Matt Groom takes us through a long day of Lead climbing ¦¦ Innsbruck 2024

Welcome to Innsbruck and it's lead climbing day. We're going to show you some behind the scenes action of the qualifying and I'm going to annoy an athlete because she's just walked past. Nika, you've literally just come off the wall, you're sweaty, you're chalked up. How did your run go? Yeah, it was okay. I actually did my max for today. I don't feel like super in shape but it was like quite a good fight for me. So I'm gonna walk more. Yeah, awesome. We didn't plan this so you've literally just walked past. You've got one more run to go, right? Yeah, one more route. So I'm gonna try harder and try my best. Best of luck. I know you've got stuff to do. I'll see you in a bit. Cheers, Nika. Right, well there we go. This is what this is like. There's all go. There's athletes walking everywhere and let me just show you where they gather. So they go from inside the gym where the warm-up area is. They do this walk through to a tent and we are not really allowed to film in there but I'm going to sneak in and show you a bit of behind the scenes. So the athletes gather inside this tent. They get roped up. They get ready. Headphones in. They're preparing themselves for the next moments where they walk through one of these doors out onto the stage. You're about to see something pretty cool because the audience have all been gathering. You can imagine here they're standing. They're trying to focus. They're getting ready for their run and they walk out into this stadium. The mountains surrounding them. The crowd is ready to cheer them on. It's pretty early in the morning here and that's something that's worth remembering. Some of the men, for example, were competing last night in the final. Someone like Toby, for example, and he was the second athlete out. So he's got to go away from last night's final, sleep, chill, eat something and then come back very early in the morning to compete. It's tough for them. So as you can see behind me, the athletes are on the wall but you guys ask all the time about exactly how this system works in qualification. So let's find a judge and find out more. Hello Mr Jury President, sir. How's things, Tim? It's going quite well so far. We're running ahead of schedule. Wow, that never happens. That's impressive. So we all get a little bit of an earlier lunch, maybe. The sun's shining. Let's hope it stays that way. Ah, it's Innsbruck. We know what might happen. Right, Tim, you're the man who knows all the rules. It's like you have an encyclopedic knowledge in your head. But I've got two fairly simple questions for you. First of all, I know Boulder qualification is decided on world ranking, but it's different for Leeds. How do you work out who climbs first and who climbs last? Okay, well because this is a flash format rather than an on-site format, the start list is just generated randomly because theoretically the first person to climb has the disadvantage of not having seen anybody else. Okay, so by making it randomized, you're not condemned, as it were, to always be climbing first. You might climb first in one competition and have that disadvantage on one route, but in the next competition you might be climbing 40th. That makes sense, actually, because the athletes all do gather. They have a look at other people climbing it. They've got videos as well. They've got a video, but there's nothing like... Like a video is obviously the route setter demonstrating the way that they intend it to be done, but you get an advantage from looking at other climbers because you'll see they break the beta somehow or they find the method that suits them that might suit you. So there's always an advantage from climbing a little bit later and seeing what people do. Okay, well Tim, thank you so much. I'll let you get back to judging, doing what you do. As you can see, there's a big audience out there. I want to go talk to some of them. Now, on the way into the audience, I've got distracted because I want to ask a Spanish coach a question. Hey, sorry to bother you. I know you're in the middle of this, but a lot of people are asking about Alberto because he qualified for Boulder, pulled out, he's not here. Is he okay? It's okay. We have a little problem in the left foot, in a joint, but I think in two or three resting days, it's okay. Maybe come to Chamonix, I don't know, but for sure we are ready for the Olympics. So bigger picture is Olympics, this competition. I get it. Okay, so he's protecting himself. Yeah, this is the reason because we are not here. They are not here. Okay, it's okay. Brilliant news. Thank you so much. Okay, so I'm trying to find some more people to chat. I have just spotted a local legend, so let's see if he'll talk to me. Hello, Jakob. Morning. Hey. How was your first run? Pretty good, I think. Yeah, I hope so. One more to go. One more to go. Best of luck. Hope it goes well. There we go. Oh, look, I found someone else. Hamish, very, very quickly. First of all, congratulations about the Olympics. Amazing. And you're competing today? No, nothing. Just watching. Just watching, but GB representing then. Yeah, it's just so I can get into the warm-up zone. You've got not very long until the Olympics. Are you still in training mode? Do you start tapering off? How does it work? At the moment, I'm just resting a bit. It was quite brutal on the body, the two OQS events and training for that. So I'm just taking a week to let stuff settle down in my body a bit and just kind of ground myself a little, and then I'll go home and I'll start climbing properly again, and there'll be media stuff and all sorts. So right here is kind of like a safe bubble, in a way. Safe bubble, he says. I've shoved the microphone in your face. I'm sorry about that. So I'm continuing this sort of impromptu grid walk. Campbell, sorry to bother you, mate. I know you're in the middle, so I'm doing a very, like, grabbing people randomly. How are you at the moment? Oh, not good. First route went really bad. So, you know, let's see what kind of room I can make up on the second one, but it's pretty much my comp done, which is a bummer because I've been, like, I feel like I've been working pretty hard on my lead shape lately, and it's just not there for some reason. So back to the drawing board, probably. Well, Matt, I know you've got so much support. Can I ask you quickly about the image that's going viral for kind of all the wrong reasons, but also a huge amount of support? There's a picture of you kissing your boyfriend. It's just had a crazy reaction. Just tell me a bit about what's going on. Yeah, so it was a big surprise to me. I started getting all these messages of people being like, I'm sorry about the comments. And I was like, oh, what comments? And my first thought before seeing the post was, well, like, I've pretty much seen it all by this point, or at least I thought I'd pretty much seen it all. And then the sheer volume of vitriol that kind of came my way was something beyond anything I'd ever seen before or beyond kind of what I knew existed, like the level of homophobia that was out there within sporting fan communities. So that was pretty full on. And yeah, it's still coming. I think, yeah, the initial shock was pretty upsetting. But all the support that I've been getting since has definitely really pulled me through that. I think if people hadn't been going to war for me in the comments and on their stories, it would feel pretty isolating. But it's definitely a wake up call for me and a wake up call for a lot of people. I think that like pride isn't just a fun parade that we throw a couple times a year. It's actually like people's safety. And yeah, it reminded me we still have a long way to go in terms of, you know, not just like diversity inclusion, but like queer people being safe in sporting spaces. We're not there yet. Well, I think you're an incredible ambassador for that whole movement. And the way you've dealt with it has been super impressive. So thank you for standing up and doing that. And I'm glad you said about the support, because when you look at those comments, horrendous things have been said. But also the community is behind you and everyone here is behind you. So just personally, thank you so much, man. And best of luck for the Olympics. I hope it goes well. Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. See you later, Campbell. Full qualifying results in a moment. But here are a few athletes to watch out for. Nia Crampall is safely through. The Slovenian athlete battling fatigue from the OQS, and she will be pleased to climb again. Chae Eun-seo had a better performance than in Boulder, the South Korean climber getting high onto the headwall in one of her routes. Japan's Ai Mori makes her second semifinals of the week and had the second best climb for the women. Colin Duffy from the USA was disappointed not to make it through Boulder semis, but he'll have another chance at finals on Sunday evening in the lead. You just know the crowd is going to go crazy for Jakob Schubert, the Innsbruck local putting on a strong performance, and he's in the top five. Climbing on the route next to Jakob was GB's Toby Roberts. He only got a few hours sleep after last night's Boulder finals, but he's also easily through. 26 athletes have made it from a big field of competitors, so let's see the list of names who get to climb again. Sasha Lehmann is in first place, with Serato Anraku and Jakob Schubert close behind. Alex Magos didn't compete in Boulder, choosing to just focus on lead this week. Down at the bottom, Philip Schenk just gets in, and it's great to see Oriane Berton's brother Max into the semifinals. For the women, Janja Garnbret leads the way, with Ai Mori and Laura Roggere next. Hannah Moyle will climb first, having qualified last, and Jennifer Buckley is into her first senior World Cup lead semifinals. So there you go, those are the athletes who have made it through to the semifinal. Now, Google is always an interesting place, and there's lots of questions that get asked, so we're going to ask one of our athletes the questions that Google and you want to know. Actually, I'm 19 years old, just turned 19 in March. I have, I think, a mix-up of accents, so I am from Green Island. My father's Italian, my mom is French, and so yeah, it's a mix-up, and I learned English with Toby Roberts, actually, so it's kind of a British accent too, but it's a mix-up. Actually, I'm using, so the brand is Carpa, and it's the Drago's. I've used Alvis specifically, but I can also use the Drago's normal. So actually, in my close family, we're five, so my mom, my dad, my brother, and my sister. So I have a twin sister, actually, named Margot, and my little brother, Max, that, and he's climbing there in Innsbruck. So yeah, we're five, and we have a new one now. It's a dog. Her name is Una. I think you've seen her, but yeah, it's my new best friend. Oh, I didn't think about that. I forgot to think about that before, but I think in bordering, it's 80 plus, so which is already very good, because I started climbing outside, and then I started competing, and it's less and less doable for me to go out, and in lead, I think it's 80 plus, probably, so yeah. Also, I want to pursue that later. The lead semifinals was an intense affair, with thousands of people in the stadium cheering the athletes on. Only eight of them could make it through, though, so it was always going to be a battle. So let's start with the women. In eighth was Mattia Potzi. The Austrian local had a fantastic climb, getting to hold 34 plus, count back pushing her into the top eight. Annie Sanders was one move higher. She'll be looking to add another medal to her collection after receiving her first in Boulder a few days before. Next was Yutong Zhang in sixth. Back on the big stage after qualifying for the Olympics at the Asian qualifier last year, and getting 35 plus in Innsbruck. Chaehyun Seo is in fifth. The South Korean athlete getting to the same point as Yutong Zhang, again, count back playing its part. It was great to see Aleksandra Totskova looking relaxed on the wall. She set an early high point in the competition of 40 plus, and that was enough to get her through. Top three, and Jessica Piltz had the biggest reaction of the night when she entered the arena, and she will climb again. Both Ai Mori and Janja Gambret had the same score of 48 plus. Not much between the two stars, and it's going to be an interesting finals tomorrow. For the men, it was Japan's Tomoa Narasaki in eighth with 43, and both Shuta Tanaka and Aleks Magos got the same score. The tricky crux move causing problems. Colin Duffy couldn't make Boulder finals, but he will climb in lead finals with 44 plus, as will Jonah Sutele on the same score but ahead due to count back. Top three, and Taisai Homma and Toby Roberts, who climbed in Boulder finals the night before, got 46 plus. Finally, he always puts on a show here. Jakob Schubert got the top spot. 49 plus was way out in front. Can the local hero win here again?