Photos courtesy of Boulderingcomps.com

America’s only non-sanctioned pro-comp took place August 8th & 9th during the Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City.

This comp, dubbed the Mammut Bouldering Championships, brought top climbers to the top of the Shilo Inn parking garage for an old time street fight over $10,000 in prize money.

After a stiff and messy qualifying round held at the legendary Front Bouldering gym, the stage was set for Saturday night’s finals round.

So who put this show together? Chief Setters Jason Danforth and Kyle McCabe were given an able crew that included two National setters, Jackie Hueftle and Joel Zerr, plus Crypto-Setter Jason Kehl.

This crew gave it a herculean effort by putting in multiple 20 hour days that included setting sick hard problems, setting redpoint problems and tweaking the finals problems till 6 in the morning. Not to mention a little light construction work for good measure.

First to hit the beautifully sweeping boulders, designed and built by Vertical Solutions, were the 15 final women. On the first problem a nice sequence through the never-before-seen So Ill “Eye Bugger” caused a little confusion, but most women made it through to try the all-out throw to the finish. However when it was over only three girls had the guns to make it to the finish jug.

Young ego’s can be bruised easily, so to help the girls’ confidence the #2 problem was set a bit easier, allowing over half of them to send.

Yet the setters didn’t let them forget that this is a pro comp and not a local meet-n-greet; #3 shut down every suitor with a cool power sequence to a knarly lock-off. Six of the 15 women were stopped at the exact same place causing a spectacular roadblock that the two top females, Alex Puccio and Alex Johnson, would have to plow through if they were to take home the win. While they succeeded in surging through the blockade, they only progressed a few holds higher, leaving the finish hold un-chalked.

This problem and the number of attempts to send it would determine the winner. If Johnson had just stayed on the ground and not given #3 another go, there would have been a tie after they both flashed #4 (a tie that would have, I assume, been broken by the qualifier results). So in the end the winner was Puccio with Johnson in second and Sydney McNair coming in 3rd.

Men

Sixty-one men also came to The Front for a chance to qualify for the finals and climb with 15 of the strongest climbers from the US, Japan, France and Germany. But it was the usual suspects that the spectators came to see on Saturday night; notably Chris Sharma, Ethan Pringle and Daniel Woods.

After a warm-up first problem that all but one sent, the boys headed to #2 for a tech-fest on micro holds and a deceiving rose move. The problem looked to be all but impossible until Sharma stepped up and reveled the creative sequence with four others following his lead.

And again, just as with the women’s, problem #3 was left un-sent with 8 of the 15 falling at the same miserable hold. From a setting standpoint this problem was a waste of time and accomplished nothing. However audiences are rarely filled with setters and the crowd loved seeing the guys try to touch that last hold.

But it was #4 that was the most crowd pleasing. Strong campus moves to a low-percentage grab lead to a full throttle throw to the finish. Perhaps a bit too easy with three men flashing it, it was still a good show to watch a handful of climbers fire off the launch holds for the final target.

Perspective

Being setters we must look at every aspect of a comp to see if it has been a success. We must be critical to a fault. Even though the problems were all creative and contained some great sequences, from a setting perspective the problems for both men and women were either too hard, or more often, too easy with too many sends.

The scoring system used by the Bouldering Championships works well when the problems are set perfectly. However, when there are too many bottle-necks and top-outs it becomes hard for the average spectator to know who is ahead. In fact during the comp, Jason Danforth, Chief Setter, organizer and MC, didn’t even know who was winning when he mis-spoke and told the crowd that Alex Johnson must flash problem #3 #4 to beat Puccio. As we found out later this was not the case as flashing it would have instead ended them in a tie.

The other perspective of any comp is that of the spectator. What the organizers of the Bouldering Championships do best is to put on a great show. The lighting was the best I’ve seen at an American comp and the walls of course were gorgeous (though not revolutionary as some commentators – Deadpointmag.com - have been saying; did they forget about the Vail World Cup wall?). Overall the crowd was psyched and loved the comp, and most likely didn’t see the problems that serious route setters saw.

So what matters most? I’m not sure, but I do know that the Mammut organizers like to put on big sexy events that blow away normal climbing competitions in terms of show-stopping power. In this regard they found success.

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