Modern-day indoor bouldering looks quite different today. With traditional rock-climbing origins, this whole space has evolved and the crimp grip has less influence today.
For outdoor rock climbing, this grip simply a must and the bread and butter of a day on the rock. Indoors however, the demand is very different and the mass market of modern bouldering does not derive from the outdoor world. Put simply, the demand for crimpy boulders is low.
It doesn't mean there isn't a need or a place for it. It definitely has its place. However, hard crimpy moves attract little traffic relative to though-provoking interesting boulders of different styles. Look at the statistics (if you have them) and the market rarely lies.
In the individual competition world (especially with youth), defining an outcome by a style that by enlarge the athletes don't want seems archaic. But it continues to happen. It's a cheap easy way to separate the athlete so it hasn't gone away. And when there's minimal accountability to the route setting process it feels like groundhog day and nothing changes. The finger-strength to bodyweight ratio is very much high on the importance list.
Yes this is a contentious space and one without definite boundaries or answers such is the nature of this activity. Wild fluctuations in results at even the highest level of individual competition can be a result of many different factors. It's not for us to speculate. However, there is a lot of scope for variability when the playing field is different every time.
In our opinion, the ability to hold and move off really small edges is only one important part of the Bouldering equation but it shouldn't be the determining factor, especially when the future is moving in the opposite direction. Just an opinion.
11 Nov 2024