Bad Judgment: ABS Nationals Open Finals
February 20th, 2007Filed in Comps, USAC, Guest Authors
By: CS Danielson
I have been routesetting since 1994 and have been a part of organizing and/or setting over 100 competitions all across the country at numerous facilities, in various formats, and with all different levels of competitors. One might think with a fairly serious degree of experience, a number of successful high-level events in the past, and a solid team of professional setters - all of whom I have worked with before - that I might have had a good shot of hitting an A grade as Head Setter for ABS 8 Adult Nationals this year.
Unfortunately I did not, or at least not in the realm of accurately gauging the ability of competitors and using that knowledge to divide the field fairly in competition. There were no injuries or technicals in the competition which can always be deemed a success, but there were numerous ties in the final onsight round and that reflected an inexcusably poor performance on my part.
So now I am faced with the challenge of disappointment, and what to do with it. Disappointment among the competitors, some of whom are my friends, among the spectators, who would like to have seen a better show, and my setting peers. For years now, I (and the setters with whom I have worked) have had high expectations for our performance, our discipline, and our ability to judge ability levels and determine successful competitions through effective coursesetting.
This event has been perhaps my biggest failure as a setter and I have concluded that my choices are to either walk away from the pressure of big events, or learn from it. I am going to try to learn from it and improve, and figured it might benefit the setting community if I shared this experience. What follows constitute the reasons (not excuses) for the less than desirable conclusion at ABS 8 Nationals, but first I will lay out what some of the goals were for the event.
An Insight into Failure
In recent years, USA Climbing and the team of setters working at major bouldering events have set problems so hard that they either saw few sends or none at all. We have consistently divided the field for years, but always struggled to set perfect problems and get an even divide of competitors up each, which is the best result for the climbers themselves and of course the spectators. Typically this means shooting for 18 – 20 competitors to do Finals 1, between 10 – 12 to do Finals 2, 2 – 4 to do Finals 3, and 1 - 2 to do Finals 4.
The failures of the past have been minor compared to this one, but what we have been challenged by in recent years is that we have ended up setting so that problems 3 and 4 are so ridiculously hard (around V11 for the men, V9 for the women) that Finals 3 only sees one ascent (as at Sendfest this past year – both men and women) and Finals 4 sees none (3 years running for the men).
So, this year, we had the goal of dividing the field fairly in qualifiers, and setting a bit easier in Finals so that we’d get some climbers up the wall and the crowd cheering consistently rather than waiting for a last send on Final 4 only to be disappointed. We succeeded in dividing the field for both the men and women in the qualifying round, which I do consider a success.
The results in finals were less desirable, and much more according to gender. In the Mens field, we saw 4 flashes of all 4 Finals, which was a couple more than we would have liked, but still fun to watch and fun for the competitors. I also concluded that this was fair, since Daniel Woods was the clear winner from Qualifiers.
In terms of the women, we set the problems far too easy and there were flashes of every Final by 8 women, which resulted in an impromptu superfinal on Mens 1 that worked extremely well in dividing the field (Alex Puccio was the clear winner, the only to send Mens 1, which re-enforced her number one qualifying spot the night before and was the official marker for her win of the overall event), but was disappointing for the competitors nonetheless since they were hoping to prove themselves on the Finals problems.
Five Errors
While I could continue to belabor the details of the failure down to the specific moves of each problem, I hope explaining the reasons behind them will be more useful, both for myself, and for any setters interested in the process as well. There are, in my view, five reasons why we did not hit the mark with effective coursesetting.
1. The first has to do with a fear of injury. On Wednesday, the week before the competition, one of the Youth Nationals Setting Team members, Zach Leavitt, had an unfortunate fall while forerunning (from about 15 feet) and dislocated his knee and broke his leg. We feel horrible about this young setter’s injury and wish him the best in his recovery. The injury certainly deflated the morale of the setting crew overall and had me increasingly worried about scary, difficult moves up high, not only since we could see bad falls, but also because the padding for the event could have been more dense and thicker overall.
2. The second reason was a desire to see more sends than we have typically seen in Finals, which, with the men, as I’ve said – we did fairly well with. I wanted to err on the side of more rather than less sends, and though clearly we did that, we also quite clearly overcompensated.
3. Together with that is the third error, which was that I did not correctly anticipate the degree to which the lower 10 women in the Finals field have improved as competitors. Typically there is a fairly serious difference in the ability of climber 20 and climber 1 in terms of the Finals running order, and while that is still the case, the young women competing are progressing at an increasingly fast pace and coming closer to the top at every event. While normally we set lower moves easier so that the bottom end of the field can still get through some of the moves in each problem, we did not need to do that as much in this competition as in former events, since climber 20 is improving at a higher rate than climber 1.
4. The fourth error was less than effective forerunning on the women’s Finals. Since I have had good success gauging the top women’s ability based on my own experience in the past, I have typically run the women’s problems myself and had only one or two female forerunners. In this competition I found myself running the Men’s problems more than I typically might, (in part due to one of our Adult Nationals Setting Team members being sick), and also because I wanted to work those moves out to perfection. A partial result of my increased climbing on the Men’s problems was that I did not spend as much time as I should have personally forerunning the Women’s, and when I did, I (and others who did climb them) may have been weaker from running the Men’s than I thought. We did have female forerunners who were helpful in the setting process, but better choices could have been made about when to have those women run the problems and have them climb more than perhaps I did.
5. The Last Three Moves. While typically my goal is to set progressively difficult movement, especially in the last 3 moves of a Finals problem, the fear factor (of injuring competitors) had a great deal to do with the last few moves on Mens and Womens Final 4 being easier than they have been in past comps. Originally we had the Men finishing over a tall 16 foot lip with dynamic movement, and the Women finishing in a 16 foot roof with a powerful heel hook move that might induce a spinning fall. I did not want to create dangerous movement and risk bad falls or injuries, and though I succeeded there, I obviously overcompensated by making the moves not nearly as challenging as they should have been, especially for the women.
In Hindsight…
The Men: With the men, I think we did fairly well according to my goals of getting more climbers to the top of all the problems, allowing 4 sends of Mens 4, and only a few more of Mens 3 – the only thing I would change would be to have made the very last two moves of Mens 4 more strenuous, so that perhaps 1 or 2 of the 4 competitors who flashed might have fallen at a high point.
The Women: With the women, I would have done a great deal differently. With Womens Final 4, I would have made the moves up to the middle of the problem generally harder, and kept difficult moves in the roof, but tested women on those moves, and the falls, through forerunning. I would have had female forerunners for a longer period of time, and perhaps different women whose ability levels I had a better understanding of (not that the women who helped forerun weren’t great – thank you to them!).
I would have climbed more on the Women’s problems myself, and charged the setting team with working more seriously on the Men’s – which was a partial error in task delegation. Lastly, the most serious error was a technical oversight. I would have made changes to Women’s Final 3, which I had intended to make and in the chaos of Finals setting thought had been made, but in fact had not. This is one of the things I am most upset about with myself, since I knew where the difficulty level of Women’s 3 should have been and I knew the necessary tweaks (for those who are interested: A counterclockwise turn on a middle slopey edge, another on a high gaston, yet another on the last match-able hold, and a smaller jug finish).
I am confident these changes, which I had run the night before, would have divided the field almost entirely and would have allowed few if any ties in the end. But, quite simply, I was wrong about them having already been made. This error is the one I am kicking myself about the most, since it was a strategic mistake in the transition period, rather than a miscalculation on my part.
The Superfinals: The Men’s superfinal was really only put together as a failsafe for ties in Finals and Qualifiers, and we did not intend to use it and only did since we were doing one for the Women and wanted to keep the guys moving for the crowd as well. I had thought we might use the Men’s Final 1 as a superfinal for the Women, and in the end made the decision to do so, partially to keep the girls in competition mode, and give them a better chance to show their true strengths (which I have to respect more in the future!).
This impromptu decision, supported by the organizers and the setters, is one I am happy I made, and hope it at least reflected some effort to make up for the failings that proved out in the Finals round. I would not have changed anything about running the superfinal except that I would have set the Men’s just slightly harder, and notified the women earlier that they would run in a superfinal if they flashed all 4 problems.
A Learning Experience
That wraps up my own review of the event, from the standpoint of failure, and I hope it proves to be a learning experience for myself and others. I welcome any feedback.
February 18th, 2007 at 8:16 am
Hey guys, those Finals routes were very cool and fun to watch. Sorry you had trouble with the top climbers flashing them all…I know that must be a comp setters nightmare!
February 20th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Chris, major props to you for writing this up. There is no way it was easy to do and I applaud your bravery and honesty. Even though I was there, I hadn’t heard half of what you wrote here! Thank you for your insights and willingness to share.
February 20th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Chris, I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much over how finals turned out.
I was in the crowd, and the spectators were having fun enjoying themselves…it was a huge crowd. Beer was free and it was all good. The mens problems were exiting to watch. The womens problems looked a little straight forward and lacking any of the cool “show” moves that girls are capable of.
I was actually more interested in the Youth routes, because I was there to coach a kid on my team. I thought the youth routes were very cool with a good mix of styles.
I have two complaints regarding the youth comp:
I think the routes were a little more favorable for power then technique.
and:
I didn’t like how the climbing time went from 5 minutes to 4 per route, because we had been training and practicing for 5 minutes. This was an unpleasnt and unexpected suprise, and through my kid for a loop. He wasn’t sure how long he should rest between burns or howmany burns he could get in 4 minutes, because he had trained for 5.
My biggest complaint is more directed toward the gym itself. ISO SUCKED! Seriously, how are top level competitors supposed to warm up adequatly for pulling V6 and up on BIRTHDAY PARTY walls with jugs! And those overhanging woddies were a freaking joke.
My kid got totaly flash pumped because we could not warm up properly. I am glad he diddn’t injur himself. The solution, easy….set some warm up boulder problems in ISo, with crimps, slopers, pinches pockets, etc.
Still, I don’t want to be a hater. The comp was fun and we had a good time, and I comend your work! Frankly I got sick of listening to allthe other coaches bitch.
Cheers!
February 20th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
ummm…one more thought.
You mention being scared of setting hard and dangerous moves up high because of Zachs injury.
Yet I saw abosolutely NO spotting of any of the competitors in finals, and very weak spotting of the Youth.
February 20th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Mike first time writer long time reader, it was nice meeting you this weekend and I appreciate this site and what you’re doing.
Thought I might give my two cents… I thought this was the single best Youth bouldering event I’ve been to. Perfect problems (other than D 3 finals, the location sucked and the problem was too hard), great gym, with a polite, helpful staff, and very well run, from iso to organization to MC. The problems had perfect separation (other than A female who were both in adult finals). I thought it was nice to see little kids (C and D) getting equal opportunity on the overhanging walls as the older kids usually get. No injuries, technicals, or appeals that weren’t easily solved. Anyway you get the point…Great event from my section of the peanut gallery.
As for the adults and Chris’s post…I agree with molly. As a routesetter and a board member for USAC it’s sincerely nice to see responsibility taken for the adult event. An it’s inspiring to know you’re not going to take your football and go home but rather stay in the fight and help the organization learn from this event and make the next one better. Please take my critics with a grain of salt…while I’m a route setter I don’t presume I could set perfect boulder problems for Adult Nationals that would get one finisher. Relatively speaking I agree with your assessment of the men, I don’t think the problems could of been any better for the 5 through 20 men and agree a change of one or two holds on the fourth could of gotten the results you were looking for and everyone else wanted. I beleive you that Zach injury played a big part in this. However the women on the other hand I felt like were a little more off the mark. 17 of the top 20 women finished all four problems in less than 3 falls, and having coached 2 of the top 20 females I was lead to believe none of the female problems were harder than V5. Do you believe a turn of a hold or two on #3 would of changed the course of the event for female finals or just the top 8 that flashed all 4? While I get the point of how awesome it is for the crowd if someone finishes the problems it would seem to me the female problems didn’t really change much in style like they did last year. I’m sure it also has to do with the angle of the walls at this event vs. the spot, but last year they seemed to be very different types of problems as they went from 1 to 4 (ie. techie, powerful, and/or beta intensive)and this year they seemed very similar in nature. Do you think one would feel that way because the problems were too easy or do you feel like regardless of difficulty the problems didn’t lack points for diversity?
Anyway, thanks for the insite I truly believe your honesity will help us all become better routesetters for our clients.
February 20th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Thanks for the comments folks. While I feel like I laid out my position and review of the event pretty comprehensively and do not want to belabor the points I’ve already made… Kyle raised a couple points worth responding to - what follows are brief replies to those. Regarding the tweaks on Womens F3, in fact super minor tweaks would have made that problem much harder and I think could have gone a long way to divide the field, so I seriously regret missing those changes last minute because I thouht they had already been made. WF4 would have needed to be much harder as well obviously, and as I’ve said - it wasn’t - in part because I was reluctant to force too difficult moves up high because of the fear factor, but also because myself and two other strong setters who climbed the problem just made a bad judgment about the difficulty level.
Your point about style differences is a good one. I was quite happy with the Men’s Finals but not the Women’s. This was the first ABS National where we had hold sponsors for each problem and this affected our ability to set varying styles to a certain degree for sure. This is an area for improvement at major events in the future, but will always be a challenge since hold companies cannot afford to supply us with their whole line, and in fact, even if they could, the terrain itself might be a bigger challenge.
February 20th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Nice Post Kyle. I agree with you.
Chris, I hope you did see my point about the lack of good spoting at the comp. This probably wasn’t your responsibility, but as an offical member of ABS organization perhaps you can help try to improve the standard of spoting at future comps.
Also, Chris and Kyle, you are both wrong that there were no injuries. I met an older kid in the airport (I didn’t get his name but he competed in open qualis) who twisted his ankle severly in the qualifier. He had it wraped up and was hobbleing around the airport. So there was at least one injury. Would better spotting have helped? I don’t know…climbing is risky, boulderers hurt their ankes, but I’m a firm believer in good spotting, and that it should be mandatory at every ABS comp, down to the local level…I have also seen poorley spotted kids get wheeled out on backboards at ABS comps, that really hits home.
Perhaps this forum should be strickly about setting, but since injuries came up I thought I’d chime in…I also saw kids land flat on their backs with spottters either nowhere to be seen or standing their with their hands in their pockets. This is not acceptable to me, and not a good example for the climbing community.
Sorry for the thread drift, I like Kyles attitude and overall I had an awesome time and so did my teamate, and thanks for setting alot of really cool routes! I so almost cried when you took them down!
Best Regards,
Matt
February 21st, 2007 at 1:31 am
ah well, ya know what…after watching the vids online the spotters are much more active then I remember. nevermind, my bad.
February 21st, 2007 at 8:12 am
Matt, I did see your post regarding spotting. What I meant was that there were no injuries in Finals. But, to your point… there was inadequate spotting in Qualis and that was not the responsibility of the ABS, but of the gym. Chris Wall gave a spotting tutorial during the judges/spotters meeting day of Qualis so we do make sure that people are told how to correctly spot. In Finals I thought spotting was quite good.
One thing to always remember is that first of all spotting can be dangerous in itself, and second of all many pro competitors would rather not be spotted as long as padding is good.
In terms of the youth comp, I was only there for a short time but did see spotters spotting well. Nonetheless it is a valuable point and another area where USAC can work harder with the gyms and volunteers to ensure that there are enough trained spotters at the event. It is often a challenge at every event since volunteers are essential to make our events happen, we ask a lot of them, and standing in the spotlights for hours on end is not always fun, especially when the person would rather be watching with a piece of pizza or a drink…
February 21st, 2007 at 8:30 am
As a setter of high profile events, I feel chris’s pain. Getting everyone to the top is just as bad as getting no one. I agree that with hold sponsors, you only have a certain amount of holds to make a problem. This is a tremendous crux becasue the creation of specific movement, comes (mostly) from specific holds. As a setter, if you dont have those holds, you cant make your ideas on the wall.
Chris, I applaud taking the responsibility for the outcome of finals. It think most setters would curl up in the fetal position and hide in a corner until next year.
Regarding not putting potential hard moves up high, it is always difficult to make something exciting up high without putting in EXTRA elements of danger. This is something I have crossed in my years setting production climbing events in the US, as well as the AsianX. What it comes down to is BETTER PADDING, and the knowledge of how to fall by the competitors (and setters). I am blown away how many competitors dont know how to fall (we will see the effects in the years to come if everyones lower back is destroyed). I have yet to see an ABS comp where there IS enough padding.
My thoughts regarding the womens problems, they were a snooze-fest. Besides being too easy, I thought the mens problems tested a variety of styles, and were better set. Obviously, it is very easy to be the armchair setter and tell you this and that. I am sure you did NOT want the outcome you had, however the best thing to do is to learn from your mistakes and move on.
Regarding the kids problems, what I was able to see when I was out of iso, seemed well set. I know setting for kids is doublely hard than setting for adults, so bravo! I would have liked to see more gymnastic movment for the kids, but I realize there is going to be a learning curve with the kids I am not sure the setters or the organization are going to want. I would like to add I thought you did a great job dishing out the steep angles for the younger categories as well as not making the D’s and C’s more crimp ladders. I know it is hard to make work what you made work, so I commend your effort.
From a setting standpoint, this must be corrected in the future. MORE holds on the warmup walls, and you MUST set screw them as well. I know it is a pain in the ass, but there were spinners every time you climbed on the holds. This is a recipe for someone getting hurt while they are warming up. This is especially bad considering one warm-up wall had NO PADDING. BTW, did you know day one for the kids, someone pulled a jug straight off the wall. IMO, there is no excuse for that. Give a voulenteer a box of screws and a drill.
February 21st, 2007 at 9:01 am
All thoughtful comments.. Thanks Joe. Regarding the Womens problems - not much I can say except the holds were indeed a constraint, the fear factor had a lot to do with less dynamic moves for the women especially up high.. still, no excuse.. those problems could have been much cooler.
In terms of the padding overall, that was a big problem and is a point USAC and the gyms need to better address in the future. There were no pads in ISO precisely because we needed all the pads downstairs to cover every single spot. In some cases it was still not enough. In terms of ISO and the amount of holds and whether they were set-screwed, etc… this is something that Kynan and I, as head setters, probably could have done more to double-check about, but it was ultimately the gym’s responsibility to set up ISO.
Live and learn I suppose.. thanks for the comments.
February 21st, 2007 at 11:56 am
no hating from me. i think the task of running such a big show is a nightmare, and some problems are bound to arise. i would tend to agree that fore-running is oft overlooked last step in the process, and finding the right crew, who can give the right feedback is critical. i heard some “setter gossip” after the comp where some people thought that there had been too many setters involved, and too many not used to setting on “east coast angles” ie; not steep. i don’t know what real validity this has, since most of the crew was way experienced, but i can attest to the difficulty of setting on less radical terrain. overall, i think this is a tough moment for abs. other comp series are gaining momentum on the national level, and this was an opportunity for abs to assert its role as “the” national championship.” some climbers were less than psyched at how finals worked out, and made statements as to their future involvement w/ abs, since other comps had big dollars and a more rad vibe. tough one, best of luck chris and co, peace…d
February 21st, 2007 at 4:20 pm
youth event was great. the routes did what they were supposed to, and all my kids had fun. what a great layout too. i have not seen a better gym for an event like that. all differnt angles and possiblilities. spotting was great in my opinion. almost too good. i teach my kids to climb without spotters and learn to fall. they need to be able to correct themselves in the air and hit the ground properly. cuz you never know when your spot is gonna suck.
we all know what went wrong in the adults.
dana, east coast walls? dont make me smack you.
keep your heads up guys, this is not the end and the ABS can fully recover from the adult event.
youth event was awesome.
zach, get well homie.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:43 pm
As a competitor in the Open comp I have to say the problems were great, yes finals were too easy but I thought the problems themselves were fun to climb. It would have been nice to of had more variety in climbing style, I think Qualifier and Final 2 were my favorites because there were some bigger moves in those compared to the rest.
I highly doubt the “east coast walls” had anything to do with the setting, however I do understand how limiting it can be when you have hold sponsored routes.
And I don’t think this will affect people’s attendance to ABS events seeing as how there really aren’t any other series going on. Overall both comps I felt were great, the mistakes have been realized and I’m really not too worried about next year. I’ll be there, unless some ailment prevents me….which is highly likely. Tyson you know.
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:45 am
syd, are you gonna get the SICKNESzz?