Battle in The Bubble – Men’s Final 5 – Technique Thoughts

Obviously, Men’s Final 5 had to be a really hard problem.  The bulk of the problem was set by Jonny Hork, who took one look at the big purple Climb-It tufa and set to work screwing it on the steepest part of the roof.

First hold on the wall.

The ladder was sketchy (flimsy aluminum on wet plastic) so Jon decided to help Jonny out a bit.  Anyways, with a bit of input from the rest of the team and a lot of his own ideas, Jonny put up what turned out to be a spectacular final problem.  One of the most interesting things about it is that, after a few tries, both Daniel and Julian were getting high on the problem, but Daniel was besting Julian by two moves (even before he stuck the final hold in the dramatic finish).  Here are some pictures I took of their last tries, cause it’s interesting to see what’s different:

Julian

Julian sticking the Halo hold

Throwing his heel in the Halo

Doing an incredibly powerful flag move to the hold far out left.

Straining to reach the left hand hold, but he wasn't quite long enough in the position he was in to grab a hold of it well enough to move on.

It looked like Julian tried as hard as he could to reach that left hand, and he couldn’t quite get it well enough, so he fell off.  That Halo he’s matched in is kinda slopey, and it’s pretty impressive that he did the movement the way he did.  Let’s see how Daniel did it differently:

Daniel

Daniel kept his feet low and used a left foot heel hook on the tufa for the hand move out left.

He matched his right foot on the tufa, moved his left heel to a toe, and now he's in a good position to get his right heel up with his body already high.

With a high body and good heel, he can do the powerful move to the next high right handhold.

On his first two tries, Daniel did these same moves, but he seemed to be barely hanging on.  Before this try he had a 2 minute rest, and it showed.  In this sequence he is much stronger, and locked off much higher on his left hand and right heel, so the move to the high right hand isn’t so stretched out this time.  Also, his foot cut isn’t quite as dramatic as the one you saw in this post: Battle in The Bubble Goes Off HUGE!!! This go, his last, he easily got his feet back on, hucked sideways for the finish hold, and somehow, magically, stuck it.  The crowd went absolutely wild, competitors rushed the mats to hug Daniel, and everybody had huge grins on their faces.  It was a fantastic ending to a great event.

Battle in The Bubble Goes Off HUGE!!!

The sheer power of Daniel Woods | pic Jackie Hueftle

The Battle in The Bubble was fantastic.  I know, it’s immodest to say how amazing it was, but we at the Spot and the Professional Climbers International are so proud of the setting crew, the climbers, the Sender guys, the AV team, the lighting guys, Ian the skydiver, the volunteers, the vendor village participants, the kayak and paddle board demonstrators, the APEX parkour guys, the Vail Valley Association, Red Bull, Wahoos, Avery, Avid 4 Adventure, Mix 1, Gibbon Slacklines, everyone who tried David Garcia’s ATG challenge, and the staff from the Spot for taking many unlikely variables (and lots of doubters) and putting together a spectacular show.  Thank you everyone for your hard work to make this the best climbing event Boulder has ever seen.

Women's winner Alex Puccio and men's winner Daniel Woods on their final problems | pic Jackie Hueftle

We’d like to thank all our sponsors, but since this is the setting blog I’m going to focus on the setting-related sponsors here.

Thank you Climb-It, for all the awesome holds in such striking colors!

Thank you ASANA, for all the neck-saving crashpads!

Thank you to Ivo, Travis, and the rest of the crew from Walltopia, for building these spectacular walls.  We’re looking forward to getting them up in the Spot!!!

Asana pads, Walltopia walls, Climb-it holds. And Brazilian strongman Felipe Camargo forerunning Men's Final 1.

Finally, we’d like to thank all the spectators for showing up, enjoying the festival, and hanging out through the cold (but luckily dry!) weather to watch the climbers battle it out.  It was an amazing evening, and it could never have happened without the support and hard work of so many, but if you hadn’t come to watch it would have all been for nought.  We hope you all had an excellent time and were psyched out of your minds when Angie and Alex and Daniel and Julian battled it out on the final problems.

This picture of Alex Puccio high up on Women's 4 isn't particularly special, until you notice Julian Bautista taking flight in the background. Thanks Asana, for saving his butt.

There’s so much to write about this comp, and so many pictures to share, so stay tuned for pictures and video in the coming days.  I’ll do a full write-up as well.  Until then, here are results:

Finals Results

Semi-Finals Results

Citizen Results

And a few bits from others who came to the event:

Peter Beal’s Battle in the Bubble Review

Pictures from the redpoint round and pro qualifier | Fullerton Images