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Love your videos! Always interesting and laid-back. Please include name tags for (European) people like me who just like to boulder but are not into each and every American climber.

Kai is seriously such a joy haha

my take is that there's a cultural aspect to the reason why they have a large pool of talented athletes. A long history of respect, tenacity, and courage, rooted in their indigenous shinto ideals, of collectivist morality, with respect to all things being spirits that demand respect and reverence. Combined with the egoless emphasis of buddhist ideals emerging after, which cultivates and glorifies presence of mind and being. Discipline in mind and body are philosophical concepts ingrained in their culture using these predispositions. This shines through some of the top protagonists in anime/manga culture. These characters become ideals with a human form that are tempting/desirable to emulate. And so its not suprising to me that when you have the popularity of climbing combined with the culture of determination and self actualization through the expression of ideals, that you'd get people/climbers who go to great lengths to refine their passions.

Kai and Natalia give very clear and concise answers, cool people

One part is their Culture and philosophie. SHU HA RI = the art of mastery

I was in Tokyo this summer and visited both B-Pump gyms. Ogikubo is very small, densely set, and everything is hard. It feels like a theater for elite bouldering. Akihabara is a bit more beginner-friendly, but less so than any American gym I've been to. Japan has a zillion bouldering gyms - even coffee houses with small spray walls. But I only found one place I could find with roped climbing. The country is just too densely planned to allow for big, warehouse-style gyms. Natalia is also right about accessibility - you can get between many gyms quickly by train. In American cities where you have a number of gyms you don't visit them all regularly because you have to drive and commit to a full day of climbing. I'd imagine there's more exchange between climbers, setters, etc. when you can pop in to one place or another more easily. When you combine the realities of real estate with the genetic and cultural makeup of Japan (compact, strong, light people with a lot of intelligence and discipline), you're going to get a lot of great boulderers. Same reason America and Europe have most of the top sport climbers - there's a ton of great outdoor rock, and these epic gyms like KI in Innsbruck, plus the cultural ethic is more about adventure and "boldness" than discipline.

I've seen it firsthand in Japan: hard gyms, and a good disciplined mentality. Gyms in the west are all about ego boosting the weekend warriors. Soft gyms build soft climbers.

Depending on the setters, i wouldn't be surprised if Ai Mori won.

I'm not sure how Japanese athletes do it. I've noticed similar patterns in skateboarding and rollerblading from Japanese athletes; dialed in technique, precision, strength, and overall steez.

Colin Duffy, Brooke Raboutou and Natalia Grossman all from ABC Kids Climbing in Boulder, Colorado. Many legendary climbers have spent time in Yosemite Camp 4. Japan has high quality climbing communities throughout country. That is the reason, not because special skin or genetic, those comments are laughable.

When you are growing up in an overpopulated country with stoicism as part of the culture, naturally you will always see so many people better than you which keeps pushing you to practice further. From Ai - Sorato's generations, they have been climbing since they were very young surrounded by so many people who spend hours climbing just for the sake of fun and getting better. There are such thick layers of talented kids growing up, pushing each other's ability to climb. When we, Japanese, get into things, we go deep.😆

its the same in freestyle dancing, the japanese dominate, league of their own. they do all styles, even niche legacy styles that have faded in the country of origin.

iPhone made a solid point

Jumping around guy = yoshiyuki ogata Single leg postal squat guy = sohta amagasa

Ogata has been around for ages, everyone loves him.

There's so many amazing women right now beyond team USA, Ai, Seo, Oriane, Zhilu, Erin has come from no where. Also how on earth no one has mentioned Dohyun! Toby, Sam and Colin too

Completely unrelated but I don't think I will ever get over the difference between Fitzs voice and how he looks. When I first started listening to climbing gold I didn't know him, I just imagined some young intern, some aspiring twenty something climber. Now I've seen him in photos and videos and he looks like the grizzled mountaineer that he is. I just can't get it to match :D

The only real way to say you climbed something is the lobotomized insight freesolo send.

Your predictions are soooo biast

Janja is in great form as i can hear and if that 80% truth there is no chance anyone can take her Gold Medal. I wish more of girls being competitive like some Japanise, USA and British but i doubt coz as i said before if she in that form as they said it will be all problems flashed and if other flash one of them will be awesome. And now speed is not there to take her strength with bouldering and lead, think noone have a chance and yeahh all world will be shocked if ahe dont win/defend Gold but who knows, miracle is possible.

The cognitive leap between competitive and recreational climbing seems much larger than with almost any other sport. Nearly everyone who’s played basketball, for example, has played in an organized league at some point. However, many people climb for years without ever considering competing. Even elite comp climbers seem to prefer a project focused approach. That’s a bigger gap than indoor vs outdoor.

Dude, I was just watching a 2 year old video of you and Magnus and I was thinking "Man it would be cool if honnold did his own youtube videos" Instant sub from me my guy!

I think Ai mori has a genuine chance to make podium, sad to see her not mentioned, she was one of the first who got me watching competition climbing

It would be so amazing to see Sam climb with Alex on The Nose !

Maybe she doesn't want to be "probed"?

Regarding the impact of parcour on outdoor climbing--it's already happening, guys. There's already a couple of years of collaboration between Tony Segar of Storror and climbers like Magnus Midtbo, Stefano Ghisolfi, and the WideBoyz. And hadn't Alex climbed with Toby Segar outdoors already?

Alex is based. The Jon guy has some weird takes. Doesn't sound too researched honestly.

Definitely expecting Sorato to winout for men

Shortest not fastest

I am so looking forward to the events! The climbing community is just pure gold. So many sports, especially team sports, are so much less wholesome and the level of the commentary can be abysmal. I am thinking of the German commentary on the rowing events, where the commentator was constantly talking about a team that wasn't in the current race and basically ignored all that was going on. Or football with all the rioting fans, alcohol and shouting on the field. I am so happy to have found my niche. I feel like 80% of climbing content is just about enjoying the sport together. And that is what I love most as a spectator, especially at the Olympics. Isn't the whole point of the Olympics to bring athletes from all over the world together and create memorable moments?

The Leafs win a cup before Janja loses at the Olympics.

I’ve spent a long time trying to embrace competition climbing, by either volunteering or watching clips and highlights and competitions, but it’s been so hard for me to find a liking towards that discipline. This show has been great for learning and getting more into competitions

I wonder why they didn’t mention mori ai for a potential podium. She is incredible at lead. Is she that bad at bouldering?

video, surely!

So ready!

It sounds really American centric to me. Many athletes can pop up behind Janja. Ai seems to be forgotten. It depends on the setting for bouldering but on the lead side she’s so good…

Toby is a solid choice

Guy picks all Americans to win "I like to think national bias doesn't play a role" 😅😅😅

Love her and her enthusiasm for the sport. Love the outdoor climbing!

I'm going Sorato for gold. He absolutely dominated last season. Toby Roberts has to be a favourite for podium too.

Not sure why Alex was surprised at John mentioning Jakob. He's the reigning world champion.

Jakob literally would've gotten Gold if speed wasn't included last olympics and they scored everything properly

“Where did you come from where did you go”-alex honnold

Jakob absolutely my pick for Men's Combined

4:42 most based take ever. 100% agree

Nice talk; but really not at all informative

Collin Duffy is a good pick - maybe best combo lead/boulder? It will come down to how "modern" the bouldering is - someone like Toby Roberts or Anraku (maybe Paul Jenft?) could even pull it off based on sending weird boulders. If the bouldering is mercifully more "traditional" I'd love to see Jakob or Ondra get a gold.

Janja takes gold almost 100% unless she makes an uncommon mistake. I'm stoked to see what happens in the Men's circuit though!

Womens is such a competitive field rn. After Janja I’m seeing Brooke come in close. If she climbs at peak it could be close

i cannot find this episode online