Welcome to Behind The Wall, a weekly newsletter published every Saturday.
Each week, I highlight the favourite things I’ve watched, read and listened to from the world of indoor and competition climbing. I also track where you can buy competition tickets during the World Cup season.
The competition climbing continues in Innsbruck with the Boulder and Lead World Cups. Most of the 2024 Olympians who qualified in 2023 are competing in Innsbruck as part of their preparation for the Olympics. Some athletes even continued from the Budapest OQS straight to Innsbruck.
I know there is lots of great content 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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Watch
- The Longest Week In Climbing - Staša Gejo’s Olympic Dreams. Follow along with Staša Gejo from coping with losing in Laval, failing on the Big Island in Font, to winning with Chloé Caulier at the Team Boulder Arena competition at the Climbing District in Paris.
- Budapest Olympic Qualifier Mens Final Report. Niki from Beta Routesetting breaks down Sam Avezou and Mejdi Schalck’s performances at the Budapest OQS event.
- Food, bags, and a whole lot of qualifications | Innsbruck 2024. The World Climbing Club returns in Innsbruck, and the series keeps getting better and better. Matt Groom interviews routesetters and athletes from the Innsbruck World Cup. He also recaps what has been going on in the competition.
- First Look: Next Generation Climbing Shoes. Rob Greenwood from UKClimbing takes a look at next year’s climbing shoes, which were on show at the Outdoor trade show in Liverpool, which have a focus on low volume for the narrow feat. The new Scarpa Drago XT and La Sportiva Ondra Comp both look very interesting.
- Speed climbing OLYMPICS - did I qualify? Sebastian Lucke shares his experiences from the OQS Budapest event.
- Live From Black Diamond HQ x Innsbruck World Cup 2024 - Men’s Boulder Breakdown. Epic TV hosted 3 live shows from Innsbruck in collaboration with Black Diamond over the weekend, during which Teresa Corti interviewed athletes, route setters and those who make the competition possible.
Listen
- Ashima Shiraishi- Inside a competitor’s mind — Climbing Gold. Climbing Gold combines a walkthrough of a World Cup competition from Shiraishi’s viewpoint back in 2021 with a short interview with her on what she has been up to since retiring from competition climbing.
International Climbing Competition Tickets
The competition season has started, so here is the rundown of where you can find World Cup and OQS tickets.
- Chamonix (France) Lead and Speed World Cup July 12 – 14. The event will be free to attend. There are VIP tickets on offer.
- Briançon (France) Lead and Speed World Cup July 16 – 19. The event will be free to attend.
- Olympic Ticket resale platform. Some tickets for the Olympics are coming up through the official resale platform.
- European Championship in Villars (Switzerland) August 23 – September 1. Tickets are yet to be announced.
- Koper (Slovenia) September 6 – 7. Tickets are yet to be announced.
- Prague (Czechia) World Cup September 20 – 22. VIP tickets are sold out, and seated tickets are almost sold out, but standing tickets are still available
- Seoul World Cup October 2 – 6. Tickets are yet to be announced.
That’s a Wrap
I hope you enjoyed this edition of Behind the Wall. Let me know what you think at behindthewall@insideclimbing.com or DM me on Instagram.
See you next week!
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