Ep 17: Charlie Boscoe - Leaving IFSC Commentary

For a start, we had six World Cups in six weeks. We did Meiringen, Japan, two in China, one in India, and then Innsbruck in six weeks. And as I say, I knew you know yourself when you've messed up. You don't need anyone to tell you. There aren't many climbers who live their lives like true elite athletes. Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Coming podcast. I'm your host Jinni, and I'm excited to introduce my guest, Charlie Boscoe.

Charlie is a broadcaster and writer who preceded Matt Groom as an IFSC commentator and Epic TV host. In this episode, we'll learn about his rough start to IFSC commentating in 2016, ways that he thinks the IFSC could improve competitions, and get an inside look as to what it's like traveling around with elite level athletes. Hope you enjoy this episode with Charlie. Okay, cool. Let's get right into it then. Well, how are you doing today?

I'm good, thank you. Yeah, would like to be outside sitting in the sun, but I'm sadly in my studio. I know, I'm so sorry. It looked really nice. Yeah, that's fine. But you're getting ready for your busy trip back to Europe today then? Yeah, flying to England tomorrow. So, busy, busy times packing and got to be out early tomorrow. So yeah, trying to wrap up work and pack and it's a familiar position to be in. Well, thanks for taking the time to be here with me today then. No problem at all.

And so you're British, but you and you like lived in various places in Europe. So why did you decide to settle down in Canada? Just a general lifestyle, really. I've always really liked North America. Always the first time I came, I remember the first time I came to America, I just thought, wow, this is just great. I love it here. But then Trump happened and that kind of changed my perception of America slightly. And decided that Canada might be the right option.

And also I'm self-employed and health care would be a huge issue in the States. So Canada was kind of the better solution in a way and probably retains a bit more of a European feel because it's bilingual. A lot of the schooling is bilingual. So it feels slightly, slightly more European, slightly more familiar, I think, to a European than the States does. But the States is still my favorite place to go on holiday and still go as often as I can.

But yeah, we decided that Canada was right. Just overall lifestyle, especially here where we are, it's the warmest place in Canada, which isn't saying that much, but it means we get nice long, hot summers. Well, yeah, I feel like I have not heard many people say that they love the like North America. I mean, is it like the nature? Because also, I think Europe has great mountains and nature and everything.

Yeah, it is. It's partly that. I mean, what you don't really have in Europe that you have here is wilderness, true wilderness. And the first that first trip I did to the States probably 10 years ago and we went around Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah. And I just couldn't believe the size of everything, the scope of it, and that the big sky that Montana is famous for.

I just love that feeling of space and wilderness. But also I did my bachelor's degree in politics and specialize in American politics. And I've just always been fascinated by American history, politics. I just think it's probably the most interesting country to study. And I mean, I went to D.C. I was like a pig in mud. I was honestly, I could have spent a month walking around D.C. just geeking out on American history. So I've always been fascinated by the country socially, politically.

And then when I actually visited, I realized I actually love the landscapes as well. And 99.9% of Americans, like any country, are fantastic. I really enjoyed virtually everyone I came into contact with. So I don't know. I just sometimes think I was just born on the wrong continent. I just always as long as for the last 10 years or so just always felt like I wanted to live in North America. And it's it's delivering. I really like it.

That's awesome. And that's just like so weird to hear. I feel like because I mean, maybe because I'm American and I'm surrounded by Americans. Everyone also just has like the grass is greener side where they don't want to be here. So it's really interesting to hear the opposite perspective. Well, I think. I was I love the thought of what America is supposed to be and the kind of romantic notions on which it was founded. And I know that obviously at times it's strayed a bit from that.

But still, the the idea behind America is very inspiring to me and very appealing. And you there is certainly I don't like using the word freedom. It kind of reminds me of George Bush a bit too much. But there is a sense of freedom and anything being possible here. More so than there is in Europe. I've really noticed that you really feel like anything is possible there. Oh, I guess like what are you missing there in terms of feeling like anything's possible?

We're really straying onto some of my pet topics here, but I talked to I talked to people who've lived in both continents and a good friend of mine lived, was a naturalized American, lived here, well, lived in America, Canada for 20 years and now is in Europe. And I said to him, what will be the biggest difference when I move there? What will I notice more than anything? He said in America, anything is possible.

And he said that immediately. And his theory, you have to remain nameless because he's a climber, so people might know who he is. But his theory was that perhaps life in some European countries is just a little bit too easy and it kind of removes your drive a little bit. So we lived in Austria for five years and it's the most fabulous place to live. But the government's kind of got your back. You know, they'll pay for your schooling right through university.

You have exceptional health care. You have amazing child benefits. You have all these amazing government programs and are not against them in any way. But I do think that in a way that the fact that you don't really need to do much and you'll have a really comfortable, pretty affluent, enjoyable life, I think in some ways isn't good for people's motivation.

And I think the states in particular, anytime I'm in the states or work with people down there, they're kind of aware that they're out there on their own in the world. The government has got their back to have only just got their back, if at all. And as I say, I'm not advocating for one or the other, but I do think it gives people a little bit more fire in their belly here. Yeah, I mean, I can't say I like that. I'm not always secure. But that's an interesting perspective.

And I have to say Canada to me is kind of a happy middle ground where we do have universal health care. You do have more generous social support, but it's still a long way off what you would get, certainly in Austria or one of the more left-wing European countries. So no, I agree. I mean, I would, for me personally, I would feel quite nervous living in the states, being self-employed, having to pay for my own health care.

So Canada to me is that nice blend of like, we're not completely screwed if something goes wrong, but we kind of need to take care of ourselves. And yeah, that's the right balance for me. Yeah, sounds like you found the perfect spot. I love talking about the difference between Europe and North America. It's one of those topics I just find super interesting. Yeah, I really enjoy the philosophizing over it, but I guess it's not what people on this podcast want to hear about.

They want to hear about, I mean... Well, they might be a little curious, but yeah, maybe you'll get some questions after. But for now, since it is a climbing podcast, we'll start getting into that stuff. So for those who don't know how you're involved in the comp climbing world, yeah, how did you get involved and how did you get there?

So I've been climbing, started climbing seriously when I left university. So it was 2006. Anyone doing the maths will appreciate that. That means I've got a birthday this year that ends in a zero, which is amazingly depressing. So yeah, started climbing, seriously climbing in 2006.

I kind of dabbled with it before then, done lots of outdoor sports and ended up in Chamonix and stayed there for a long time and I wanted to be a mountain guide and did a lot of guiding in the Himalayas and Andes and North Africa. That was the path I was going to follow and I just was suffering more and more with long-term injuries. I've got a really bad hip, really bad back and I just thought, man, you can't do a physical job. You just haven't got the body to do a physical job.

So I decided not to pursue the guiding anymore, which was pretty heartbreaking. It took me a few years to get over that one. But then I was kind of fishing around for what to do and I lived in Chamonix and a good friend of mine, Jack Goldard, was presenting Epic TV's Climbing Daily Show and he was stopping. Apparently, the reference that he gave to Epic TV was, you should get Charlie because he knows about climbing and he likes the sound of his own voice. I went for a screen test.

I know I'm the only person that went for a screen test, so I kind of got the job by default. I did that for two years and obviously working at Epic TV, you get to know all the climbers. We went to some IFSC events and after a couple of years, I was looking for a new challenge. I thought, well, the IFSC, I've been to some of their events and seen what they do. So I got in touch with them and I basically refused to not let them give me a job.

I learned a good lesson in the process actually because they weren't looking for a new commentator. They had a guy and I wasn't necessarily fishing for the commentator job. I thought, well, I know how to present on camera and I know about climbing and I'm well connected and surely there's something we can do. But they really weren't looking for anyone. Then they said, look, we're already sorted for next season.

We appreciate your interest, but we're having a meeting tomorrow in Annecy to kind of sign everything off. By this stage, I was living in Innsbruck, so Annecy was seven hours away. I said, well, look, how about I just drive over to Annecy and we could at least talk. So I got in the car, drove seven hours, got in the room, basically just kind of made my pitch and got the job.

So it was a good lesson that actually the door might appear to not be open, but if you just kick hard enough, it might well open. So did you start out as the commentator? Yeah, yeah. So I started out as a commentator. But that was I wasn't pitching for a specific job. I was just saying, hey, it feels like there's some things I could do for you that would be help. And I didn't have the commentator job in mind. I feel a little bit bad for the guy who was commentating. But yeah, that's what I got.

Yeah. So you just like replaced the old guy. They just like decided, oh, we're not going to fire this other guy now. How can I put this? I don't think they were distraught at having to replace him. Can I put it that way? I think they might have been OK with someone landing on their lap who they thought could do it better. Well, that must have been quite a shock. Yeah, it was. It was. But then obviously, I started doing the IFSC job and that ended up being five years.

And now I got into it. Basically, he's Jack Galdart, who now runs Big Mountain Brewing in Chamonix, the beer company. It was him. I owe it all to Jack. Wow, that's interesting. Kind of brutal. I didn't know that's how you got there. Yeah, I mean, it sounds more brutal than it was. I was just thinking, I just thought, look, I've just left Epic TV and know all these people. I can do all this stuff. The IFSC Federation, by that stage,

it was really clear climbing was going to be an Olympic sport. It wasn't even a secret. It's just obviously about to happen. And my thought was there must be something we can do together. I wasn't expecting that they would get rid of the connotation, give me his job. It certainly wasn't my intention by any means, but that was just how it ended up. Yeah, I mean, like through no fault of your own, I was just kind of surprised that they just threw you in there right after.

That's like kind of wild to me. Me and the old commentator, we've chatted since we get on fine. He knows I wasn't hoaching his job. I had in mind a kind of climbing daily style job at the IFSC kind of presenting or making content around the events. So, but it worked out great. But it made for it was a big challenge to start with, for sure. Yeah, I'm glad you guys were able to clear the air.

But yeah, going into the first year that you commentated for them in 2016, you did mention that it was a really hard year for you. So what happened there?

Yeah, that was savage. Honestly, I just don't think you have many years in you like up my 2016. So I wrote a guidebook to Chamonix. So I was wrapping that up. That was going to be published in September 16. And obviously, as you get towards the end of writing a book, the workload increases, the importance and the stress and the timelines all tighten. So I had that. And then I did a project for National Geographic in the Dolomites in Italy. So every weekend I wasn't at the IFSC.

I had to, at the start of the summer, go, right, these are the weekends I can do with a friend of mine who's a photographer. I'm going to be in the Dolomites and we're going to be hiking and bivouacking to take pictures of sunrise and doing VFRAs. There's all this stuff going on. So the book, the National Geographic thing, and then the IFSC job comes along. And obviously the IFSC job is pretty intense. But back then it was far more intense.

Matt Groom was staying with me last week and I told him a million times that he just doesn't know he's born. This is what we did that first year. For a start, we had six World Cups in six weeks. So we did, yeah, so remember we did Meiringen, Japan, two in China, one in India, and then Innsbruck in six weeks. So I was in Asia for a month in the middle of all that. But the reason it was so savage was firstly I was learning the job.

I've done some live commentary before, but it's like this whole, it was completely overwhelming the job, just doing the job. But there was a team of three of us. So that was me and two guys. One of them did the live directing and one of them did the graphics and any other job that needed doing in the broadcast beyond direction and me commentating. So three of us.

So we would turn up in an arena and we would be laying the cables around the side of the arena with tape, taping them down, mounting cameras onto lead walls, installing the cameras. We were doing the manual setup of the broadcast. And then I would somehow try and learn this massive new job and actually do the commentary.

And then as soon as the event finished, the guy who had been directing started editing the highlights while me and the other guy then went around the arena, pulling up all the cables, reeling them in, cleaning the cable as you put it back on, loading the truck, like manual labor. And then when that was done, the highlights would be ready. I'd write the voiceover, we'd record the voiceover, put them together, put it out on YouTube.

So I was kind of doing, I was doing the manual labor of setting up a broadcast with cables and multiple cameras, doing the commentary and then also creating highlights package, usually about three o'clock in the morning, because that was how long it took when everything had finished. And then we'd go into multiple events and we had, I think that was the most events we ever had in one year. We had Youth World Championship, six events in the first six weeks. It was just a crazy year.

And it was just the most overwhelming job to me. And as I mentioned, had all these other things going on. So that when I had a week off, I was just immediately straight into something else. And I went at the end of the year, just before the end of the IFC season, I went to North Korea for five days.

And I'd always wanted to go, always wanted to go to North Korea. And so that was tourism, but it was still stressful. Like it's not, it wasn't like going and lying on the beach in Spain. So that was kind of, that was weighing on my mind for a couple of months before it. And when I was there, it's pretty full on being there. Yeah. I remember in 2016, just before Christmas, going for a hike with a friend of mine and I just couldn't walk up this hill.

I was psyched. My body just completely shut down. So that's a bit of a long answer and I'm not trying to be over dramatic. It was a fantastic year. I mean, I talk about cramming a lot into a year. But I was pretty relieved when IFC started supplying a bit of help. So I wasn't, you know, literally laying the cables out in arenas and stuff that I could work, because a little bit more on my part of the job.

So, but yeah, that if every year had been like 2016, there's no way I would have lasted five years. Yeah. I mean, that is a lot. And I'm also kind of curious about North Korea, because I don't think I know anyone who's been there. I didn't. Yeah. How do you even like get a tourism visa there? Well, now as an American, you can't. So that ship is the sail for you now. That's okay. Not planning on it.

No, but I'd always been fascinated by it. As I said, my background, my academic background was in politics. North Korea, just the idea that a state can exist outside the world, essentially on seemingly on another planet. That was fascinating to me. And so you can actually go as a tourist. I don't think they've had anyone in since Covid, but pre-Covid, they had I think about 2000 people were allowed to go every year. And so you pay a travel agency and they sort out the visa for you.

And it just so happened that I was in China just before one of their trips. And I thought, right, this is my chance. I'll never get the chance to go again. Were you scared to go? Yeah. Yeah. Very. Because if the if the wind changes, they could just if they took me prisoner, no one's coming to get me. You know, SEAL Team Six aren't going to land in a helicopter. That's it. Like it's it's over. So I was always aware that you are one stupid comment or one stupid action away from getting in trouble.

And now I was I was definitely scared to go. I wouldn't go back even though it all went off smoothly. But I was glad I saw it. And I think there's always a bit of a moral dilemma going to places where you don't agree with the people that run it. But I do think because there's essentially giving them money. But I do think that it's made me a better person and certainly more proactive in standing up for what I believe in.

So I'd like to think and obviously there's a bit of sugar coating going on, but I'd like to think that it made me it's been a net benefit. And but I would say that. But it was it was amazing to go. It was fascinating. It was horrifying. And if Americans are ever allowed back in and you feel like you want to adventure, then it's definitely an adventure. Yeah, not for me, but yeah, other people sounds it sounds very terrifying. But I'm glad you had that experience. And you know what they do.

They make every effort to make it not terrifying. Right. I've heard. Yeah. But that kind of makes it more terrifying. Yeah, it's it's it's like petting a really aggressive dog or whatever. And it'll sit there quietly. But, you know, in a second, it could just bite your arm off. And yeah, they're really trying to make it seem as if it's no big deal. I mean, just quickly again, we're not talking about climbing. But as just to give you an idea, we went to we drove to the DMZ.

The demilitarized and part of that was funny because there were people on the South Korean side taking pictures, like taking selfies, saying, oh, look, that's North Korea. I'm so close to North Korea. I'm seeing I'm standing here. I'm in North Korea. And they were kind of getting a bit of an adrenaline rush just taking a picture of the border. But yeah, when we when we drive in there, you drive along these highways and there is no traffic.

You just it's like there's been an Armageddon. You just this one vehicle on the highway. And we pulled into a service station. I think we were 13 in our group and you pull it into the restaurant and they go, oh, oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, we can feed you. Yeah. Yeah. Here's a table with 13 places. So obvious that they knew we were coming and they'd been preparing all day for it. And they put out the most elaborate kind of buffet.

And they'll have a hundred dishes like that big, full of tiny little stuff and just to try and show you the massive abundance they have, which obviously is complete nonsense. So it's it's a very interesting place to experience. Oh, yeah, that's crazy. I do like talk about it anywhere else. I feel like I would love to hear more about it, but we also have to talk about climbing. No, I haven't. No one's ever really asked me. I mean, friends have never never talked about it.

No, it's an amazing experience to go and it makes you appreciate your freedom. And when when I see. Honestly, when I see some of the things people complain about in the Western world and some of the outrage that you see, I just think you you don't know how good you've got it. I'm not saying that our world, our part of the world is perfect by any means, but if you have the right to protest and make your feelings heard, then you already have it better than every single person in North Korea.

So I think it's made me appreciate what I have and made me more willing to fight for it. And I think that's a good thing. Yeah, definitely gives you some perspective. So, OK, yeah. So back to 2016. So that was the end of your 2016. So the years after did it like were there fewer World Cups? So it was less on your plate or was it just you weren't doing any of the book stuff anymore. So it was also easier. Yeah, I had a little less on around it.

Obviously, by then I'd had enough practice doing the job that I wasn't why kind of drowning in the difficulty of the job. I was starting to get my head around it a little bit. We didn't have the same calendar. I said to them at the end of the first year, look, I'll do as many events as you want, but I'm not doing four back to back in Asia. I'm not going away for a month again. You want to do that? No problem. But I'll have to check out one or two of them.

And I think they probably realized it was a bit brutal. So, yeah, we had a few less events. I had a bit less going on around it. And I was starting to get to grips with the job, but it was still bloody hard. It's a hard job. It's not hard like digging ditches in North Korea, but it's still mentally a very taxing and demanding job and it requires a lot of it. So I still found it tough. But yeah, it was and we got a little bit of extra help with the actual broadcast production.

We had a few people at Kent Wong. There's a little bit of the heavy, literally heavy lifting of carrying boxes into arenas. So, yeah, it did get easier that next year, but it's still tough. Yeah. And so like earlier you mentioned that it was just like two other people doing production in the background. And then you got like a few more people. How has the production improved in the years that you were commentating?

I guess like past that. And if you have any insight into it, how has it improved since you've left?

I, after a couple of years when I wasn't just kind of overwhelmed by what I was doing and I was kind of getting to grips with it, I was getting my feet under the table. I was making the job my own a little bit. I really started to push in the off season to really work on what we were doing. And I had a lot of ideas, many of which might have been complete nonsense, but I was really keen to try and make the product better and make the broadcast better. And not many of that.

I didn't feel there was a huge appetite for that. I think most people seem to feel that what we were doing was fine and we should just keep doing it. And I was really, I really wanted to do a bit more than that. So the improvements that were made were not that huge. I mean, it got a bit better. It got tightened up a bit. So much of what you can do to make it better is free.

But I still got frustrated that there was a lot of things we could have done that were free and require no money, no effort. And would have made it better. I mean, to give you an example, I used to sometimes put together highlights, real at the end of the year and say, look, these are the things that we could just cut out tomorrow and it will cost you nothing. It'll just look better. So, for example, a lot of the World Cups, a person will stand with a clipboard.

What do you call clipboards in America? There's another name for them. No, it's clipboards. I've never heard of that. I was in Denver last week and I said, have you got a clipboard? And the woman went, what? And they had another name for it. No, it's always been called a clipboard. She was from Tennessee. Oh yeah, must be weird down there.

So, there'd be a person, generally a middle-aged guy, standing in the doorway on the entrance to the stage and they'd put their head out and the head judge would go, you know, send the climber out and the guy with the clipboard would call the climber out. And I would, I just said tiny little things like it looks crap when there's a guy with a clipboard, poke his head out of the athlete door in the final in front of a big crowd.

It would be so much better if he was standing around the corner and him and the judge communicated with the radio and we never see him and the climber bursts out of an empty door that they don't shuffle past some person holding a clipboard. It sounds ridiculous, but when you're watching it's just this tiny little mess that isn't necessary. And I also thought there's a lot you could do with how you filmed it, where you put the cameras. So there was, there was a lot I wanted to do.

And it did incrementally kind of creep up, but I thought there are a lot of easy wins that we left on the table. But I have to give a big credit to Matt Groom because since I left he's really pushed and pushed and pushed. And they are now doing a little bit more content behind the scenes. They started a podcast recently, some of the hosts on that are a little bit shaky. Come on. No, I'm only kidding. I'm looking forward to listening to it.

But no, there is a little bit more content coming around the scenes. But that took a, you know, there's been a lot of pushing on Matt's behalf and I was pushing before that. So it has incrementally got a little bit better, but I think you could, there's an awful lot you could do with it to make it a lot better. And just for the record, it went okay. I did mess up a little on the intro, but the rest of it went okay. Was it live? It was live.

It was live. That's what I was nervous about because I mean, usually during this I can cut out whatever stupid thing I say. And then, yeah, I'm definitely not used to live. So props to you for doing that for five years. It's exciting though, eh? That's by far the most enjoyable element of doing the IFSC job is that you are live and you are, yeah, you can't make a mistake. And it is happening in real time. I really enjoy that element of it, but it definitely is.

Why do you like that you could just say something stupid and have it live on forever? It's just, it's more of a challenge, isn't it? It's the reason that when you go for a run, you don't just, you know, you don't run as slow as you can. You run as fast as you can. It's that there's a challenge to doing something difficult and that's really appealing.

And when you're getting it right, it's the best feeling in the world. But by the same token, when you make a mistake, it is really, it really sticks in your gut. But yeah, the thrill of being live and hearing the countdown in your headphones is just something I really relished and still do whenever I get the chance to do it. Well, I guess speaking of mistakes, do any stick out to you from your five years there?

I mean, the whole of the first season, I was pretty crap, basically. I just, yeah, I hadn't appreciated the leap from just being a casual fan to actually having to talk about it all the time. Because you think you know it and then actually something happens and you aren't sure what should happen next or what you're supposed to say. And yeah, I remember we were in Mumbai. It was at the end of that month in Asia. I was honestly, I was so over it.

You're living on the road for a month away from family and with people who I'd only met five weeks earlier. And they were nice, nice people, but it's a month's a hell of a long time. And I was so bloody over it. And we had an event in Mumbai and I don't remember who it was. Might have been Rustam going off. Anyway, he got a top, but he didn't touch the zone on the way.

He found a way to do it without touching the zone. And I didn't know that if you get the top without touching the zone, you get the zone. You get awarded the zone. Should have known it, didn't know it. And I called it wrong. And then obviously I got this eight hour flight back from Mumbai the next morning. Just thinking, I can't believe I did that. And it is pretty mind. It doesn't matter. In the grand scheme of things, it's a climbing competition.

I mean, it doesn't matter. You wake up the next morning, the world's still turning. But it's still annoying when you feel like you've not done as good a job as you should have done. And it definitely bugged me when I made a mistake. But yeah, I certainly would not go back and listen to any 2016 broadcast because I would just want the ground to swallow me up. Did you get like a lot of hate comments about that that happening? I don't always read the comments.

I mean, the thing is, you actually know when you've done a good job, when you haven't done a good job. And I didn't not read comments. And we actually on our WhatsApp group, if there were any really funny comments about me personally, we would share them on the WhatsApp group.

Not if it was, I hate Charlie. He's a complete idiot. That's boring. But if someone came up with something like a witty insult about me, we would generally someone would spot it and then they'd share it on the WhatsApp group. And we kind of have a laugh about it like a unique insult. Yeah. If some people come up with the most amazing stuff, really.

But no, I don't. I didn't make a point of reading it. And you know when you've done a good job. And the first thing anyone said to me, everyone says when you say you're in broadcasting, if they want to give you some advice, is they'll say be yourself. And I just always, always, always tried to do that. Because if you're yourself, some people will like you, some people will not like you. If you pretend to be something you're not, a lot less people will like you.

So I didn't kind of, didn't read too much about what people were saying about me because I thought I'm just trying to do the best job I can. I'm trying to genuinely be myself as best I can within the constraints of being professional and the job I've got.

But if people don't like it, they don't like it. And so, and as I say, I knew you know yourself when you've messed up. You don't need anyone to tell you. And there are definitely some broadcasts you finish and you think, yeah, that wasn't great. Or that was, that was a bit flat. Or you made a mistake or you should have said this. I don't need anyone to tell me that.

But I did have people whose opinion I valued who would tell me what they thought. And if I, sometimes you'd finished a broadcast and you think, I don't know about that one. I'm not sure how that went. Then I read the comments and sometimes people would say nice things and bad things. But some people would say unpleasant things. But you can't live by what people say about you because A, some people will like you and some people won't.

But also, it's a specific type of person that goes on YouTube and leaves a comment. I am an average YouTube watcher. You know, it's like my go-to for something to watch is YouTube. And I can honestly say I've never left a YouTube comment. Well, you're not helping the algorithm. No, tell me about it. I don't even subscribe to things. I don't really get what. Oh, come on. No, I know. Sorry. I'm pretty sure I'm subscribed to this. Oh, well, thank you.

Yeah, I think I've subscribed to about four things. Oh, wow. Such an honor. But yeah, you don't need someone to tell you, you've done a bad job. And I know full well when I've done a bad job. So, I don't stress about it. I was, I really enjoyed the episode with Matt, by the way. I got so much love on that.

My ego was this undeserved, in my ad. Matt's there on his own merit. But yeah, I was surprised. He reads everything every time. You've got to have a pretty sick, you need a sick hide to do that. You've got to have a hide like a rhinoceros to deal with that because reading not nice things about yourself and you're trying your best.

You've flown to the other side of the world and you're jet lagged and you're away from your family. And then people give you a hard time for their perceived, your perceived failures. That's pretty hard to take. So I'm kind of impressed that he reads it all. Yeah, take some guts. Tough guy. Yeah, I guess speaking of Matt, do you have any like go to phrases or anecdotes like he does?

No, I enjoy the Matt Bingo. And then people pointed out some of mine. Yeah, what are those? Coming out next. Apparently I used to say all the time, penultimate. Apparently I use the word penultimate a lot. But just to give people an insight, I used to, you have 26 men, 26 women in the lead semifinals. There's 52, 52 people are going to come out and they're going to fall off at some stage.

So in a lead, in one lead semifinal in a year when you might have six lead World Cups, World Championships, Youth World Championships with three age categories. I, and with bouldering the 20 climbers in the semifinal, 20 men, 20 women, that's 40. I remember I calculated that basically in the course of a season, several thousand people will come out and start climbing. And in the vast majority of cases are going to fall off at some stage. You just can't avoid repeating yourself.

And so, yeah, I definitely, apparently penultimate was one of them. Yeah, coming out next. I'm trying to remember. I don't feel like people kind of latched onto mine in the same way they have with Matt. I'm kind of jealous. He's like got this following of people that are playing Matt Bingo. I don't get the impression people did that with me. But yeah, in a sport like climbing, it's basically, it's not basically, it's completely impossible not to say the same thing over and over again.

The way to think about the IFSC job is imagine the next time you watch a climbing comp and you have to talk from the second it starts until the second it ends. And you can't stop talking. So you can't go for a pee break. You can't rewind and say anything again. You have to talk from second one to the end of whatever it is, four hours without a break and without pausing.

Watch it back. And if you didn't say anything that you'd like to change, then you should immediately call the IFSC and take Matt Griebus job. Yeah, it's impossible not to repeat yourself. So I must have had, I definitely had some. Yeah, I feel like people probably underestimate how difficult the job is. Because I mean, they're like sitting there and watching and they can point out all these little things. But it's easy to sit at home and go, oh, he's not noticed this or he's not said that.

And then you lie back on the couch for five minutes and you go, oh, he's not noticed this. And you think, yeah, OK, well, instead of the five minutes on the couch, since the TV came on, you've had to be talking. I always tried and tried to keep in perspective. It's not in North Korea. It's not digging ditches. It's not a hard job, but it is more mentally challenging than I think people realize.

Because when you're sitting at home, it's so easy with a cup of tea every 10 minutes to point out a mistake made by the commentator. When you've just had the last 10 minutes with no stress, nothing to think about, no one talking, you're it. All you're doing is sipping your cup of tea and then you suddenly come out with this insight. That's great. But if you've not had that break and you've just been on for three hours up until that point, it's a very it's a very different thing.

And it is a hard job as much as a job talking about climbing can be hard. Yeah, especially commentating through the really slow points like when they're waiting for podiums or something like that. I don't even know what you talk about. This is one of the things that I was always. I was just the guy in their ears and you need to tighten this up. We don't need all this dead time. We don't want all this dead time. You watch Free Ride World Tour, the skiing, the podium is instantaneous.

I mean, the person's come down, they barely got their helmet and goggles off and they're getting thrown on the podium. And there is so much dead time in those broadcasts and it's really hard to fill it. And it doesn't really need to be there. I would I would take apart the formats, but easy for me to say. But yeah, there is there's a lot of dead time and filling it is when Mike Langley and I so Mike and I was probably before your time. I started watching fairly recently, so quite likely.

And for a couple of years there was an investment in having a co commentator pretty much permanently or certainly for European events and world championships. And Mike and I really worked on our partnership and we were always geeking out. Could we do this? Can we say this? Could we put it better? What about the pitch and the tone and the speed? And we were always trying to figure it out.

So when I had Mike there and him and I had spent hours and hours on Zoom calls discussing how to do it better and how we could improve those long pauses weren't too bad. But yeah, they feel bloody long when you with you with someone who may not be that responsive or when sometimes there is just nothing to say. And you just have to keep up this stream. So, yeah, it's a credit to Matt. He does a great job filling those silences. And yeah, I think he certainly does it a lot better than I did.

It does the whole job a lot better than I did. But he he's especially good at silence filling.

Yeah, that's quite a skill. What are some like tips that you gave Matt during the time of handoff or is there anything you hear him doing now that you want to give him feedback on? No, no, no. The pattern for my work life has been that I've had a job then Matt's come along and done it better than I did. So he no, he doesn't need any advice from me. I mean, he did a couple of World Cups with me, so he kind of knew what he was getting into.

And obviously, we talked a lot beforehand about what life would be like doing the job and things you perhaps don't see from a viewer's perspective that he would need to think about. But in terms of how to do it now, he doesn't he doesn't need any advice from me. I also think you have to you basically have to completely lose it the first year or two, just basically be overwhelmed. Not I was crap. Matt was not crap, but he he wasn't as good as he is now.

But I think that's just something you have to go through. You could get all the advice in the world. But until you've done a full year of traveling, making the highlights, finding co commentators, doing interviews, filling the dead space till you've done it all. There's this no real point getting advice. You just got to do it. So no, I didn't I didn't have a lot of advice from I still don't know how he does a great job. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of like every job.

The issue is just that yours is very, very public facing. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And people are there to most people get a job and they're completely crap at it for six months and then they figure out how to do it. And the difference, as you say, is that everyone's watching you be crap at it for six months. But Matt came in, I think, and immediately was pretty good at it. But he's got an awful lot better. And I think he's really owning it now. He really is the voice of it.

And no, I got no advice. He stayed with me last week or two, anyway, a while ago for a week. It was really good to have him. But yeah, obviously, we're comparing notes. I don't like this person. I kind of bitching away, not just bitching away, but you can kind of say, so what do you think of this person? I found him a bit tricky. I found this person a bit tricky. So it's kind of fun to compare notes on how we'd found working with different people and the circuit in general.

And it was really fun. We had a really good time talking about it, and it was really good to have him. He's doing a great job.

OK. And you did decide to leave after five years. Yeah, I guess, why did you decide to leave the gig? Please excuse this brief intermission, but I would just like to remind you that if you are enjoying this podcast, please follow and rate it on your preferred listening platform. If you're watching on YouTube, I would love to hear your discussion and thoughts in the comments below. Anything helps to push this podcast out to more people and get even more amazing guests on. Back to the show.

I think when I started, it was clear climbing was going to be an Olympic sport and it was going to be in 2020. And when I started in 2016, 2020 seemed impossibly far away. If you try and picture five years from now, your brain can't really do it. So in my head, there was always a very logical five year time span to do it in. And I definitely could and would have stayed.

But when we talked earlier about how stressful that 2016 year was and how full on it was, and I still found it very challenging and I'm still always trying to get better. And I still got nervous before every broadcast, but I did kind of just know how to do it. And when it got to 2020, obviously, the whole world had a pretty tricky year. So I had a lot of time to think about it.

And I thought the next five years don't feel as challenging, nerve wracking, exciting, terrifying as it did five years ago. And I think if, as I said, there's a lot I would like to have done and I really would love to have been striving constantly to make it better and to really improve what we were doing. But if that, if it was going to just be more of the same, which is what I felt it was going to be, then it just didn't excite me in quite the same way.

And yeah, it's not a job you can do half heartedly. As I've said multiple times, it's not hard, hard, but you need to be up. And if you're there thinking, just collecting a paycheck here, you just can't do the job. You've got to be up. And when I realized I wasn't as excited about it anymore, I thought, well, it's just not right to do it if I'm not excited.

So, yeah, it just felt like the logic, I guess I'd always had in the back of my head, I'd never said it, but I suppose I'd always had in the back of my head, the Olympics would be kind of a logical place to finish. And as that approached, nothing really changed my mind about that. Yeah, I guess I kind of see a theme here where you are always seeking a new challenge. Yeah, yeah, I think so.

And I think as in a way, although you're always trying to get better and although it still makes you nervous and it's still difficult, it was less and less challenging. But it still required the same amount of energy. You still got to be on the road. You still got to be away. You still got to be just as up and as excited, whether it's your 100th World Cup or your first. And I just wasn't sure that I could keep that up.

And I just didn't think it was right. I kind of felt like I was running out of steam a little bit. So, yeah, but I mean, I could have for sure I could have stayed. And if I felt like it was going to be as challenging as it had been, then I would definitely have stayed. But yeah, just the prospect of kind of just doing more of the same didn't really excite me. And I thought, well, what was I? So I was 36 when I stopped. And I was kind of thinking, well, if I do another five years, I'll be 41.

So do I really want to be 41 looking for a new job because I'm sure I'll be done with it by then? Or do I just do it forever? And I thought, bloody hell, I can't do it until I'm 65 or whatever when I retire. So it was just trying to not outstay my welcome and finding a logical time. Yeah, it just felt like the logical time. And so what have you been up to since then?

What are your new challenges? Well, most of my work now is writing. So I have a permanent part time job as in the content department. Amazing company called Fatmap recently acquired by Strava. So I guess I kind of work for Strava now, writing and managing other writers as well. So most of my work is writing. Also, get do some commentary. I mean, when I left IFSC, I just thought, well, I won't be doing any more climbing commentary.

But then very flattered. The Fedim's rung a few times. I think I did four last year. And yeah, I didn't put myself out as commentator to hire. But if someone calls you up and offers you some enjoyable work in a nice part of the world, then I'm definitely into that. So do that. Yeah. Some commentary enough to keep my hand in. And also working on some very exciting projects within the climbing world. I'm definitely not done by any means in the climbing world.

Yeah. And we will have to see what comes of them. I'm assuming you're nothing you're allowed to talk about at this moment. No. But put it this way, if it happens, you won't be going, I know, I remember Charlie was saying he had some projects. I wonder if they ever worked out. If you never hear from about it, you'll know it didn't work out. And you'll also know if it does work out. So yeah, we'll see. Working hard on a few things behind the scenes. But I will have to just take the fifth.

Hopefully it will work out and we'll be really excited to see. So yeah, you've been very involved in the climbing community. You did a lot of traveling for the job with a bunch of athletes.

Would like when you look back on that, was that a fun time for you or was it mostly just stressful? It's both. I think like any job, any experience, it's not all unicorns and rainbows. There are definitely some World Cups and I'd be sitting in the airport thinking, I just cannot be bothered. Squeezing into an economy seat for 11 hours to fly to some city in Western China for a World Cup that no one's going to come to.

For sure. But by the same token, there are a lot of great people and you do get to spend a lot of time with pretty exceptional people. A lot of people on the circuit would never be known to the public. Could be a physio from a team, could be anyone. Head coach who I really got on with. So a lot of people wouldn't even be well known to the public and I really enjoyed their company. So I enjoyed hanging out with a lot of the people on the circuit and enjoyed a lot of the travel.

I got to see a lot of the world I wouldn't have seen. I've always had jobs where I traveled a lot and I really enjoy that feeling of always kind of moving around. So I enjoyed 90% of the travel. But yeah, there's definitely moments where you just do not want to go. And there are definitely moments where you get two hours sleep because you jet lagged or because the hotel's next to a highway. And you've got to be up next morning and just as excited for that league semifinal.

And sometimes that can be really hard. It's just kind of turning yourself on when actually all you want to do is be jet lagged and drinking coffee. So yeah, it's like any job. Parts of it are really fun and easy and parts of it are crap and tiring. Yeah. And you've also interviewed a lot of athletes. Are there any favorite interviews you've done that come to mind or people who are really easy to talk to, people for me to reach out to in the future? Not so much interviews.

I think the nice thing is actually spending time with people where they're not being interviewed because an interview inherently is a very, it's quite a formal setting. I know me and you are talking now, but I'm in the back of my head thinking, don't say anything terrible on this podcast. You know, there's a filter. You wouldn't want to cut it out if I said something really good though. Oh, that's true. But no, you've kind of got this. There's a kind of filter it's running through.

So when you're interviewing the athletes, it's never quite the same as when you're just chatting. So I think I really enjoyed getting to know some of the athletes and understanding what being an elite athlete is all about. And there aren't many climbers who are, who live their lives like true elite athletes. There's still that kind of dirtbag culture where maybe their diet's not great, they don't sleep as much as they should or all this stuff.

But spending time with people that are bona fide elite athletes is amazing. And I really enjoy getting to pick the brains of a few of the top climbers, but it was rarely in an interview setting. It was normally somewhere less formal than that. So that was an amazing insight. Yeah, for sure was getting to understand what the life of an elite athlete is like. Doesn't actually look that appealing, I have to be honest. But that's how you get good.

Can you think of who is like the most dirtbag pro climber that you know and like the most elite athlete lifestyle person that you know? In terms of dirtbagging, I can say this because I like him a lot. Jim Pope from the UK always used to crack me up. I remember one summer, him and Will Boese were just kind of slumming it around the World Cups. And I just loved their kind of irreverent British style of doing things.

And they were just so stoked that they were spending their whole summer climbing in front of 10,000 people in Chamonix, going to Briensom, going to Arco and like experiencing all these places and having these massive experiences. And they were just dirtbagging it around. And I just loved it. I loved. I'm not even sure. Even now, five years later, I think it was maybe it's summer 18, 17, 18, something like that.

I'm not even sure now that anyone's doing that. But I remember those guys, Jim coming in. He said, oh yeah, we slept in the woods. We found this awesome spot in the woods and they were on a really tight budget. And you just had like a baguette. And I said, oh, what are you having on your baguette? He said, I'm having baguette on my baguette. It's all I can afford. And everyone was, I loved it. I thought it was great. And obviously Will's pretty strong right now and Jim's still going strong.

They're both making good careers for themselves. But I loved seeing them at that kind of early stage, just really enjoying the lifestyle. But I'd be harsh to call them dirtbags. They're both pretty serious people. But they were kind of, they were definitely slumming it around Europe. I loved it. I thought it was exactly what you should be doing when you're young and carefree. Like they would sleep in the woods before a World Cup? Yeah, it was just, it was crazy.

And I also ran into Jim in Xiamen Airport in China. And he was supposed to fly the day before and I was in departure. I said, what are you doing here? And he always, there's been some long tale about how his flight got canceled or whatever. He'd had to like move around Xiamen Airport, finding different spots to sleep. But then he was absolutely delighted because he found a bit of cardboard somewhere and managed to sneak in behind some seats and sleep for three hours and uninterrupted.

Yeah, I had Hachioji World Championships in 2019. I hung out with Jim a lot and we had a really good time. He's a great guy. So he was, Jim Pope in his early days was probably my favorite semi dirtbag, albeit he was absolutely crushing in the World Cups at the time. So it wasn't harmonious performance. In terms of elite athletes, Yanye obviously. Everyone always said that I give Yanye too much love on the commentary.

It's probably valid, but she's the best climber pound for pound who's ever lived. So she probably deserves it. And Adam, Adam Ondra. You know, that guy, that guy is into climbing more than anyone else. And I went, there's one season where it just always seemed like me and Adam were on the same flight, we're on the same bus, we were staying in the same hotel. I just seemed to be everywhere I went, I was running into him and kind of just spent lots of time chatting. And yeah, he is so into it.

And he is an exceptional physical specimen. But I would say if people think that he's this genetic freak and that is their excuse for not being Adam Ondra. If they just say, well, I can't be Adam. He's got the perfect build for it in his hands. He's got the most perfect hands for climbing. I've never seen a hand more designed for climbing. But like, if people think that that is why he's Adam Ondra, then they are kidding themselves.

The reason he's Adam Ondra is because he thinks about it more than anyone else. He focuses on it more than anyone else. And he sacrifices more to be good at it than just about anyone else I've ever met. So if people want to know why Adam Ondra is Adam Ondra, just follow around for a month, do what he does for a month and you'll be no doubt why he's the guy he is. So I always found Adam a very interesting athlete.

OK, so they kind of take everything seriously, like their sleep, their nutrition, their training. Yeah, and I remember hearing about this. One of Michael Schumacher's teammates in Formula One said to him, I can't go as fast as Michael around turn three at Monaco, whatever it was. And the team boss said, look, don't worry about turn three. Just just follow around for a month. Just do what he does for one month and you'll you'll get it.

And so that's where I kind of stole that story to relate to Adam is is the level of thought he gives everything is insane. There is no element of climbing or climbing comps that he has not micro analysed and thought about on a level beyond anyone else. He is completely obsessed with it. I mean, head over heels, besotted with climbing. And yeah, it's it's just. I think it's it's an easy way out to say he's a genetic freak. And the same is true of Janja. Well, I'll never be them. Look at them.

You honestly probably won't be them, but you could get a hell of a lot closer if you lived like they live and you did what they did. I mean, this is I don't know. I don't know how anyone thinks this is true, but there was this kind of perception that Janja didn't need to train. She's so good. You know, she she doesn't she doesn't train as much as everyone else. So she could get away with less. But I know someone that trains with Janja a lot. And this person said Janja is great.

I really like her as a me. I mean, I like her as a person, but this person who trained with her said when Janja trains, it is war. It's on. It's not less of a little boulder and a play around. And when it's training, like it is on and the blinkers are on and she is training and she trains harder than anyone else. So, yeah, I think the kind of seeing what it takes to be elite. And I think those two, I think most people would say those two are.

Adam's maybe not the most dominant comp climber of all time, but the best climber of all time. And Janja is the best comp climber of all time. And understanding that and Jakob Schubert was the same, by the way, also a late shout out in that answer for Jakob Schubert. If you ever get talking to Jakob over dinner, he's like. He's like Adam, he's just so into it. And I think it shows. Yeah, I would love to talk to them one day. I feel like they they just like have so much love for it.

I remember one time in like one of the post comp interviews after Jakob won, he gave like a really great post comp interview. I feel like a lot of times in the interview, people just say like the same things. But he just like could not stop talking about how great it was and how much he enjoyed it. So I love seeing that. Yeah. And if you could have two things, I think as an athlete to succeed, passion and desire would be the two traits I would choose.

You've got to love it more than anything. If training is a chore, forget it. Training is always a chore once a week. But if in general you find training a chore, you might as well give up now. You've got to be so passionate about it and you've got to be driven. You've got to have that desire to succeed. And a lot of the climbers, a lot of athletes in general, they'll get to, if we relate it to IFSC terms, regular semifinalist. And they just don't have that fire in their belly to do what's next.

And I think one thing I realized is desire isn't about saying you want it. It's about being willing to do what it takes to get it. And so everyone, you'll never meet a regular World Cup semifinalist who goes, yeah, I'm good. I don't want to get any better. They'll all say they want to get better, but they don't do what is required to take that next step. And I wouldn't. I'm not holding myself up as an example of this. I couldn't be bothered, but that's why I haven't succeeded.

So I'm not in any way saying, look, I know I'm talking about because I've lived it. But it's, yeah, if you spend enough time on the circuit, you won't be in any doubt why the best people are the best. And you also watch a lot of other sports as well. Do you still watch like every competition or do you ever, you just like can't be bothered? No, sometimes I can't be bothered. I mean, I don't think a lot of the comps aren't entertaining.

So a lead semifinal, for example, probably watch the last hour because that's when we all know people are actually going to get into the final. And with a Boulder comp, normally I'll have it on, but it's kind of in the background. And this is something I've been banging on about for years. You're asking a lot of people to get them to watch the week before, four hours. Not many people are going to just sit down and zone in for four hours.

So, yeah, I do watch the comps, but if it's nice and sunny outside and people want to go climbing, I'm not staying in to watch the World Cups, put it that way. But I'll at least watch the key moments for virtually every World Cup. And if it suits me and if it suits, I'll watch the whole thing. But yeah, I don't arrange my weekend around it. Okay, that actually perfectly segues into the next thing I wanted to know. Because you mentioned that you don't find it particularly entertaining sometimes.

How do you think it could be made more entertaining to watch? Slash the number of people in a lead semi. Why do we have 26? Where did 26 come from? There's just no need for that. And then you've got the cleaning break in the middle. So lead semis is a quick fix. How many? Put 15 in wall. 15? I don't know. Whatever number. But if you made it 20 instead of 26, that's a dozen less people to watch. And lead semis, with a few exceptions, people make mistakes.

Sometimes you get someone awesome who's kind of out of place in the semi finally. They will make the final, but more or less haven't done any statistical analysis on this. But more or less the people that get in the final climb after the cleaning break. So that's the second, the last 13 make it into the final. So I would slash the number of people in a lead semi final. I didn't agree when it happened that the men's and women's finals in the bouldering should be separate.

That seemed to divide opinion. Maybe I was biased because I was the poor guy who was suddenly going to have to talk for four hours instead of two. But I did not agree with that and I still don't agree with it now. I think you could have a split screen. You could even say on the last boulder, which is when the final is likely to be decided, they'll climb separately. But up until that, we're going to run them together.

And you immediately halve the amount of time that the competition takes and you don't have the action. And people are right in that you may miss something for sure, but we can get a replay. And to me, occasionally missing something and seeing it 10 seconds later on the replay is better than a four hour broadcast. So I never I was never into that at the time. I'm not into it now. I would find a much more dramatic and easy to understand format for bouldering. Not saying I have the answers.

But when the scoring is so complex, it's really it makes it tougher to watch. It makes it really tough to commentate. I guess like what is particularly complex about it? Just understanding the potential. I mean, we're climbing boulders and somehow we have a scoring system that's four numbers. And I'm sure there can be a better way than that. And I think you could make bouldering so much more dramatic and easy to understand.

And I definitely have some ideas on that, but I don't want to give them away in case I ever get the opportunity to put them to use. Like if there was ever a comp that I was involved in, I would love someone to come and say, what do you think? We're going to do a comp. Give me a format. I'd love to kind of dream something up. And I think there's a ton you could do with it. So, yeah, slash lead semi-finals.

Boulder semi-finals are great just the way they are, but I would also put the men's and women's finals together again. I would come up with a simpler scoring system. There'd be good places to start. Yeah, I think in the Clown Climbing Discord for the podcast, someone mentioned that it would be interesting to have like a gym that just does a bunch of like experimental competition formats. Sounds like something that you might be interested in.

Yeah. I mean, and this is kind of what I was talking about. I was always thinking, look, how do we make this better? Yeah, okay. This is a format. That's fine. We know that this format is going to the Olympics. It's fine. It's all decided. But in the off season, why don't we just get a bunch of climbers together and say, hey, let's try some formats. Let's try some new scoring systems. Let's run it. Let's see. It doesn't cost much. We rent a gym for a day.

We'll get some youth climbing teams from wherever you want. And we'll just fire them on the walls and we'll try some stuff out. Let's try a new style of setting. Let's try two zones. Let's try three zones. Let's try numbering the holds. Let's try something. That's what I'd love to see. I'm not saying I'm not sitting here saying I've got all the answers. You listen to me. The sport will be amazing.

But I think what you could do is invest some time and resources into exactly what you just suggested. Let's just see. Let's try it. Let's do something. Doesn't work. Doesn't matter. No problem. We've got to work in format. We're in the Olympics. It's all good. You know, we're fine. But can we be better? That's what I'd love to see. Yeah, that's my dream. Like, if I could have a gym, I would so do that. And it would be so much fun. It's just so expensive.

Yeah, I went to the World and North Climbing Summit in Bulgaria last year. Yeah, I concluded you need a lot of money to open a decent climbing gym. That's my biggest takeaway. Yeah, big dream. If anyone's out there who wants me to help out with their gym or give me some money to make a gym, let me know. Can I just also put myself forward for that as well? Sure. Yeah. And if something happens for you and you're interested in me helping out with your competitions in your gym, let me know.

Yeah, sadly, unless I find a million bucks behind the couch, I'm a million bucks short of opening a gym. But you never know, we can't but dream. Well, now we have a goal amount. Exactly. Let's start a crowdfunding. Yeah.

But yeah, something else interesting that I heard you say before, I think on another podcast was that you think climbers are too friendly with each other. Do you still feel like that's the case? Yeah. Look, I'm not and I've said this on a few occasions and I think sometimes people have taken it the wrong way, which is my fault. I should be playing it better. And no problem with people being friendly and respectful. That's great.

But I think climbing sometimes doesn't feel like it's about winning. And I think it should be about winning. It's a competition. And if you can be friendly with the person you compete against, more power to you. If you can't, I don't really care. I want it to be a competition. And I think that in some ways, one of the things holding the sport back or holding the athletes back, you know how I said about Adam and Yan, you're an example and Jacob have to.

Jacob really should have gotten more of a shout out. They are competitors. They make no secret of the fact that they want to win and they want to beat the person next to them. And I think sometimes climbing is kind of mired in this culture that it doesn't matter if you don't win as long as your friend wins or, oh, I didn't mind coming second today because I really like this person that was first. I don't think that is the way it should be done. I think it's fine to be competitive.

It's fine to want to win. It's fine to be disappointed when you don't win. And we could do with a little bit more of that in climbing. And that's how the sport will become more competitive. But I think people have sometimes mistaken that for me saying everyone should be ruthless. It should be like the UFC. It's not that at all. But we people need to be open about the fact they want to win. And I really like climbers that just say, yeah, I want to win. I really like winning.

I don't want to be second. And I think when we I think as there's more more money in the sport and the Olympics, I think we'll see it become more genuinely competitive. So you don't think it's like we should have some more some more drama. All publicity is good publicity. There should be some beef between athletes. I mean, I got I got no problem with that, but I don't think that's net.

I don't think the UFC model where basically you're trying to sell pay per views and the way to sell pay per views is to say the most outrageous thing you can about your opponent. I don't think that's the right model for climbing. I don't think climbers need to be having overt rivalries on social media. I don't think it's bad. I don't think it's a bad thing if they do.

Golf is probably a good example of where when live golf came along a couple of years ago, the players really started going after each other. It really got people interested in golf again. Oh, I don't think I heard of this. So private league came along in golf and some people defected from the existing federation. It's not a federation, but essentially defected to this private league because it could make a load more money.

And then some players stayed with the more traditional events and there became this kind of battle between the players, which hasn't actually been resolved. But it's I think it's it's made people more interested in golf. And that's not necessarily right for climbing. But I don't think we need social media beefs and people genuinely make it clear. They don't like each other. That's too much. You can like your competition, but you can also be desperate to beat.

And I think people just people being open about the fact they want to win and dropping this. Yeah, I don't mind if I win as long as you win type thing, I think would make sport more competitive. I think it would be funny, though, if there was beef. There is beef. It's just you don't hear about it. Oh, no. Yeah. Interesting. You can't expect me to elaborate on that. I know. I know. But it's just it's hard when you like bring that up and then. Yeah, I was dangling that carrot.

Yeah. Yeah. Something to find out in the future, I guess. Well, I guess I wouldn't be giving away the world's biggest secret if I said that the IFC circuit is several hundred people. And when you put several hundred people together, some of them don't like each other. So it would be, you know, nobody I'm sure thinks that every climber likes every other climber equally. I mean, inevitably in any walk of life, people like more than others. So that is just as true in climbing as anywhere else.

But as I say, I don't believe that airing those beefs in public is is necessarily the way to go. But you could still be competitive and overtly competitive. I still think that would be great. Yeah, I think that covers all the questions I had. So we can move into some of the discord questions that popped up.

I think the first one we might have touched on a little bit, but if you have anything else to add to it, what changes would you like to see both how comps are run in general as well as how broadcasts are handled? I would like to see the broadcast just tightened up. You know, let's let's be more creative with how we film it. Let's have more personnel in the broadcast truck so the director can have a little less workload. He can have more shots to choose from.

He can have people help him choose the shots. Let's let's get the event running that bit slicker. Let's not have the guy standing in the doorway with the clipboard. Let's not have a 20 minute break before the podium. You know, none of this costs a penny. An extra person in the Obi-Jan costs them. A few bucks. You know, you just tighten it all up. Let's make it look neat on camera. Let's let's curtain the side of the wall so you can't see the scaffolding.

There's all this stuff, you know, that's easy, easy fixes. So I would tighten the whole thing up. And I would, as you say, I've already said what I would do with lead format, older format. I don't have the answer, but I would love to see some research being done into how it could be better. By the way, all this could be nonsense. And someone might be listening to this and thinking, I don't think that's the answer. And they could well be right.

So I'm not holding myself up as the guy with the answers. But if you're asking, that's what I'd do. Is it is this like coming from previous other broadcasting experience that you've had that these like ideas come to you or just looks bad to you? When I was at IFC, you're watching. You're one of the few people who watches every second that's broadcast in a year. And so you just notice all these things. God, it always looks a bit messy around the side of the wall.

I wish there weren't people walking around. I wish the stage was a bit higher so that when we had the camera from the crowd height, we weren't looking at the back of people's heads. None of this is going to transform the sport. But it's the stuff I notice and it's the stuff you could fix tomorrow. But no, it's it's just from observing it. And yeah, I mean, obviously I work on other broadcasts and a lot of what the IFC do is is really good and a lot of it's better than other people.

But sometimes I'll go to another job and I think, well, the way they did that was really good. IFC should think about that.

So it's just observation, really. All right. Next question. I think there's been a lot of talk about getting rid of ISO lately. What do you think about that? If it should be removed and what you think would work instead? You should get rid of it for sure. But obviously that requires a reimagining of the format because obviously if you're the last climber, you get to see everyone else do it. So again, I'm not going to sit here and say, here's what you should do. Here's the answer.

But I would get rid of ISO for sure. And probably the main reason I would do that is going back to making the sport more overtly competitive or exciting. We don't see any reactions. So if I'm on a boulder and I don't top it and I go back into ISO and you top it, no one sees my face reacting to what's happened. So there's no, it kind of takes all the emotion out of it because these people that are competing against each other, you can't even see them.

And I think it would be great if there was a world championship on the line. And I know I didn't top the boulder and I'm watching you. And there's a camera on me watching my reaction. That's great TV. It's human emotion. It's drawing people in. And if you put people in a windowless room behind the wall, then you lose all that. So I would for sure have add that emotional human side to it and remove isolation. But the question is, what do you do with the format to enable that?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to that because yeah, I didn't really think about the emotional side of it. Because I think a lot of people's favorite climbers are the climbers who show how they're feeling the most like Stashe, for example. Yeah, Stashe is great. I was in Germany about six weeks ago and I went out for dinner with Stashe. She's great. Yeah, what a fun person. What a competitor. She is exactly the person I think about when I think about this.

I would love to see Stashe's reaction when someone either does or doesn't beat her.

I mean, that would just who wouldn't tune in to watch that? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. OK, last question. How do you think IFSC could grow the sport? If you have any ideas for that. The need to find some way of linking what goes on in competitions with what goes on in a gym. Because climbing is a very high participation sport, but IFSC events relative to that number of participants have very low viewers.

So you need to in some way make people all these millions of people that are going to a gym but aren't watching your competitions. You need to somehow link your comps to what they're doing. Because right now it feels in the climbing world like you've got gyms being built at an unbelievable rate. I mean, the rate that climbing gyms have been going up now is incredible and it's not slowing down. It's not for the foreseeable future next five years.

It's not going to slow down. It's going to keep going and participation keeps going. And every time you build a gym, it doesn't spread out the people that are already climbing in that city. Just adds to the number of people who are climbing in that city. It is just growing at an insane rate. And yet I don't feel like interesting comps is scaling at the same rate.

So you need to, yeah, you somehow got to find a way to make all those millions of people who are coming to the sport every year suddenly care about your comps. Any ideas? Plenty. But I think the things we've already discussed would be part of that. You know, make it better to watch. Bring the human emotion side into it. So tighten up the broadcast, make the format faster, slicker. I'm not advocating that climbing becomes a ninja warrior and it's all speed, speed, speed.

Let's get it done as fast as we can. Put the men's and women's boulder finals together. Slash a number of lead semifinalists. Make the scoring a bit simpler. Let's have some emotion. Let's get the climbs out of ISO. Draw people in. Make the comps easier to watch. That's a huge part of it. So actually, do you think that maybe like speed climbing has a figure out since it seems like the general public prefers watching that over bouldering or lead?

Yes. I mean, I'm not an average fan. I mean, when it's good, it's good. But there's definitely some speed World Cups where it doesn't feel that exciting. But I think as the world records have really begun to come down, you're kind of tuning in in case you're there for that world record. I think my assertion would be that speed climbing in the Olympics is more popular, but I don't think the viewership of speed climbing World Cups would suggest that it's the most popular discipline.

Oh, sure. Yeah. So I don't think it is actually attracting a big audience. I think at the Olympics, people go, oh, I get that. Yeah, yeah. Whoever gets the top first is the winner. That's great. But I don't think that means a lot of climbers are watching it. And I don't think it's like the climbing audience at all. They had a speed route in Innsbruck when I lived there. And I remember talking to a well-known member of the Austrian climbing team who must remain nameless.

He goes, have you ever seen anyone actually do the speed route apart from a warm up? He goes, the whole point of having speed in the Olympics was it was going to increase participation, get climbers interested in speed. He said to me, he goes, you ever see anyone working on their speed? Who is an athlete gunning for the Olympics? And he goes, people just use it as a warm up. And it's like a novelty thing.

So I would love to change the format of speed as well. You know what I'd do with speed? I would change the route every year. So on the 1st of January, I'd say, right folks, here's the route. And you've got to learn a new one every year because when you have the Arco Rotmaster of a year, they have the dual and they set a route that's in Euro terms, it's like 7CAA and they race and the climbers race head to head against each other.

And so every time they do it, they get better at it and they get faster. And so you've not only got to do the route, you've got to do it faster than last time. I think it's a great format, maybe not appropriate for lead comps. It feels slightly gimmicky. It feels slightly novelty. I don't think it's what lead comp should be. Lead should be about it being really hard and you falling off at some stage.

I think speed could learn a lesson from it. How good would that be if they said, right, the speed route this year is in Euro terms 6B. Or this year it's 6C or this year it's 6A, whatever. And this is the route and now you've got to learn it. And you would see progression as the season goes on. People are figuring out the route. The times are falling all the time. Obviously you lose the world record element of it because every year the course would change.

But yeah, the prospect that there might be a world record once or twice a season isn't nearly as entertaining to me as the idea of people really figuring out a new route every year and seeing them think a bit more. That would be interesting. I think what you mentioned earlier about people not doing the speed route unless they're pros, at least here in the US, it's just not accessible. You're not allowed to go on the speed route unless you're serious about it.

I'm not sure if a lot of people would want to, even if that wasn't the case. I think for someone like me, I would love to try the speed route and make improvements, but I'm not allowed to. Well, okay. I think I've tried it a few times. And it's fun, but I don't see many people who make the leap from trying it to trying to be really good at it. They'll try it a few times and try doing the jump or whatever.

It's kind of fun for a second, but I don't see anyone going into the gym working on the speed time. Is it not locked down for you guys? Yeah, I think in Innsbruck it just had an auto belay at the top. I've not been into the Innsbruck gym for a few years now, but that seems to remember that was the case. Yeah, that's definitely not the case for us. I don't know if it would change. I think there's just been too many accidents or something like that, so it's all very locked down here.

Yeah, in Europe in general, around skiing and climbing and outdoor use, there seems to be a little less restriction. So I'm actually not sure, but I'm almost as sure as I can be that in the Innsbruck gym it just had an auto belay and you could use it. Well, bringing it back to the beginning, we have some freedoms, but no freedom there. No, sadly not. Freedom doesn't extend. Operation Freedom hasn't yet reached the speed wall in San Diego, but hoping it will one day.

Yeah, okay. Well, I think that's all the questions I had. Thanks so much for joining me. Is there anything else that you want to shout out or let people know? Sadly not, no. Well, at least where people can find you? CharlieBosco.com is my website and I am a very, very occasional Instagram user at Charlie Bosco. And I could have a rant about the importance or lack of importance about social media, but suffice to say, I don't think Instagram is the key to a successful career.

So I use it very occasionally and that's probably not going to change. But if you want to give me a follow, it's always nice to pick up some followers. Always good for the ego to get a couple of followers. Yeah, and if anyone wants to fight you about anything in a message or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Always happy to ignore opinions or... Always happy to correspond with people who are worthy of correspondence.

But if you send me an email telling me what a douchebag I was and how I always said the same things and I didn't know what I was talking about, then yeah, you may or may not receive a reply. Alright. Okay, sounds good. Well, thank you again. It was amazing to chat. Thank you. Thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed. Otherwise, you are a super fake climber.

If you're listening on a podcasting platform, I'd appreciate if you rate it five stars and you can continue the discussion on the free competition climbing discord linked in the description. Thanks again for listening.