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 keep track of what climbing competitions are coming up and where you can buy tickets.
This week, we had a quieter week of media between the Prague and Seoul World Cups. The pick of the series is a portrait of Mejdi Schalck's Olympic journey by Louder Than 11 and Glocelium for Adidas TERREX. We also got a collection of classic indoor bouldering videos and an in-depth interview with Jorg Verhoeven on how competition climbing has changed from when he competed.
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Watch
- Monster Inside - Mejdi Schalck’s Olympic Dream | adidas TERREX. Mejdi Schalck talked about his Olympic Dream and how he is dealing with not qualifying for the Olympics.
- IFSC Worldcup Koper - Women's semifinal insights with the route setters | Beta Routesetting. Ryan Sewell took Niki on a tour of the women’s semi-final route, where you can see how small the crimps and footholds on the headwall are.
- Projecting Hard Comp Boulders | Sofya Yokoyama. Sofya and Julien Clémence tried some hard competition climbing boulders in the Swiss training centre.
- BACK TO STUDIO BLOC! Crazy Euro-style boulders & Sequencing advice | Richardsons Climbing. Zach Richardson talked through his preparation for the Prague World Cup over a series of activation training sessions on competition-style boulders at Studio Bloc Darmstadt, Germany.
- Parkour pro dominates climbing competition (ft. Toby Segar) | Emil Abrahamsson. Emil shared his fear of heights and feeling terrified at the North Face Cup in London, a deep-water soloing competition.
Listen
- Jorg Verhoeven - Hold fabrication, comp reflections and mental wellbeing | The Careless Talk Climbing Podcast. Jorg Verhoeven shared his thoughts with Adian and Sam on competition climbing and how routesetting for competitions has changed since he competed. He also shared his struggles with depression and climbing's role in recovering, along with his thoughts on red-tagging, chipping and re-inforcing holds on sport climbing routes.
International Climbing Competition Tickets
The World Cup season is wrapping up with one competitions left, plus the Asian and Pan American continental championships. Here is a rundown of climbing competitions to watch out for the rest of the year.
- Seoul World Cup October 2 – 6. Tickets are now available here.
- Asian Continental Championship in Tai’an (China) October 10 – 14. Tickets are yet to be announced.
- IFSC Madrid 4 Speed (Spain) October 18 – 20. Tickets are yet to be announced.
- Pan American Championship in Santiago (Chile) November 18 – 24. 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 D.M. me on Instagram.
See you next week!
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