As a Brit dwelling in Tokyo, watching the Olympics each 4 years on Japanese TV will be powerful as they naturally are inclined to concentrate on their very own rivals who’ve an opportunity of successful a medal. Until it’s in athletics, swimming or gymnastics then watching a British athlete win gold on dwell tv right here is kind of uncommon and I can solely keep in mind seeing it as soon as within the final Olympics.
In August 2024, Tony Roberts gained Olympic gold in bouldering and presumably I solely ever acquired to see this occur as a result of there have been some Japanese rivals concerned! I can’t say I knew an excessive amount of concerning the sport earlier than then (I nonetheless don’t!) however with the Japanese involvement I ended up seeing a good quantity of the competitors unfold.
Many individuals typically flip their noses up a bit on the sight of recent sports activities being added to the Olympic Video games as was the case with golf, rugby sevens, skateboarding, browsing, breaking and sport climbing all being added to the invoice for the final three Olympics in Rio (2016), Tokyo (2021) and Paris (2024).
Sports activities climbing (included bouldering) truly made its debut on the ill-fated Tokyo 2020 Olympics which occurred in 2021 as a result of world pandemic. In recent times I’ve been making an attempt to pattern as many new sports activities as doable (inside budgetary causes in fact!) and that has included city sports activities like skateboarding and breaking.
Komazawa Indoor Ball Sports activities Discipline on a sunny morning
Once I observed there was a bouldering occasion going down in Tokyo, I used to be so I cycled all the way down to Komazawa Olympic Park in Setagaya ward which is about an hour away from the Tokyo Fox International Operations Centre in Itabashi. The park features a vary of sports activities services together with an athletic stadium (used within the 1964 Olympics), a gymnasium (together with a free Olympic museum) and an indoor sports activities discipline which was the place this bouldering competitors occurred.
Boulder Japan Cup 2026 started at 9:00 am final Sunday (1st February) with semi-finals within the morning and the ultimate within the afternoon. The latter was way over I needed to pay (round 6000 yen!) and I used to be in any other case engaged then anyway. The semis have been inside my finances at 2000 yen which is a worth I’m completely satisfied and prepared to expend on nearly any occasion that I’m interested by.
Eight climbers compete on the identical wall consisting of eight completely different issues (a sequence of strikes to beat) and so they have 5 minutes to make it to the highest. For the document, I didn’t know this beforehand and it took me a number of rounds to work all of it out.
What was spectacular to me was the circulation and effectivity of the competitors the place time was by no means ever wasted. 15 seconds of cleansing by the officers was immediately adopted by the beginning of the subsequent 5 minutes which included 4 rivals operating out of the 2 entrance factors. They’d additionally often wipe the boulders too and possibly analyze the wall in entrance of them forward of a number of makes an attempt to try to get to the highest. I’ve no concept if it’s all the time this environment friendly at different bouldering occasions world wide or whether or not it’s simply typical Japanese type.
With no schedule or listing of rivals in entrance of me, it took me some time to grasp it was the identical group of rivals rotating with one other group of eight. They moved one climb to the correct on the wall every time.
A mild however fixed dance beat was performed out by means of the PA system in the course of the competitors. That didn’t trouble me however listening to the noisy chit-chat of the three guys doing the commentary did irk me a bit because it added little or no past the introductions of the rivals and some different insights. Listening to them continuously shouting ganbare (stick with it) was moderately annoying.
The gang in attendance was greater than I anticipated, and so they reacted with nice pleasure every time a climber made it to the highest. The perfect athletes make it look comparatively simple however as somebody who’s tried it a few occasions on essentially the most fundamental of partitions, I understand how arduous it’s and the way a lot higher physique power is required.
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