Natalia Grossman | United States | 8 | 6 | 75.0% |
| Naïlé Meignan | France | 9 | 6 | 66.7% |
| Annie Sanders | United States | 5 | 3 | 60.0% |
| Anon Matsufuji | Japan | 7 | 4 | 57.1% |
| Oriane Bertone | France | 4 | 2 | 50.0% |
| Janja Garnbret | Slovenia | 4 | 2 | 50.0% |
| Jenny Buckley | Slovenia | 6 | 3 | 50.0% |
| Melody Sekikawa | Japan | 6 | 3 | 50.0% |
| Chaehyun Seo | South Korea | 4 | 2 | 50.0% |
| Oceania Mackenzie | Australia | 10 | 5 | 50.0% |
For open hand holds, we see that Janja Garnbret was the most successful, falling on only one section with open hand holds (the top section of the Keqiao W2 semi-final boulder). Natalia Grossman had the second highest success rate.
| Athlete Name | Country | Count | Successes | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Janja Garnbret | Slovenia | 24 | 23 | 95.8% |
| Natalia Grossman | United States | 40 | 36 | 90.0% |
| Zélia Avezou | France | 37 | 29 | 78.4% |
| Miho Nonaka | Japan | 21 | 16 | 76.2% |
| Camilla Moroni | Italy | 11 | 8 | 72.7% |
| Annie Sanders | United States | 35 | 25 | 71.4% |
| Oriane Bertone | France | 20 | 14 | 70.0% |
| Erin McNeice | United Kingdom | 31 | 20 | 64.5% |
| Naïlé Meignan | France | 31 | 20 | 64.5% |
| Oceania Mackenzie | Australia | 45 | 29 | 64.4% |
Yuji Inoue was successful on all 5 of the sections he climbed that contained open hand holds. Sorato Anraku was the second most successful man, only falling on 6 of the 46 sections.
| Athlete Name | Country | Count | Successes | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yuji Inoue | Japan | 5 | 5 | 100.0% |
| Sorato Anraku | Japan | 46 | 40 | 87.0% |
| Paul Jenft | France | 7 | 6 | 85.7% |
| Tomoa Narasaki | Japan | 32 | 26 | 81.3% |
| Dohyun Lee | South Korea | 26 | 21 | 80.8% |
| Slav Kirov | Bulgaria | 5 | 4 | 80.0% |
| Oscar Baudrand | Canada | 5 | 4 | 80.0% |
| Nikolay Rusev | Bulgaria | 5 | 4 | 80.0% |
| Yoshiyuki Ogata | Japan | 5 | 4 | 80.0% |
| Adam Ondra | Czech Republic | 9 | 7 | 77.8% |
Across both genders, the success rates on open hand holds were far higher than for closed hand holds across the top 10.
But was it significant?
Looking at the success rates across all of the athletes - not just the top 10 - it looked like open hand holds had a much higher success rate than closed hand holds.
| Gender | Hold Type | Total Attempts | Successes | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Men | Closed Hand | 208 | 103 | 49.5% |
| Men | Open Hand | 697 | 446 | 64.0% |
| Women | Closed Hand | 170 | 74 | 43.5% |
| Women | Open Hand | 832 | 448 | 53.8% |
However, this is confounded by the difference in success rates between top and zone sections. If we split it up by section, we see that the success rates are much closer.
In fact, we see that this difference is statistically significant only for the top sections for the men.
What do we mean by statistically significant?
Feel free to skip this if you aren't interested in how I tested whether the results were significant.
To look at whether the difference in the success rate between sections using closed and open hand holds was unlikely to be random chance, I performed a Fisher Exact test. The Fisher Exact test is a statistical test like the Chi-squared test, but more suitable for small sample sizes, and allows us to test for statistical significance.
The test shows that the difference is significant only for men on the top section (with a p-value of 0.0015). The odds ratio from the test suggests that men are twice as likely to fail on the top section with closed holds than open ones.
There is no statistical difference for the women (p values 0.2 and 0.31 respectively) after accounting for the section type, or for men on the zone section (p value of 0.18).
Next week we will look at how the top 20 in the Boulder World Cup compare with the rest.
News
- The final competition in the North American Cup Series took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, last weekend. Natalia Grossman won the Lead competition on her return, following knee surgery. She said after the event, “I’ve never felt so nervous before a Qualification route in my life. The Semi-Final was frustrating… Going into Finals, I was like, ‘I have nothing to lose.”
Sergey Lakhno won the men's Lead event after getting the second top of the route along with Cruz Padilla.
Isis Rothfork won the women's speed competition, and Logan Miner won the men's speed competition. - Janja Garnbret held a 24-hour climbing marathon to raise money for young athletes at the weekend.
She climbed the 100 hardest routes in the biggest climbing gym in Slovenia, Slovenska Bistrica, during the 24 hours. She was joined by over 2,200 athletes for the event. Together they climbed over 2,000 routes and 4,820 boulders.
The final hour, including Janja's final two routes, was broadcast live on Slovenian National TV. By the end of the broadcast the event had raised a total of €61,478.29 for young athletes from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Janja wrote on Instagram after the event, “Climbing, for me, has always been about more than holds and grades—it’s about connection. And in these 24 hours, I felt connected in a way I’ve never experienced before.”
The event is part of the initiative Botrstvo v športu (Godmother of Sports) in which prominent athletes and sports representatives raise money for underprivileged children in sport in Slovenia over the course of one year.
Janja was awarded this role at the end of 2024, following in the footsteps of all-time greats including NBA star Goran Dragić, skier Tina Maze, former ski jumper and cyclist Primož Roglič, and UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin. - The IFSC held a press conference for the IFSC Climbing Grand Finals Fukuoka 2025 last week on 20th August to formally announce the event.
The IFSC Nations Grand Final competition will feature the top six countries in the 2024 World Cup national rankings across Boulder and Lead: Japan, France, Slovenia, Austria, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Each country will form a team consisting of two men and two women, and one reserve athlete per gender. All of the team members will compete in both boulder and lead events. Unlike in World Cup events, coaches will be actively involved in the competition.
The IFSC Para Climbing Master competition will feature the eight classes included in the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games. This has caused uproar in the Para Climbing community, with athletes threatening to boycott the event unless all 20 categories are included. Additionally, the event will also be held at the same time as the IFSC Para Climbing World Cup in Laval, France.
Update 29 August 2025: All Para Climbing sport classes are not included.
There will also be a new exhibition format on the final day of the event.
This will be the first time that Sport Climbing and Para Climbing competitions will be held simultaneously in Japan. The competition will be broadcast live on Saturday, 25th of October, on Fuji TV in Japan.
IFSC Vice President Kohinata Toru said during the press conference (translation by Google Translate), “Sport climbing is a sport that is growing rapidly, with an expected increase in the number of medals and participants at the Los Angeles Olympics and its inclusion in the Paralympics. The IFSC's next challenge is to develop team events and to make the Paralympics a success. Through this tournament, we hope to spread the message of diversity and globalism from Fukuoka.”
Media Recommendations
Madison Richardson breaks down the “3 attempts" drill to improve the quality of your results.
Thor returns to the Eric Karlsson YouTube channel for a “classic” video where Thor tries to send 40 boulders in a day.
Jake and Niki set some boulders at The Font Hounslow (previously Hang).
Olympian Lucia Dörffel tries her hand at route setting for the first time.
Ben Moon, Sam Prior, and Matthew Mendes go through the top-rated benchmarks from the 2024 MoonBoard set.
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 works well). 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.
IFSC Climbing Grand Finals Fukuoka 2025
When: 23rd–26th October
Where: Japan
Where to buy tickets: The competition will be held at the Chikuho Green Park / Iizuka Sports Resort The Retreat in Fukuoka Prefecture. The location is inaccessible by public transport. Tickets are TBD.
Laval IFSC Paraclimbing World Cup
When: 24th–26th October
Where: France
Where to buy tickets: You can buy tickets for the Para Climbing event and the Continental Speed event here.
