Welcome to Behind the Wall, your weekly digest on what is happening in the climbing competition world. I was ill last week, but we are back with our regular programming. 🙂
We explore the merging of Discovery+/Eurosport into TNT Sports in the UK, which has led to outrage from niche sports fans, and I reflect on what this means for climbing.
A lot has happened over the last two weeks. We recap the news, including the results from competitions over the past two weeks.
I share my recommendations for what media to watch, including interviews with routesetters at Dockmasters and what a campus-only session on the spray wall looks like.
As usual, I will recap where you can buy tickets for upcoming international competitions and what competitions you can watch this week.
Why Watching Climbing in the UK Will Cost £30.99 a Month in 2025
In the UK and Ireland, starting on March 1st 2025, we will have to pay £30.99 a month to watch the IFSC Climbing World Cup if the IFSC renew their deal with Eurosport this year.
This is because Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced in January 2025 that by February 28th 2025, all Eurosport and Discovery+ content will be folded into TNT Sports. TNT Sports, previously BT Sports, is a collection of paid TV sports channels in the UK and Ireland, including the Football Premier League and the Rugby Gallagher Premiership.
This means that the only place to watch many top Tennis events, including the French Open, and cycling races in the UK will be on TNT Sports. From 2026, TNT Sports will be the only place to watch the Tour de France in the UK after WBD won exclusive rights.
Sky Sports will provide the majority of football coverage from 2025 to 2029, showing at least 215 Premier League games, while TNT Sports will show 52. The integration of Eurosport into TNT Sports looks to bolster the TNT Sports offering to justify why fans would pay for them as well.
The default monthly subscription to TNT Sports is £30.99, a 443% increase from the £6.99 monthly subscription for Discovery+ (previously Eurosport Player). However, there are cheaper offers for TNT Sports through TV subscriptions, but you will need to take out a TV package and add TNT Sports as an extra.
Unsurprisingly, people are unimpressed.
Former President of British Cycling and the UCI, Brian Cookson, wrote an impassioned article against the bundling of cycling alongside other top sports and cycling viewers having to pay top price for these sports they do not use. This is the cable model of sports re-emerging after the great unbundling of channels into separate streaming services. Cookson writes
In their infinite wisdom, the media management people at WBD decided that this arrangement wasn’t maximising the income they could dredge out of the loyal fans of cycling and a number of other sports [emphasis mine]. Sorry, that’s not actually what they said, but, hey, have a look at their own words here in their media release. It takes a bit of effort to fight through the jargon, but the picture is pretty clear.
I mean, I’ve got nothing against people who want to spend their money watching those sports, but I don’t watch them. And neither do many, many other cycling fans, as the reactions on social media over the last few days pretty clearly demonstrate.
Climbing is one of those other sports.
After the success in the UK in Sport climbing at the Paris Olympics with Toby Roberts winning the gold medal and Erin McNeice and Hamish McArthur reaching the final, this could put a dampener on those interested in following competition climbing in the UK. UK Sport has awarded £2.775 million to the BMC for Sport Climbing and £500,000 for Paraclimbing over the 4 years from 2025 – 2029 ahead of the LA Olympic and Paralympic Games.
However, this doesn't affect Eurosport and Max services in Europe. But this change does remind us that competition climbing coverage is still a pawn in larger media plays.
For many outside of Europe, you can watch competition climbing live on the IFSC YouTube channel. Last year, the IFSC added excellent additional content from Matt Groom and the live stream team to share a behind-the-scenes view of competitions.
For some other countries, there are local broadcasters who own the rights. Last year in Koper, the list of broadcasters were
- Europe: Eurosport/Discovery+/Max
- Japan: J-Sports, finals,
- Malaysia: Astro SuperSport 4, finals;
- Latin America: TV Azteca, finals.
This did change between competitions last year.
The 3-year deal with Eurosport that the IFSC signed back in 2022 is due to end this year. If this renews, climbing will only be available on TNT sports in the UK and Ireland. The rest of Europe will have to wait and see where Eurosport fits in with Warner Bros. Discovery's plans for alternative sports coverage across Europe.
Latest News
Over the past two weeks, there have been a few competitions. Here is a recap of the results
- Boulder Japan Cup. The competition was the first time the new points scoring system for bouldering has been used. You can watch replays on YouTube.
- 1st – Miho Nonaka, 2nd – Melody Sekikawa, 3rd – Mao Nakamura.
Futaba Ito finished 4th & Ai Mori 7th. - 1st – Sorato Anraku, 2nd – Yuji Fujiwaki, 3rd – Rei Sugimoto
- 1st – Miho Nonaka, 2nd – Melody Sekikawa, 3rd – Mao Nakamura.
- Belgium National Championship
- 1st – Celine Cuypers, 2nd – Chloé Caulier, 3rd – Perrine Alardin
- 1st – Nicolas Collin, 2nd – Hannes van Duysen, 3rd – Corentin Laporte.
- British Lead Championship
- 1st – Erin McNeice, 2nd – Zoë Peetermans, 3rd – Lucy Garlick. Erin won the British Boulder Championship back in January.
- 1st - Toby Roberts, 2nd - Sam Butterworth, 3rd – Rhys Conlon.
- French Boulder Championship (A replay can be watched on YouTube)
- 1st – Oriane Bertone, 2nd – Selma Elhadj Mimoune, 3rd – Agathe Calliet.
- 1st – Adrien Lemaire, 2nd – Paul Jenft, 3 – Max Bertone.
Mejdi Schalck missed the final by one spot, finishing 7th. Sam Avezou, Zélia Avezou and Naïle Meignan did not compete.
On World Cancer Day, Richard Aspland from the IFSC shared the stories of two athletes who have cancer diagnoses. Yuchan Song from South Korea, who has Hodgkin's lymphoma, and Lučka Rakovec, who has thyroid cancer.
It’s hard for such a thing not to define you and leave you with some anxiety about life. I am working hard on becoming me again, but there are ups and downs on the way. – Lučka Rakovec
Staša Gejo announced her retirement from competition climbing after the Dockmasters 2025.
Leonardo Veddriq won the World Games Athlete of the Year award, becoming the 3rd climber to win the award after Adam Ondra in 2014 and Reza Alipour Shenazandifard in 2017.
Movement Routesetting, founded by routesetters Gracie Martin and Alexander Lemel, has launched an online platform for route setters to develop their skills and connect with other routesetters. The platform includes video lessons, live sessions and a place for routesetters to connect and chat about routesetting.
Hannah Schubert shared her experiences with disordered eating and how it led to her retiring early.
Media Recommendations
Niki and Jake released two interviews over the past fortnight for Another Setting Podcast. The first was with Manu, head routesetter at Studio Bloc Darmstadt (which hosts Studio Bloc Masters) and Reset holds owner. The second is with Gregor Vezonik, a former Boulder World Cup winner who retired at the end of last year and who is now a full-time setter and hold shaper.
Planet Grimpe interviewed Oriane Bertone (in French) about her experience in Paris, how she has dealt with not performing as well as she wanted and her plans for 2025.
Jana Švecová (@climbingjane) joins Olympian Erin McNiece for one of her training sessions at the Depot in Sheffield.
Katsu Miyazawa and Tsukuru Hori from B-Pump Ogikubo visit the 9 degrees Bouldering centre in Australia to share their perspective on routesetting. Tsukuru Hori will be the headsetter for Boulder at the World Championship in Seoul in 2025.
Manu and Jake share how they set the hardest qualification climb at Dockmasters 2025.
Madison Richardson shares what a campus-only session on a spray wall, a staple of many pro competition climbers, looks like for her.
International 2025 Competition Tickets
- 15 – 16th March: Studio Block Masters 2025. Registration opens on 1st February.
- 12 – 16 March: USA National Team Trails. Tickets are now available.
- 22 –23rd March: CWIF 2025. Registration starts on 1st February, and spectator tickets go on sale on March 3rd at noon.
- 23 – 29th June: Innsbruck 2025 World Cup. Tickets go on sale in early spring.
- 7 – 8th June: Prague Boulder World Cup. Tickets are on sale.
- 14 – 16th June: Bern Boulder World Cup. Tickets are on sale.
What to Watch?
The Speed Japan Cup is on this weekend and will be shown on YouTube.
Bloc House (Austria) hosts the House Meisterschaft competition this weekend and the final will be live streamed on their YouTube Channel.
Correction 13th Feb 2025: A previous version of this article said that Fred Williams and Hannah Kerr finished second in the competition. They did not. They finished second in the semi-final and not in the final. We have update the article to the correct results.
