I wasn't going to pay for Eurosport, but the gf jut got it so put the men's qualifiers on in the background now
Definitely the sport I'm most interested in (even if I find the decision to include speed climbing baffling)
I may be getting mixed up because it says 'Eurosport' in the corner but don't know if it's actually a 'Eurosport' channel - streaming it online, just selected climbing from the list of sports on 'Discovery+' and there it was.
I guess I can see why it might be most attractive to a general audience, but to me it's just a completely different sort to the climbing that I'm familiar with and what is practiced by most people around the world. Just lacks any of the problem solving, novelty, and strategy that makes climbing what it is, replaces it with a simple contest to repeat a set sequence of moves as perfectly and quickly as possible (although being charitable I will acknowledge it requires its own skill and good technique to do well) . I'd prefer it if they didn't try to pander to a general audience and kept it closer to what most actual climbers do.
I guess that's a good point, and a lot of the climbing that average participants do is never intended to be competitive in any way, unlike football say which is inherently competitive. It just feels to me that a lot of the things that make climbing what it is (eg problem solving, planning things out) can be translated relatively well into the olympic bouldering and lead climbing disciplines without making as many sacrifices as speed climbing does. It is still an expression of climbing, just one I don't feel represents the majority of the sport very well, but then that is very subjective at the end of the day.
Extended shots of someone trying five different sizes of nut in a crack before giving up and using a friend, then the long, lingering, slo-mo of the athlete's Elvis leg
