68 Route setting The EconomistDecember 21st 2019
2 French route-setter living in Britain, and Martin Hammerer, a soft-
ware engineer from Austria—and three apprentices. They vary in
size—from Mr Genoux, who is 172cm tall (5ft 6) and weighs 60kg
(130lb), to Luke Brady, an American who is 15cm taller and 22kg
heavier—and expertise. What old-timers like Mr Bindhammer, a
multiple world-cup finalist who has repeated some of the world’s
toughest rock climbs, and Mr Bishton lack in raw power they make
up for in cunning. You don’t need to be as strong as the competi-
tors—“If we were, we would be competing,” quips Mr Genoux (who
himself used to). You must, though, be strong enough to under-
stand what they are capable of—and, critically, what they are not.
The subtleties of their art have been enriched by a growth in the
forms available to them. In the 1990s all the holds they would stick
to the wall resembled fist-sized lumps of rock. Screwed onto flat
panels, that made for “two-dimensional” climbing, says Mr Bind-
hammer. Today’s panoply of jibs, blobs and larger volumes makes
things much more three-dimensional. Today’s routes are thus
“much more fun to climb”, says Adam Ondra, a Czech climber
crowned men’s world champion in August. Many of the boulders
Mr Bishton and his team put up in Sheffield used bulky, featureless
volumes. Climbing them can feel more like wrestling a fridge than
scaling a ladder.
The Olympics will bring fresh challenges. Broadcasters are de-
manding more predictable schedules. The ifschas already cut the
time athletes have to complete their lead attempts from eight min-
utes to six, putting slower-paced competitors at a disadvantage.
Including all three formats—speed, boulder and lead—for a com-bined score makes it harder to get the difficulty just
right. Speed climbers and boulderers, who often lack
stamina, may fall early from a lead route; some lead
specialists may struggle with difficult boulders. Route-
setters may need to rethink their plans in light of the
eventual finals line-up, though new design software to
help them rework routes on screen is being tested. tv’s
insistence on “tops” means route-setters may err on
the side of simplicity, putting off many seasoned
climbers. “When I see a top, unless it’s the last climber,
I lose interest,” says Mr Ondra.
The hope is that these constraints won’t erase the
human element. If they ever did, says Mr Le Menestrel,
you would have “perfect rules, no judgment, no beauty”.
And, ultimately, “no fun”. Sometimes the climbers are
more creative than the route-setters could have imag-
ined, surprising them with unexpected sequences.
“There is no formula,” says Mr Bishton, any more than
there is an algorithm for the perfect “Swan Lake”.Wrestling the fridge
In the Kranj sports hall there are several dozen “vol-
umes” of different sizes and 20 boxes of smaller holds.
The flashiest were used on the final round, which was
set first. The men, it was decided, would climb on a set
of regular geometric shapes in black and white. The
women would negotiate a series of bulbous blue and
red “slopers” (curved surfaces with little or no edge to
them, held by skin friction alone) and “pinches”
(which climbers squeeze with their hands like a vice).
Jibs were affixed here and there to the big features, as
thumb catches or footholds.
Mr Bindhammer and a colleague clambered up a
wonky scaffolding to the top-left corner of the wall, the
end of the women’s final, and worked down. They
hoisted up volumes from the floor using ropes, one or
two at a time, and attached them to the wall with hand-
held power drills. Mr Genoux and Mr Hammerer start-
ed on the bottom of the men’s final in the opposite cor-
ner, working upwards. Four hours later the basic
skeleton of both routes was ready. Fortified by a lunch
of cured ham, cheese and rye bread, the crew then crept
up their creations to test them out.
Any move that seemed off kilter was carefully
analysed. Holds deemed too far apart for short climb-
ers were brought closer together. Those too near for
taller competitors’ larger frames were placed farther
apart. This finicky work—sometimes transposing a
hold by an inch, or rotating it by a few degrees, turning
a move from undoable to easy—lasted into the night
and continued the next morning. When Mr Bindham-
mer was content, the holds’ precise placement was
carefully documented and the wall was stripped bare
again. The process began anew for the competition’s
earlier rounds.
More fiddling happened once the event got going.
Routes in later rounds can be tweaked depending on
how climbers fare in earlier ones. In Kranj, the men’s fi-
nal went to plan. Only Mr Ondra reached the top. The
women’s route was simplified after the semi-final
proved more challenging than the route-setters had
expected and the favourite, Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret,
failed to make the final eight. Despite the last-minute
tweaks none of the women got within ten moves of the
top. Four fell at the same move barely half way up.
Route-setters are human. So are climbers.
*