8: Matt Groom, IFSC Commentator

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I'm choking up even speaking about it because it was just, it was this moment where like,

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it didn't matter about the sport. Sometimes dealing with the feedback I do get from various

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platforms is like enough, honestly, in terms of my mental health. And she said, I'd like to talk

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about the issue of RED-S and what the IFSC is doing. And what I said was, welcome to another episode

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of the That's Not Real Coming podcast. I'm your host Jinni and I'm excited to introduce my guest.

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Well, he hardly needs an introduction if you watch IFSC World Cups, but we're talking to Matt Groom.

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You probably know Matt as the lead IFSC commentator, but you can also find him

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commentating other international competitions, working with Epic TV Climbing Daily, or writing

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articles for UKC. In this episode, we'll get an explanation of everything that goes on in the

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commentary box. We'll play Matt Groom Bingo, we'll learn about his work outside of the IFSC,

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as well as his own personal climbing goals. Hope you enjoy this episode with Matt.

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All right, thank you so much. How are you doing?

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I'm good. Thank you. Yeah, very good. It's lovely to meet you and talk.

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Yeah, lovely to meet and talk as well. Do you have any travel plans coming up? Laval is soon,

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I think. Yeah, it's actually pretty crazy. I'm coming to the end of the season now. So we've

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only got a couple of comps left. And I've been like lulled because it's been such an insane summer.

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And I've had like maybe two and a bit weeks where I've just had some editing jobs in between.

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So I sort of convinced myself all the travel was done. But I've got to go to Switzerland on Sunday

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for a Red Bull Epic TV shoot on that giant dual ascent dam thing. Which should be good. Then I got

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10 hour drive to Laval and then do Laval. Finish that and then off to Fontainebleau with Stasha

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and Unparallel. That's the plan. And then Jakarta for the Asian qualifier straight after that.

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Back for four days and then out to Saudi Arabia for another competition. And then,

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then that's it. Then I'm done. Oh, that is exhausting. When does that end for you?

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I think Saudi Arabia finishes like the 25th, I think, of November. Wow. Yeah, that is a long

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year. That is a lot of traveling. I don't know how you do it. Oh, it's like, it's not hard. I love

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every single second of it. Yeah. Not tired. Yeah. But it just drives me forward with it a little

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bit. I definitely hit massive slumps with it and I do get tired. But this year, because it's been so

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back to back, there hasn't been a chance to settle. So I think for the last two and a half weeks,

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for the first time in a long time, I've stopped and I'm just suddenly aware that I am actually

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quite tired. So it's been nice to just to pause a little bit. Yeah, that's really nice. Well,

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thank you for taking the time to join me for this exclusive interview. I'm going to call it

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an exclusive interview because I know you mentioned earlier when we were talking that no one has asked

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you to do an interview like this before, which is crazy to me because there's a lot I want to know.

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I'm sure there's a lot people out there want to know. So yeah, I'm excited to hear about this.

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I will genuinely thank you for having me because you are the first person to have asked me to do

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something like this. And it's awesome because I don't know, it's just there's a lot to share

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and a lot to talk about. And I think there's a lot of talk that goes on outside of the IFSC. So

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it's hopefully I can give you some a couple of insights without revealing too much.

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People love talking about you. So we'll see what we can learn. So yeah, since a lot of people

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probably don't know you aren't technically employed by the IFSC. What is your, I guess,

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like job title, technically? Sure. So yeah, I work for the IFSC, but I am a freelancer. So and I work

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with various different companies throughout the year. It's just the IFSC happens to be and now

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becoming my biggest sort of employer of the year. So I'm in quite a strange position because I'm

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employed by them and I work very, very closely with the staff at the IFSC. But I'm not at the

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office. I'm not employed in a full term capacity by them. So I guess I'm in this unique position

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where I get to sometimes see what goes on and understand the story from various different sides

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because of that. But yes, I am a freelancer at heart. How much input do you get when it comes

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to IFSC, like broadcasting and just parts of your job of commentary? Sure. So it's sort of developing

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and developed as it goes along. So originally when I was brought in, it was sort of on the back of

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Charlie Bosco. He's a very good friend of mine. And when he left, you know, it was sort of moving

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into that role for him. So it was the general commentating at the events. And then at every

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event we produced highlight reels and of both the qualifying and the finals. And we also produced

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various different media for different areas. So some of it goes on to TV channels, like we have a

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show for Eurosport and a show for Fox Sports. So some of the extra content goes on that.

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And then some of it's like social media content goes on Facebook or Instagram. So and some of

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it's being held back, especially this year. So we have hopefully content to bring you in the off

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season as well as the on season because, you know, we want to try to keep that psych going.

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So yeah, so that's like, that's my basic. And my job within that is to obviously do the

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commentating side of it. But as I've done the job for longer, and because of what I've done with

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Epic TV, I think naturally sort of moving more into helping to produce the videos and come up

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with sort of content ideas and ways that we can use the team on site and myself to make better

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videos and more content for people watching. So I think that that role has evolved a little bit as

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I've done the job. And, you know, now I work more closely with IFSC. So I do some of the edits for

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them. With their bigger projects, there's something there was like an edit that dropped the other day

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on their YouTube channel about the universality athletes. So that was athletes from countries

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that are never really climbed at a World Cup level before there's Olympic money available

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to bring them into the World Cup circuit. So we followed like a mini documentary with those

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athletes. So I'm beginning to start working more closely with them to try to just bring more

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content to the table. So it's changing as we move forward. That sounds like a super full time job.

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I don't know how you find time for the other I guess like freelance commentary gigs that you

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have going on. But yeah, so most people listening know this know you for your IFSC commentary.

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And it's surely been a long journey for you to get to this point. So do you want to walk me through

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the points in your career that you think led you to this role?

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Sure. It's weird when you say career because it never really feels like a career. It just feels

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like, yeah, it is quite nice. But it's yeah, so originally, way back, I trained as an actor. So I

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was trying to be an actor trying to be on stage and screen and stuff like that. And then I did try

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to do that for about eight years living in London, completely failed, never really made it past like

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the fringe stage of things. And then I sort of reassessed life, retrained as a journalist

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at Sheffield University, mainly because I was always jealous I didn't go to Sheffield

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University to climb. And I suddenly had this epitome where I was like, epiphany where I was like,

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oh my goodness, I could go do a master's and still go climbing. Because if you don't know it, it's

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this place in the UK where the gritstone is, which is like single pitch, trad climbing. It's one of

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the best places in the UK to go climbing. So yeah, I went to university there, did a master's and then

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sort of fell into a fairly low scale job at Epic TV. I think my exact role was

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climbing researcher. Because at that point, Epic TV had lots of different channels, they had biking

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channels and skiing channels. So my job was basically to do research for the person who was

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editing all of the climbing content. So I sort of bring him stories. But as I arrived, the editor

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left, and I happened to sort of be there as the only person. So I took over the editing side of

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things at the same time. So I suddenly started running social media accounts for Epic TV and

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things like that. Then gradually transitioned into the camera side, being on camera, because

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that's really what I wanted to do. But I got given a different job, but really I wanted to be on

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camera. That's what I love to do. So yeah, I started presenting climbing daily and then took

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over the producing of it. So deciding alongside here, and it's got to be said, whatever I'm

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talking about, it's kind of hand in hand with Hugo Pilcher, who's been at Epic TV for a long time and

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is a legend. He's been there forever. So the two of us, but I did the day to day running of

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climbing daily, finding the stories every day, working out what the shows was going to be, and

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then working with the editor to make sure that it came together every day. So yeah, so did that for

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a long time and that involves, and that involved started to involve filmmaking and more producing

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roles as well as the presenting. And then Charlie Bosco again, who basically gave me the job at

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Epic TV or gave me the leg up for Epic TV. And then I remember talking to him one day and knowing

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that he was thinking about leaving the IFSC and he must've known that I was interested in it. And

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so I sort of like casually dropped it in at the pub. I was just like, so who's, you know, have they

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lined anyone up to take your role? And he was like, well, you should obviously do it. I was like,

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oh, okay. So he didn't give me the job, but he certainly gave me the contacts within the IFSC.

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And I got put into the short list for the job after him. And then I got selected to do that

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and dropped into Munich for like the world championship event, having never done it really

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before. And it was a eight hour broadcast, but from then I sort of talked myself into it. And

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yeah, so far they haven't kicked me out yet. Awesome. Wow. Yeah, that's quite a journey.

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So you kind of started, well, I mean, you started as, I guess, like a trad climber.

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Yeah. I mean, I started climbing indoors. There was a gym called Swiss cottage in London, and

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I had two things going for me. One that I had at that time when I started climbing, I had nothing

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else. I was selling perfume in Selfridges. So my job was to stand there with a perfume spraying

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bottle and spray customers. So like anything would have been better at that point. And I walked into

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this climbing wall and it was amazing. There was suddenly this community and these people who were

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really willing to help me and to teach me things. And there were suddenly I had friends and it was

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like this whole, whole new world. And I started working for them. And yeah, and I was lucky

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because I had a car in London and that meant that I could drive people places. So people wanted to

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go. Exactly. And living in London, it's hard to get anywhere. So I would do the driving and they

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teach me how to try to climb. And that's how I sort of started into rock climbing. I see. So were you

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a big fan of climbing competitions and IFSC before you started your role there? Yeah, it's a good

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question. From the moment I started Epic TV, it was like, I wanted to make it into like a more of

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a journalism and sort of storytelling world than it, because I had to try to, I wanted to move the

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show in different directions. And one of them was this sort of more serious look at news. So I think

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I've always been in touch with the competition scene. And I remember we used to do the IFSC

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gave us permission to use their news cut footage and the footage that they send out to TV companies

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when they want to do like a highlight show. It's kind of like a, just a compression of what happened

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during the competition. And I remember re just plagiarizing Charlie Bosco's script. He used to

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write, putting it in my own words and releasing it as a news IFSC show on Epic TV. So I've always

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been like in touch with that world. And some of the stories of the athletes that I wanted to tell

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sort of inevitably are entwined with that. So I was watching it before and I was in touch with it,

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but I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that I was someone who'd watch every single comp religiously,

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but I was aware of what was going on in the scene. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Let's get into the IFSC

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commentary. I think a lot of people just have no idea what it looks like. I've only seen little

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glimpses of it here and there. I think I watched one of your like personal YouTube videos on your

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channel and saw a little glimpse into what the commentary box looks like. But I'm sure a lot of

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people haven't seen that. So can you give a description of what that looks like? Sure. Can

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I just ask you a big comp fan yourself? Like you, cause I've obviously seen like your podcasts and

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clips of that, but like, do you watch it every time or what do you do? I do watch it every time.

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But I only started really watching it like a year or two ago. And I try not to watch older stuff

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because I don't want to know too much because then it makes it harder for me to ask questions

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because I like know too much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Sorry. I just wanted to,

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so yeah, the, the commentary box, the commentary box changes basically every event because

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for whatever reason, sometimes the commentary is the last thing that a lot of people think about,

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because really all you need to do that job is a table, two chairs and a TV screen and a sound

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mixing box. So, because it's fairly easy to set up, but, and they're right, you can do it anywhere.

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And every event, it depends on who's running the events and which organizer there is and how big

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the venue is. Sometimes we'll be given a room or a place, which we can then set up and get everything

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ready on. But the team I work with now, they know that personally, I like to be able to see the

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stage. So I fight quite hard to be, to have the commentary box in the position where I can at

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least feel what's going on in the stadium or have an understanding of the audience's reaction.

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Because when we do the commentary, even if I can see the wall perfectly, it's, you don't want to

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be looking at what's actually happening on the wall because what you guys and what other people

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watching are seeing is happening on the TV screen. And I'm not in charge of the camera angles. So if

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I'm looking at the wall and the TV monitor happens to be pointing at a bird and I'm talking about how

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amazing Serato is doing, it makes everyone look stupid. So you have to kind of like constantly

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and what's going on. And also there's a delay in the action. So there's a delay. It's not much of

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a delay. It's like, I can't remember exactly half a second or something. But between those, obviously

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you've got to feed through all the systems. So again, if I'm looking up and someone tops out,

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although people might not notice it's, you know, it's just those little things we try to tighten

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up. So, but I still like the commentary box somewhere. And often it's occasionally it's like

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in, in Jakarta a couple of years ago, it was underneath there, it was like, you know,

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a couple of years ago, it was underneath an umbrella covered in flies because it was lit

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up. So we need to be able to see notes. So we were just in this fly box. Sometimes like in

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Chamonix, we're right by the wall, which is incredible. Burn, we were in the middle of all

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the action, but underneath in this plastic sort of box. So it meant that the audio was good, but

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we could sense the whole crowd, which was incredible. So it changes at every single event.

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We never know what we're going to walk into. And often it's different between the times we visit

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a stadium. So yeah, very different every time. Yeah. Do you have a favourite venue?

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I think I have favourite places for different things. Because I don't think any venue has it

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all. And I think that one of the joys of doing the circuit is that you get to see sort of everything,

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you get to feel the ups and downs of certain places. I think if I was going to like,

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like the place I love going to the most is Japan. But then I find the comp atmosphere a bit subdued.

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So when you hit somewhere like Chamonix, you get this incredible atmosphere from the audience or

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Innsbruck. So, you know, atmosphere wise, there are certain places that do that very well.

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But I think if I had to just choose to go to one, there was something very special about being

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in in Jakarta, right in the middle of these skyscrapers. And this was not the last World

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Cup, the one before. And it was the last comp of the season. And I just remember our very talented

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drone operating cameraman Erwan flying his drone on a sort of a big wide circling shot. And the walls

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were in the middle, it was all lit up with spotlight, you have these enormous buildings.

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And I just remember looking at this shot thinking like that, that is the future of what we should be

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doing. And so I have like quite a special memory about that, that that location.

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That sounds nice. It was cool. So you are also the person who tells people to do replays,

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or do you not have any part in that? Not really. So we've got and I think I should explain something

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right at the very beginning of kind of how this works, because I don't think people know,

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because there's no reason to so I might as well tell you how it works. So basically, every time,

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so we have a core media crew called Obsess Media. And they've been working, they started with Charlie

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back when he started and they've come through the last couple of years. And they're sort of a core

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team. And they're very small, they can they do the graphics, they make sure all the broadcasts work.

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They make sure all the broadcasts work. And they liaise with the TV crew, because basically,

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there's two ways of doing comps. One is that the Obsess team, the IFSC team that they employ.

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So it's not again, it's a bit like me, they employ them as a freelance team.

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They run everything. So they provide the cameras, they do all the directing, they do all the

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selection of shots, all the replays, everything. And that's a sort of totally in house event.

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And somewhere an example of that would be would be Chamonix this year. So that was entirely run by

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Obsess. But sometimes we go to a venue like in Innsbruck, where there's an exterior TV company

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who come in. So and that's not anything really to do with the IFSC. So the the organizers,

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say they want these people to come, they will arrive and then our media team's job is to sort

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of liaise and do this middle job where we provide the graphics. But the exterior crew do the shots,

00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:52,240
they provide the cameras, they do the selection, they do the directing. Now, that's interesting

00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:59,280
because it's so for example, in Innsbruck, the director is a guy called Marcus, I think I've got

00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:03,760
that right, who I remember him doing a first event way back in the day. And you know, sometimes

00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:09,040
these people come in as sports directors, they don't know climbing, it might be the first time

00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:13,600
they have ever seen climbing and they're trying to direct a climbing show. But this guy, for example,

00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:18,160
has done it for a couple of years, he did the Olympics, he did the European Games. And when I

00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:23,120
work with him, we have a very good rapport now. And I know he's always listening to me. So I he's,

00:20:23,120 --> 00:20:28,000
he's got my back in terms of shot selection. But if he hears me bring something up or notice

00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:32,960
something, then he will sort of respond to that and put something or if I'm saying I don't know

00:20:32,960 --> 00:20:37,440
what's happening in this moment, he will show me a shot to demonstrate what I'm talking about.

00:20:37,440 --> 00:20:41,280
But this changes every event, sometimes I'll walk into a venue and the director has never seen

00:20:41,280 --> 00:20:46,000
climbing, it's kind of a bit on the fly. And and although there are guidelines, obviously, that

00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:53,920
IFC provide, and we work closely to liaise between the two parties. It can change a lot. So it's one

00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:58,720
of the things that we sort of have to deal with when we're at these comps is sort of this side of

00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:03,120
things. And I think a lot of sports do it like this. But obviously climbing is growing, and it's

00:21:03,120 --> 00:21:07,520
becoming bigger and bigger, and the expectations are higher. So I think it's a learning process as

00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:12,240
we sort of figure this out as we go through it. I can't remember your original question now. I've

00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:14,000
totally forgotten what you said.

00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:19,600
That's all right, me too. But that explains the camera angles.

00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:24,160
So you said you had to replace? No, basically, the short answer is no, I don't. We get shown

00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:29,920
the replays. The reason I went on that tirade, I remember now, is because it depends. So when we

00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:34,320
have our team, our obsessed team doing everything, again, they've done this for years, they know what

00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:39,040
they're doing. And they're very good at choosing the right replay shots. Occasionally, we'll have a

00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:43,040
camera team who will choose a very weird replay shot. Usually, I can talk to them and ask them

00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:46,160
for stuff, but it depends if they're listening to me, or if they care, or if they've got the shot.

00:21:46,160 --> 00:21:51,040
So I never really know. Okay, perfect. That makes sense. There we go. Great. There we go. Okay.

00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:58,240
And then for co commentators, do you have a hard time getting people in the commentary box? Or

00:21:58,240 --> 00:22:04,800
is it something that people are excited to do? Yeah. So when I started, again, it's, when I very

00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:09,120
first started, I had very few things on my sort of like responsibility list, it's got different,

00:22:09,120 --> 00:22:14,080
but one of them was fine co commentator. And Charlie sort of passed on some people that he had

00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:18,560
used in the past who he thought was good and enjoyed working with. But I knew that some of

00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:24,320
this was like, you know, my time to try to try to find my own way through this. So, and one thing I

00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:29,280
was, you know, I was asked to, you know, that it was kind of up to me, but you know, we wanted,

00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:33,920
I'm obviously a guy, it's always nice to have, you know, a male female kind of commentating team.

00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:38,480
And that's something to think about. And that's something, you know, that I've always tried to

00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:43,840
think about whenever we're finding people is the sort of like, who's there and what they're

00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:50,880
representing and how I can make that different and lots of events. So, yeah, when I first started,

00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:56,480
it was, it was sort of an unpaid role. It was like an opportunity for the athletes to come in.

00:22:56,960 --> 00:23:01,200
That's now changed. So the athletes are paid to do the job. And that obviously helps a little bit

00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:06,400
for me because I can now, because it was an awful job because you couldn't, I couldn't sort this

00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:10,640
out, especially at the beginning, I couldn't sort this out before. So you have to wait for an

00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:16,400
athlete to not make it through to the next stage, time your approach and sort of be like, Hey,

00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:19,920
look, I'm really sorry, you know, but would you fancy doing this? And I, you know, always try to

00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:23,760
make it sound like a sort of an exciting thing to go and do, but the end of the day, you don't quite

00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:28,720
know the mood of the athletes. And I've definitely got it wrong in terms of asking at the wrong

00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:34,880
moments. But luckily, as the years have progressed, and I've done this, you know, I've worked with

00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:38,960
the series of really good people who want to return. I've tried really hard, especially during

00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:44,720
the semi finals to always have wherever possible someone completely new, usually a young athlete,

00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:50,160
completely new, usually as young as possible, just because I think it's awesome to bring like

00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:56,640
new perspectives into it. And I've tried to make it when I talk to the coaches, and I explained to

00:23:56,640 --> 00:24:01,440
them that like, if they have athletes who are interested in media side, you want to come on and

00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:06,720
do a bit more, you know, like I'm a fairly safe pair of hands to help them and bring them forward,

00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:11,760
especially if maybe they're a little bit shy, and they just need sort of bringing forward. So, so

00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:16,080
over the years, I'm now in a position where people have started to approach me about it. And

00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:20,720
sometimes, rarely, but sometimes I'll fill up a comp before it starts, just an athlete being like,

00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:24,240
look, I'm not maybe feeling this one. If I don't make it through, can I do finals? And I'll be like,

00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:30,320
yeah, you know, like you're you're penciled in. And I try not to do like a favoritism thing. Like

00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:34,880
it's usually first come first serves and people who I know are good. Like I have a sort of like

00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:39,760
core hub of people that I know would would be brilliant at every event. If one of them comes

00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:44,240
to me, usually it's theirs, because they've sort of earned it, I feel. And I feel like it's a loyalty

00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:48,480
thing as well that, you know, they've shown that they can do this job, they care about it. But

00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:54,240
whenever someone comes through fresh, it's so good. Because, you know, I'm sure people appreciate how

00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:58,880
exciting it is to have suddenly an athlete you maybe hadn't heard of giving these amazing insights

00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:02,800
and being given a voice and you're like, wow, we never would have heard of this person. And

00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:07,520
I think that's really important to keep on doing. Yeah, I had no idea it was paid. No, that's

00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:13,120
interesting to know. And it's not always athletes, though, like you've had route setters on in the

00:25:13,120 --> 00:25:17,440
past, not very frequently. But yeah, route setters, they're in everyone always is like bring a route

00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:21,600
setter. If you if you knew how hard it is to get a route setter just to speak on camera, let alone

00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:26,960
appear on a live broadcast, it's like, like, impossible. They're amazing people, but they do

00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:32,640
not want to talk about what they do. So this year, though, I found Cody, who, and I've got to be

00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:37,680
careful, because it's there's a whole thing about whose IFC route setters and not and who's so I'm

00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:42,000
not even going to touch that. But Cody works sometimes for the IFC and route setting capacity,

00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:47,920
and he was happy to come on. And it was really interesting to because I sometimes think that

00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:53,520
there's like, there's obviously a lot of talk and a lot of criticism about various things. But

00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:58,160
I find often it's some of the criticism comes from a place of people not understanding.

00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:03,120
And when you get somebody there who can explain, so if you see something not work, if someone's

00:26:03,120 --> 00:26:08,800
there saying, Yeah, it didn't work. This is why it didn't work. Then people are less quick, I think,

00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:15,440
to judge or to, you know, they just take a moment. So I just I want to bring those kind of people in

00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:19,120
just to give that idea. You know, when I brought Malik, the coach and I thought it was fascinating,

00:26:19,120 --> 00:26:23,520
because he talked about appeals all the time. And although that maybe wouldn't work in a finals,

00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:27,600
we're talking about semi finals here usually, when it's a bit more time for people to like sit in the

00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:33,760
sport and just learn a bit or enjoy different aspects of it. So I think that's really important

00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:38,080
to do it. And it's I try to do it whenever possible. But people are less willing to come

00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:42,160
and speak to millions of people than you'd expect because it is millions of people who watch this.

00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:48,480
So it's a lot to ask. Yeah, I guess we're outsiders kind of prefer to be behind the scenes usually.

00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:55,440
Yeah, with what you mentioned about people not really understanding, and that's why they just

00:26:55,440 --> 00:27:03,360
like, are angry or just say things online. That's precisely why we wanted to have you on here today

00:27:03,360 --> 00:27:08,800
so that you can explain yourself. I hope I don't mess it up. I mean, this is how I get fired from

00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:14,080
all jobs. I'll reveal the wrong thing and that'll be it. It's been good so far. So speaking of that,

00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:18,480
what has been one of the most difficult parts of commentating for you?

00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:24,400
It's a really good question, actually. Because I think it sort of splits into two sides that that

00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:29,760
question because there's like, there's personally to me, and then there's sort of professionally

00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:36,800
with the job. And if for me, if I don't like I don't like messing things up, I really hate messing

00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:41,600
things up, like, and I've obviously made mistakes with with what I've done sometimes, or I've said

00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:47,840
things that like, you know, you just you watch it back and forth, and you're like, oh, I'm

00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:53,520
watching it back and you just think like, you know, why? Why? So that there's been lots and

00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:57,920
lots of tough moments like that, just when you, you know, you realize you make a mistake or,

00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,400
you know, Chamonix was was quite a good example this year, which is that we

00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:07,600
and you know, it's not a huge personal error that I made. But it's like something that I got a huge

00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:13,360
amount of criticism for, which is that we missed the clip from Sharon So she missed clips. Yeah.

00:28:13,360 --> 00:28:17,520
And like, I can't tell you why we missed it. We missed it. We didn't see it was it wasn't just me.

00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:21,040
It was also the Italian team, apparently, who just didn't see it. But we for whatever reason,

00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:25,040
myself and to raise a we weren't either it was cropped out on our screen, which is a good

00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:29,680
excuse, but I don't think it was accurate. But we weren't looking at this exact example of what I

00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,760
was talking about earlier, which is look at the screen and for whatever reason we missed it.

00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:37,360
And then we saw this replay that we were showing, which was kind of the wrong brief play of her

00:28:37,360 --> 00:28:42,720
moving past it. And I made this weird call where I was like, because I've seen ropes, people like

00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:47,280
that. I've seen ropes quick back into quick draws before I've seen it happen. Would it happen in that

00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:51,520
circumstance? Maybe not. But in that moment, you try to explain what happened if you didn't see it

00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:55,920
and you got shown the wrong replay. So occasionally, there's areas you make like that we wish you could

00:28:55,920 --> 00:29:02,400
take back and that sucks from like a personal perspective. There's obviously been moments

00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:10,080
like I remember when the camera shots of Johanna was shown in Innsbruck, you know, the one that

00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:17,360
was kind of pretty inappropriate while she was brushing a boulder. In my mind, I see it was a

00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:21,520
long time ago, but it was certainly a moment where, and I don't really want to go into details,

00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:27,920
you got talked about a lot during the time, but I remember wishing that I had behaved differently

00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:34,880
with my response in that moment. But remembering just being sort of very, A, it happened very

00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:39,840
quickly and B, just being a bit sort of lost with what to say. So I think you certainly learned from

00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:47,360
experiences like that and that's been difficult. There's been really like bad conditions in terms

00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:51,520
of like everything's gone wrong technically and you're sort of struggling with it and you're sort

00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:56,800
of trying desperately to do the best job you can, but you're like fighting against no sound or,

00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:02,800
you know, something like that or rain or just something that makes the job harder, but you're

00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:08,240
still expected to get it out. So there's been loads of tough moments, but at no point has it

00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:12,880
got tough to the point where I've wanted to stop doing it. It's the most incredible thing. So I

00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:18,880
can't really complain. It's awesome. And it's awesome. Do you actually watch back things that

00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:25,040
you say? No. Okay. There's reasons for this. There's reasons for this. Number one is that,

00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:30,880
what I always do is I have a look at, I read the comments on YouTube. So I look at the YouTube

00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:36,400
comments for about a day and a half after the event ends and then I put it to bed. That's pretty long

00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:41,440
actually. I figure that's enough time for everyone to say what they want to say because in my way to

00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:46,720
approach comments is that I got, I got, I got, I remember like I've been doing the Epic TV thing

00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:51,920
for long enough now that I'm, I've got a bit of a thick skin to it, but someone told me once that

00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:55,120
comment, and I don't know if it's the right approach, it's my approach, but someone was

00:30:55,120 --> 00:31:02,000
like that every comment, however badly they're written or how aggressive or nasty are they trying

00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,360
to, is there something in there that they're trying to say that they have a point about?

00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:11,440
Because often the ones that hurt can be really aggressive or really just, you know, just someone

00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:16,800
shouting off their keyboard, but often they've got a point somewhere and they're the ones that hurt.

00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:23,200
And I think it's worthwhile, however badly they put it to take note of what they're saying and

00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,880
then make an assessment of whether you did do wrong or you did right or whether, you know,

00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:32,000
what you did. So I have a look at them because I think it's worth it. And I spend a lot of time

00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:39,440
editing myself. So I do one of the shows for Fox Sports, like I edit that highlight reel.

00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:44,160
So that's 26 minutes of listening to my own voice again. I don't need to necessarily sit down and

00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:51,200
watch everything back. I feel like I have it coming at me enough times. But yeah, maybe I should,

00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:55,840
I don't know. Maybe it's something I should do to get better. No, I mean, that sounds like plenty.

00:31:55,840 --> 00:32:00,160
I actually think that reading comments for a day and a half is really long.

00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:04,720
Really? When do you stop? Do you look at yours on your videos and things?

00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:10,640
I, okay, well, I don't really get that many comments. I would love for people to leave

00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:14,080
more comments, but there's not much- Leave comments if you're listening.

00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:21,760
Yeah, exactly. You don't get a lot of feedback on podcasts. So that's hard, but it also means-

00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:24,640
Instagram World, because you're in like that side of it.

00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:33,600
Yeah. I read whatever comes in, because I mean, it's still fairly small. I don't get a lot of hate

00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:40,400
because I'm fairly small. I would love to keep it that way. But it also means I don't really get that

00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:46,320
much feedback. So if people want to provide feedback and it's mean, just send it privately.

00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:49,200
I don't really need to see it publicly. That would help.

00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:53,840
Yeah. It sucks seeing you're like, especially the things you know you've got wrong, having

00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:57,920
them pointed out a hundred times in the comments, you're like, yeah, I know I said that name wrong.

00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:08,560
I bet. It must be difficult. Do you also read Reddit threads or other-

00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:13,920
No. And the reason I don't is because I know that there's quite a lot of stuff about me,

00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:20,080
in all honesty. I've heard. I remember once, so the time I decided never to look,

00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:26,560
I got a message from UKC from, I don't know who it was, it was Alan at the time. And he

00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:31,520
messaged me because I work with UKC for various things. UKC is an online website,

00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:36,640
if anyone who doesn't know it. It's a big, big, big website. Anyway, the guy who managed it wrote

00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:41,920
to me, he just said something like, Matt, don't worry, I've removed the thread. And I just,

00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:45,280
oh God. So I just wrote back being like, I don't really want to know, but I have no idea what

00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,800
threads you're talking about. And it was some kind of very horrible thing on their forum that they

00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:53,440
just thought actually really went too far. So they had my back and took it down, which was nice.

00:33:53,440 --> 00:34:03,040
But after I heard that, I didn't really feel the need to go looking. So, I feel like dealing,

00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:08,720
sometimes dealing with the feedback I do get from various platforms is enough, honestly,

00:34:08,720 --> 00:34:13,520
in terms of my mental health. So I don't really need to go searching for nasty things. If there

00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:17,360
are nice things there, then that's cool. But I guess I don't really need that much of an inflated

00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:23,120
ego on knowing what they are. And I'll avoid the horrible things. Fair, fair. I think one-

00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:26,960
Why are they bad? You got to tell me now. I'm intrigued. Oh, I can't tell you now.

00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:31,200
What's the main like fundamental criticism? What am I doing wrong?

00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:36,640
Um, no, I think there have been posts where it's like, obviously, like the mistakes that you say,

00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:41,120
people are going to harp on that. But then it's also like pretty decent because there's a lot of

00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:46,160
people in the comments who are like fighting for you as well. So yeah, it's not bad. It's not bad.

00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:49,120
No, thank you, people. I appreciate it. Whoever's fighting. Yeah.

00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:55,520
You're the one person. Thank you. Exactly. Yeah. But there is one fun thing that was on Reddit,

00:34:55,520 --> 00:35:00,480
I think that was called MattGroomBingo. Oh, yeah? Have you seen that?

00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:03,520
No, I got to get someone to make me a t-shirt with things I say on it.

00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:08,080
Yeah. Which is really cool. Yeah. I kind of just want to go over these

00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:14,160
phrases. And if you have anything you want to say about them, just stop me.

00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:18,560
Please do. There's 16. So I'll go through all these pretty quickly.

00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,000
16? Oh my god. It's bingo. So. Okay.

00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:28,480
First one, comments on the cinematography. Fanboys over a British athlete.

00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:33,200
I just want to say cinematography. The reason I do that is because like, when I do that,

00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:39,200
our media crew, again, get a lot of criticism for shots and stuff. And like, they do do a really

00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:42,240
good job. And when I see something that I genuinely think is like an awesome shot,

00:35:42,240 --> 00:35:46,480
I will just say it because I don't know. I think it's cool. Anyway, that's it. Carry on.

00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:52,720
Okay. More of a boulder or lead specialist. Sticky Serato.

00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:55,840
Yeah. Plugs Paraclimbing.

00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:03,360
She goes by Osh. Desperately wonders what's going on in isolation.

00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:08,720
I do. Always. I hope to get an athlete on to talk about that.

00:36:08,720 --> 00:36:15,680
Yeah. It's fascinating. I did one with Stasha about it. So I've kind of got a podcast thing

00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:19,120
maybe coming out and she was talking about that. And it's so interesting what happens.

00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:22,160
Oh man, I would love to have Stasha on. I'm so jealous.

00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:23,680
I'll put you in touch. I'm seeing her in a week.

00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:27,600
Oh, please. That would be great. Please excuse this brief intermission,

00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:33,280
but I would just like to take some time and remind you that if you are enjoying this podcast,

00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:38,560
please follow and rate it on your preferred listening platform. If you're watching on YouTube,

00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:44,160
be sure to subscribe and hit the like button. Anything helps to push this podcast out to

00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:51,440
more people and get even more amazing guests on back to the show. Yeah. People love hearing from

00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:56,720
her. Let's see. Being bewildered by people running up to a boulder.

00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:03,840
Yeah. Why do they do that? Is that for semis? I think.

00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:08,160
No. Like I'm thinking I'm talking about finals. They're like, it's their stage.

00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:12,240
They can do whatever they want. They wait in the wings and then they get called in and they run

00:37:12,240 --> 00:37:17,440
across stage and I don't understand why. I see. I think it must be a little awkward

00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:24,400
to just slowly walk up because people are hype. Yeah, but like, but I want to see the coaching

00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:28,240
science is like, right, before you do this really strenuous activity, run to it. Like surely you

00:37:28,240 --> 00:37:35,280
want to like, I don't know. It must be kind of awkward. You would slowly walk.

00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:39,360
I think I'd be too afraid of being out of breath on the boulder.

00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:44,400
Like this is hard stuff. You know, it's like, I don't know.

00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:50,240
I think maybe they don't feel comfortable being in the spotlight, not climbing.

00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:55,280
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe that's my.

00:37:55,280 --> 00:38:00,640
Some don't. I think Shawna always used to walk out. I think she told me this. If I remember.

00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:04,000
She was like, yeah, she's like, I agree. I was, she was just like, I just took my time.

00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:08,080
I thought it was awesome. Yeah. I'll have to keep an eye on that.

00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:13,200
Let's see. Gets corrected by cohost kind of already went over that.

00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:19,600
Now, again, like, like sometimes it's worth remembering that I definitely, like, I think a

00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:25,680
lot of people accuse me sometimes of being like, uh, like I have to, how do I explain this? That's

00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:31,920
I'm not going to do it. Like my, when I do the co the commentating thing, my job is to make that

00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:36,160
person feel like comfortable. And often they've never done it before. You got it, especially with

00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:41,760
the people I bring on for the semifinals. So one of the things I try to do is to sort of base

00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:48,240
what I'm saying and how I say it off them. So if I have someone, for example, who's like an expert,

00:38:48,240 --> 00:38:52,800
a movement, someone like Shawna or someone like stash or, you know, and that's their thing. They

00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:58,880
like talking about movement. That is, that's an area I don't necessarily need to cover. So

00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:03,360
there's an element of that that I try to do. And I'm not saying it's playing dumb, but it's, it's

00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:08,480
sometimes playing dumb. And also just, I can be as technical as I need to be depending on who the

00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:15,200
person is with me. So, and I quite like it when there's like a contradiction or something. And

00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:22,240
sometimes I will sort of provoke something from the athlete to try to get them to, to, to, to

00:39:22,240 --> 00:39:29,120
to, to explain it because it's better coming from them. So sometimes the athlete just corrects me

00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:32,320
for sure, because I get something wrong, we don't see something. And that's the whole dynamic.

00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:34,880
That's the reason there's two pairs of eyes on it. It's great. If they weren't doing that,

00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:39,440
it would be awful. Imagine that they just sat there. It'd be terrible. But like, sometimes there's a

00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,960
bit of poking that goes on and I'm trying to get them to explain something or do something that

00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:48,480
explains an element of the sport where I feel like it'd be weird if I said it. So just to cover that.

00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:57,120
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, mixes up athlete names. Yeah. I guess it could be with

00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:00,880
pronunciation, but oh, actually, nevermind. That's another one pronounces a name wrong.

00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:09,440
Yeah. Asks co-host to explain something. We also just went over that. There we go. Um,

00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:16,480
giggles at route setters descriptions. Wow. I didn't know I did that. I didn't either.

00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:21,840
I guess, yeah, I need to pay attention to that more. Maybe something you can keep in mind too,

00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:27,520
but I don't remember that happening. Um, plugs and athletes vlogs. That's fair.

00:40:28,720 --> 00:40:33,040
I think they work hard for it. Like any, like I really want to push them as much as possible.

00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:35,680
So yeah, if they put the effort to do a YouTube channel, they should get a shout out.

00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:44,640
Yeah, absolutely. Um, comments on the mic set up on the wall. And she goes by Annie. That's all 16.

00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:51,600
That's all 16. Yeah. The reason I said that the anything is funny because I remember we were on a,

00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:56,480
so we're talking about Annie Sanders who is USA athlete, but they have an official name.

00:40:56,480 --> 00:41:00,640
And apparently I didn't know this. They can't really change it. So because it's something to

00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:06,560
do with it's something to do with something. But so Annie is officially Anastasia and we can't take

00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:11,600
that off the system. But so we're on this, we went to Russia for the world youth championships and

00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:17,760
we were on a six hour train from me, from Moscow down to the middle of nowhere in Voronezh.

00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:26,320
And it was me and my colleague from the IFC, a photographer and like a hundred very young athletes

00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:31,280
on a train being like teenagers. So it was like this total carnage thing. But in the midst of all

00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:37,520
this, I got a, a message from a family friend of Anastasia Sanders who just said like, really

00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:41,840
excited that you're going to be, you know, uh, talking about the team and Annie, just to let you

00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:47,440
know, she would like to be called Annie. So obviously when I heard that I like this, it was

00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:53,360
a family friend. So I didn't know. So I managed to get hold of Anastasia's mom, um, and checked with

00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:58,560
her on Instagram. I think it was that I could call Annie, Annie, and this guy wasn't a made up friend.

00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:04,000
It was all legit, but, um, it's something the IFC wanted me to do because it was like an athlete's

00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:08,240
request. It still comes up as Anastasia Sanders on the screen and they just want me to clarify it.

00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:13,680
So I've started saying it and now I realize I say it so much, it's almost a thing. So I now don't say

00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:19,440
it as much as possible, uh, because it sounds weird. I mean, I think it makes sense just for like

00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:24,800
new viewers who aren't familiar, but then you never know who's a new viewer. Like, and it's,

00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:32,480
it's hard. And then if, you know, yeah, I guess that's kind of like the hard place that you're in

00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:38,960
because you sort of have to appease old viewers, but then also then like new viewers don't really

00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:46,080
understand what's going on maybe. So yeah, I guess like, how do you deal with that? And are these like

00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:54,240
grab bag of facts that you default to? Um, are you just like trying to fill time or is there a

00:42:54,240 --> 00:43:03,120
specific reason for it? Um, when I started, uh, I was specifically asked to, to think of it as

00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:09,200
bringing new people on. So, because we were in this transition phase, it was, it wasn't Euro

00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:13,360
sport yet, but then we were certainly like, that was where we, I think the thinking was going

00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:17,440
towards. And we knew it was going to be, you know, just had the Olympics and it was, had a huge influx

00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:24,160
of people watching. And certainly I was briefed to, to really bring new people into the sport,

00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:29,440
but I don't think I did it very well, especially in my first year. And I certainly got a lot of

00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:35,440
feedback from climbers who were like really nice and really understanding, but we're just like,

00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:42,800
it's kind of annoying because you, the way you're saying it. So I changed the way I tried to do it.

00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:48,080
Um, after I sort of got that feedback because I wasn't hitting the middle ground well enough. I

00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:55,520
wasn't, I was just being a bit basic with it. So what I now try to do is it depends on the event.

00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:59,360
If it's something like an event that I know is going to be televised, so on the BBC, so something

00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:05,360
like, uh, like the world championships or a European, you know, event like that, then I will

00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:09,520
be a little bit more detailed about the rules, especially at the beginning. Um,

00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:13,600
sometimes I just forget and I watch a climbing competition and I've realized I haven't said any

00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:18,720
of the rules have got swept up in it, but yeah, I do try to bring things out and if an athlete does

00:44:18,720 --> 00:44:23,200
something that I feel like if I was watching the sport for the first time, I wouldn't understand,

00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:27,840
then I'll explain it as a rule. An example of that is the quick draws. So there's a thing

00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:32,960
athletes sometimes do, which is they hold the quick draw and then not hold it, but they grab it and

00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:39,360
kick it or they hit it to make it swing so they can easily clip it. So I'm not going to be

00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:42,960
a fan of it, but if you're a new viewer and you're watching the athlete just use the hold and you see

00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:47,840
what you think is an athlete grabbing something and then it looks weird, it doesn't make any sense.

00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:52,720
So if something like that happens, I'll say, you know, they can do that. They're not allowed to

00:44:52,720 --> 00:44:57,520
wait the correct draw, but they can, you know, hit it or touch it or move it. So I tried to sort of

00:44:57,520 --> 00:45:05,200
put some rules in when you see something happening. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I get

00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:10,240
it right. And I think it's something I'm adapting to and, and, and will change because if climbing

00:45:10,240 --> 00:45:13,760
goes the way we hope it does, then you know, more and more people will understand the sport and

00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:17,840
hopefully the graphics will be clearer and everything will start to make more sense. And

00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:22,400
my job won't be so much to explain, but just to, for everyone to enjoy what happens.

00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:25,200
How often do you just find that you have nothing to say?

00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:32,080
Very rarely. Um, like, I don't know, I can always talk about something like it's,

00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:36,640
it's, there are times when I lose my energy to do it. And that's sort of, if I'm,

00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:43,280
certainly the podium process is still something that's ongoing in terms of trying to make it

00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:50,080
faster and smoother. And all the TV channels tend to either have an advert break or go away

00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:57,600
for the podiums. Um, so that's a period of time sometimes where, cause I send the athlete away,

00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:01,680
I think it's kind of unfair to get them to talk through what could be an eternity,

00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:05,920
an eternity of waiting for a podium to show up. So whenever they do the interview, I say, look,

00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:09,760
just take your stuff and go, because it's different if there's a big event or there's a

00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:13,840
reason they want to come back or, you know, if they want to, it's up to them, but usually I,

00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:18,160
they go and that's it. So there's certainly times during waiting for podiums where I,

00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:22,400
nowadays I sort of just have a moment, cause I know it's only YouTube watching really, where I,

00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:26,960
you know, if it's just me talking about the weather, it's boring as anything.

00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:31,760
But, uh, but no, generally I can talk forever. That's, that's the one thing I can do.

00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:36,800
Okay. I mean, that's good. I think that's kind of what's needed for the, for the job.

00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:39,200
Yeah. I think I'd fail utterly if I didn't.

00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:47,280
Yeah. Um, and so in terms of general IFSC things, what are some things that you think the IFSC are

00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:49,520
doing right and wrong?

00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:55,280
I think it's a difficult time at the moment. And the reason it's a difficult time is because

00:46:55,280 --> 00:47:01,920
you know, our sport has changed a huge amount and coming into the Olympics, it, it's not just one

00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:07,680
thing that has to alter, you know, the whole sport has to rearrange itself, not only to come sort of

00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:13,200
in line with various guidelines that you're then, you then have to follow, but you know, there's an

00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:20,640
awful lot more sort of attention and, and just pure work that goes into it, but it's not like

00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:26,160
a whole bunch of money just sort of turns up on the doorstep. So, so for example, I learned this

00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:29,920
the other day, and if I'm wrong about this, it was my, someone else who told me this, but a colleague

00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:35,280
of mine who told me this, but for the first couple of years from a sport hitting the Olympics, that,

00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:39,280
that federation won't get any TV money from the sports. It's only when it's kind of confirmed.

00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:45,120
So if you think about how important, so that means that the decision to put it into LA 28 is

00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:50,960
hugely important because we will start getting TV rights and I don't know exactly when, but they will

00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:59,360
start to come in soon. So we're in this process where the sport aspires to be big time and we have

00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:04,400
the athletes and the stars who are there, but we've in this process where we're moving it from a

00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:08,960
fairly low level sport, you know, in terms of, of, I mean, it is in terms of what it used to be.

00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:14,320
It's got all this popularity and it's starting to grow, but that, that's the, that's the

00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:20,240
thing. But that transition process takes a lot of learning, a lot of manpower, a lot of resources.

00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:26,960
And the IFSC is, is a very small team that have had to expand very, very quickly. So there's that

00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:32,080
as a sort of restraint to them because although I'm a freelancer with those guys, I do get to spend

00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:37,680
a lot of time with them. And I see them as people as well as just this federation. And I think

00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:44,640
whenever you have an umbrella thing like the IFSC or, you know, it's very easy to, to forget that

00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:50,480
there's people behind that name who were, you know, like I've been on planes with people who have,

00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:54,320
you know, been delayed and miss seeing their kids and won't be home to see them for weeks. You know,

00:48:54,320 --> 00:49:00,080
this is, this is like real people working very, very, very hard within certain restrictions and

00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,840
not everyone gets it right all the time. And the IFSC doesn't get it right all the time.

00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:10,080
But, and, you know, I think there's certainly things that could be communicated better because,

00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:14,560
you know, for example, when I talked to the beginning about the, the universality program,

00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:18,560
the edit we put together, you know, I could see from your face, you hadn't heard of it before.

00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:22,400
And this is a really good like initiative that the IFSC is doing that isn't being

00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:29,920
shown enough. And there are lots of things that go on either sort of underground politically or

00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:35,440
behind the scenes that are a federation punching like way above its weight for what it's trying to

00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:40,640
do. But it does make mistakes. And I do think communication is one of those things. You know,

00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:45,200
I still think we, I mean, from my side, you know, I'm the content side, I'm the video side,

00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:50,880
I would like to expand that and bring people who are watching, you know, I think if you ask people

00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:56,560
to pay for a service, then you need to give them a lot back if they, you know, and if you take

00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:00,320
Formula One as a model, you know, you have to pay for that. And yet there's so much content on their

00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:05,520
YouTube channels and things to get your teeth into. So obviously, I would love to do more things with

00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:10,720
that with the IFSC. And I think we could do better like that. But there's a lot of money needed in

00:50:10,720 --> 00:50:14,800
lots of different aspects of our sports. And everything needs attention right now, because

00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:19,600
it's, it's, there's a ticking clock on everything because the next Olympics is coming and,

00:50:20,240 --> 00:50:25,200
you know, it's we have to be ready. So I think it's a good thing that we're doing this.

00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:31,440
So I think with the things they don't do right, I'm hoping that people learn from that and progress

00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:37,520
and keep communicating and keep talking. And I think in a couple of years when the ship sort of

00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:41,440
steadies itself, we're going to have a really special thing come out of this. But it just needs

00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:46,080
a bit of patience while we sort of navigate these waters at the moment. And that's from everyone.

00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:50,560
I think that's from athletes, from TV companies, from everyone who's involved this. We'll get there,

00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:57,520
be patient. Yeah, money is one of the hard parts. You were saying that funding doesn't come in until

00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:03,520
2028 for LA? No, no, and don't quote me on that. Like, what I'm saying is the first times you're

00:51:03,520 --> 00:51:08,160
in the Olympics is like a preliminary sport, you don't have access to TV rights, is when you have

00:51:08,160 --> 00:51:13,840
the full when you're in the Olympics, like we are now as like a member, then you get access to this

00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:19,440
sort of TV money. So and that hasn't just sort of arrived the second we went into Tokyo. So

00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:23,120
in terms of resources, I think people think there are more resources there than there are. And it's

00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:27,360
still a sport where we have really, really fine margins and running these events is incredibly

00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:37,360
expensive. You know, send the millionaires to sponsor these events, please. Yeah. If I meet any,

00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:44,960
I'll let you guys know. Please do. And so one of the difficult things that happened this year

00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:51,440
that I'm sure a lot of people want to know about is the whole Red S situation. The commentary box

00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:58,080
hot mic incident is I think what kind of kicked off the whole discussion. What are your thoughts

00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:03,680
about, I guess, what happened there and your stance on the topic? Yeah, I'm totally happy to

00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:09,440
say what happened as well, because it's it's there was no kind of secret to it. So and so the hot

00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:15,360
mic thing, so generally, so we are. So we have microphones in the commentary box. And obviously,

00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:20,320
there's an on air button and an off air button. And with that one, it was an exterior TV company,

00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:26,160
and they'd inadvertently had us on air, but they hadn't been streaming our signal. And then someone

00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:31,120
pressed a button and streamed a couple of seconds of the signal. Now, I understand about hot mics,

00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:34,400
and it's something I'm quite careful about. But it's hard, because sometimes athletes in the box

00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:38,080
with you for maybe like 15 minutes before it starts, and you're going to have a conversation

00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:43,040
about stuff. But I'm quite aware that sometimes it goes wrong. And yeah, the Alana thing. So with

00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:47,440
Alana, basically, we'd actually been talking about the fact that she was retiring, because no one

00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:52,720
really knew. And she'd said to me before Innsbruck that she wanted to do the comp sheet, the

00:52:52,720 --> 00:52:56,880
commentating one that that finals because it was be her last event, and she wanted to announce it.

00:52:56,880 --> 00:53:01,440
And it was like, this whole thing, and I was aware that it was happening, but no one else knew. And

00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:06,880
you know, so it was mainly discussing that. And Alana is very, very good at commentating,

00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:12,000
and certainly, I think has a future when she stops Olympic qualifying, hopefully Olympic competing.

00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:17,040
You know, she's got a future in that. But one of the things she was talking about was she wanted to

00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:25,280
talk about the Red S issue. And she was asking me to sort of I said, Is there anything you want to

00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:30,400
it started with me saying, Is there anything apart from your retirement that you don't want me to say

00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:34,560
or that you want to cover when we talk about the fact that you're moving away from the sport? And

00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:42,960
she said, I'd like to talk about the issue of Red S and what the IFC is doing. And what I said was,

00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:47,200
okay, the exact words, I played it in my head a million times, because I knew this would happen

00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:55,280
one day. I said, I said, Okay, obviously, do what you want. It might not be the best time for it

00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:58,960
now. And then and that there was a section in the middle of all that that got caught

00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:03,360
on the hot mic before the guy turned it off. And I finished the sentence, which wasn't called by

00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:10,320
saying, you know, might not be the best time to do it on air like right now. But if you want to do it,

00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:13,680
I'm not going to stop you because I'm not you know, at the end of the day, I'm asked to

00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:20,400
it's difficult, like I work for the IFC more than the athletes do. But I and I'm certainly asked,

00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:25,360
I would never touch topics like that. It's not my role. But I also I'm not going to stop an athlete

00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:32,800
if they have something to say. But at the same time, it's you know, we it's run like a professional

00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:38,640
commentating team, and it has to have that different angle. So I was happy with Alana to

00:54:38,640 --> 00:54:42,880
say what she wanted to say, my my concern was that the conversation would become entirely about

00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:47,920
that thing on a night where she's trying to talk about other things. And also that she couldn't

00:54:47,920 --> 00:54:54,240
necessarily express what she wanted to express in what would have to be about a sentence to fill

00:54:54,240 --> 00:54:59,040
the time between the video finishing and the first set of things coming on screen that we have to

00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:04,960
talk about. So and I knew that if she said something, it would be very quick, and she would

00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:10,480
feel a little bit perhaps unfulfilled about it. But it was up to her. And I genuinely didn't know

00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:13,840
whether we when we started speaking, whether she would bring it up or not. And if she brought it

00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:19,200
up, I was going to let her have her moment and say what she wanted to say and then move on in terms

00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:23,360
of like, I wasn't going to get into the discussion. But it was she can say what she wanted to do.

00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:28,640
She decided not to and then later put out the statement and then said what she wanted to do.

00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:33,360
And I talked to her about it. I talked to her about that have been caught that we took it off

00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:38,880
because it was like, I just very strongly believe that it was it was such an important thing that

00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:45,200
she wanted to say that it needed to have the full impact of how she wanted to say it in the way that

00:55:45,200 --> 00:55:51,680
she wanted to do it. And I'm glad that she did it that way, because I think then the conversation

00:55:51,680 --> 00:55:58,400
could develop. That's what I think anyway. And then how I personally feel about it. I mean,

00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:02,880
it's honestly it's it's not something I'm going to talk about. And the reasons I'm not going to

00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:11,520
talk about it is a couple. Number one is that it's very, very complicated. And it's it doesn't

00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:16,400
necessarily look like it is from from an outsider's perspective sometimes because it seems like very

00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:22,800
cut and dry. And it is I think if if there's something that the IFC they say they are doing,

00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:28,320
they should follow that as a standard. And I'm not really privy to whether they have or haven't

00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:33,360
done that. It's not part of my job role. And I'm not involved in those conversations.

00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:39,440
But I am aware of how complicated it is because it's it reaches deep into the sport. We're talking

00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:46,480
about it's a responsibility of federations as well as the IFC. You know, it's a lot of people and

00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:53,520
there's a lot of there's a lot of views about it. So it's very complicated. And I'm not an expert

00:56:53,520 --> 00:56:57,840
on it. And I don't feel like I can necessarily weigh in on it like that. The second reason is

00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:02,800
because I don't want to speak for people. They do it better than I do on this issue. But also, like,

00:57:02,800 --> 00:57:07,600
my role is to commentate on every single athlete who makes it through to the next round.

00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:16,480
Now, there are likely to be athletes who appear that I talk about that I want to

00:57:17,680 --> 00:57:22,560
do the same kind of job that I would do talking about them as I would do talking about anyone.

00:57:22,560 --> 00:57:27,200
And if I'm talking about I think it's difficult for me to discuss an issue like that without

00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:34,480
people thinking about athletes names or who I might be talking about. And I am always going to

00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:40,080
try to help that athlete up the wall, even though they can't hear me with what I'm saying, like I

00:57:40,080 --> 00:57:45,520
care about them succeeding. And I think it would be weird if I chipped into a discussion when my

00:57:45,520 --> 00:57:50,000
job is to talk about those athletes. So for that reason, I sort of stay away from it. And

00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:54,560
I hope that everyone keeps working towards a solution for this because I think it's

00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:59,120
a thing is quite unique to climbing. And I think it's obviously very important and it needs to be

00:57:59,120 --> 00:58:03,760
dealt with properly. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, thank you for the insight. I think

00:58:05,200 --> 00:58:11,760
that helps a lot. I had no idea about what happened after the fact of the hot mic incident.

00:58:11,760 --> 00:58:16,800
So that's really interesting to know. I don't I can't say I was like devastated. It's the worst

00:58:16,800 --> 00:58:20,960
conversation I was like devastated. It's the worst thing because I felt professionally really

00:58:20,960 --> 00:58:26,640
silly about it because like I know about hot mics is not the athletes job to think about that. It's

00:58:26,640 --> 00:58:31,840
my job to think about that. But like she literally said it about 10 seconds before we started talking

00:58:31,840 --> 00:58:37,200
as well. Like it was like as the music started to roll up, she said this thing and I had like,

00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:44,320
like 20 seconds to try to respond. But I'm annoyed it got caught because I didn't want it to become

00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:50,400
about a hot mic thing. I wanted it to become about what Alana wanted to say. So I was disappointed

00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:55,840
that it started off that way. But I think to Alana's credit, an enormous credit, the way that she

00:58:57,200 --> 00:59:02,640
sort of didn't sort of try to cover up the fact that we had this hot mic and we'd have a private

00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:06,880
conversation, but she just rolled with it and said what she wanted to say and just didn't make it

00:59:06,880 --> 00:59:12,880
about that. And I just I think it was just an incredible way of her getting her opinion across.

00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:18,400
And I think not that it was like a good thing that it happened, but it definitely brought a lot more

00:59:18,400 --> 00:59:28,160
eyes to the issue and probably helped her platform and get just getting people to wonder what it was

00:59:28,160 --> 00:59:35,840
about. Yeah, I think so. But yeah, I think that is everything I wanted to cover about IFSC. Is

00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:41,040
there anything else you wanted to mention about IFSC before we move on? I don't think so. I think

00:59:41,040 --> 00:59:48,080
it's just like, it's a funny one because I swing from, you know, I work in it and I share frustrations

00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:54,160
as much as anyone does. And I'm very, very bad at just sitting back and like, I always want to like

00:59:54,160 --> 01:00:00,240
push things. So, you know, I share people's frustrations. And you know, there's so if you

01:00:00,240 --> 01:00:05,680
think though, like how much good the like those events do, because it's very easy to sometimes

01:00:05,680 --> 01:00:10,320
get caught. I mean, how many do we have this year? Like must be 15 plus. Like, you know, it's been

01:00:10,320 --> 01:00:15,760
viewed by millions and millions of people. You know, we've had some of the most wonderful,

01:00:15,760 --> 01:00:23,680
sporty moments I've ever seen. And you know, this is a competition that for very little money, or

01:00:23,680 --> 01:00:29,280
if you use a VPN, no money, you can watch, you know, and just experience. And it's really special.

01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:32,480
I just want to say thank you to everyone who worked so hard for it, because there is there is

01:00:32,480 --> 01:00:38,480
so much that goes on behind the scenes and people doing crazy hours, you know, from route setters,

01:00:38,480 --> 01:00:44,080
who are your route setters who will be there all night, all morning bleeding tips, and then

01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:51,920
will get castigated for something, you know, that went slightly wrong or, you know, or like amazing,

01:00:52,640 --> 01:00:59,600
like watching Paraclimbers just to the best people like I do props of Paraclimbers like like the 16

01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:03,280
thing because they are amazing. You know, it's a wonderful sport. So thank you to everyone who

01:01:03,280 --> 01:01:09,440
makes it what it is and for doing everything to make it special. So yeah, I FSC is not the only

01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:17,280
thing that you do. What I guess, give a brief description of what other work you do outside of

01:01:17,280 --> 01:01:25,280
I FSC commentary, whether it's like other commentary or your epic TV work. Sure. So the answer is I'm

01:01:25,280 --> 01:01:30,800
in a bit of a changing time at the moment. So for a very long time, I was employed by epic TV pretty

01:01:30,800 --> 01:01:37,360
much full time, although technically I was a freelancer for them. I don't like contracts.

01:01:38,560 --> 01:01:43,280
But so I worked as a freelancer, but full time for them for a long, long time. That was the only

01:01:43,280 --> 01:01:49,760
thing I did. And that was the only avenue I had. And yeah, gradually, I've started to sort of

01:01:49,760 --> 01:01:54,880
develop a little bit. And the one amazing thing about epic TV is certainly at the beginning,

01:01:54,880 --> 01:01:58,720
when I was working there, if you had an idea and you wanted to do something about it, they'd let

01:01:58,720 --> 01:02:05,920
you do it. So they, you know, I started editing and I started filming and producing and directing

01:02:05,920 --> 01:02:10,880
shoots. And, and, you know, there's a lot of stuff that's on climbing daily that I film or I've

01:02:10,880 --> 01:02:17,680
edited. So I did like, for years, I was doing two, two of the shows out of the five were my edits.

01:02:19,920 --> 01:02:24,000
So there was, so I started moving as well as just being the guy who talked about it, there'd be,

01:02:24,000 --> 01:02:29,200
there's a, there's a lot of like product marketing, working with brands, you know, like trying to work

01:02:29,200 --> 01:02:33,600
out some, you know, brand comes to you with a shoe and they're like, we have this shoe, we want a

01:02:33,600 --> 01:02:37,120
video, you have to work out how to do the video that you're, you know, you're trying to advertise

01:02:37,120 --> 01:02:41,760
something, but make it so exciting. And there's lots of work like that. So yeah, I've started to,

01:02:41,760 --> 01:02:47,200
in the last, last couple of years, I've started to, I guess, move away from epic TV into more

01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:55,600
different companies. So I have the IFC, I've got epic TV. I've started writing for various people.

01:02:55,600 --> 01:03:03,200
So I write for UKC. And then sort of next year, there's a few things. So it's, people don't really

01:03:03,200 --> 01:03:07,600
know this actually. So you'll be the first to know it, but it will be, I'm going to be doing the

01:03:08,240 --> 01:03:13,200
UIA ice climbing next year. So I'll be doing the world cup commentary for that, which is,

01:03:13,200 --> 01:03:18,720
which is, it's cool. Like, and hopefully what's going to happen is people will

01:03:20,080 --> 01:03:23,760
hopefully come with me a little bit. Trust me that this sport is good because it is,

01:03:24,560 --> 01:03:30,640
it's like climbing, but with like deadly weapons attached to your hand. It's like utterly terrifying.

01:03:30,640 --> 01:03:37,280
Like it's like something you've never seen. And it goes up the inside of like a car parking lots

01:03:37,280 --> 01:03:42,320
in South Fay will be in Korea. It's, it's a spectacle of a sport. So I'll be doing that next

01:03:42,320 --> 01:03:48,880
year. Hopefully something in summer will come through and I'll be speaking on various platforms

01:03:48,880 --> 01:03:54,400
for that when that happens. And then, and then hopefully I haven't been contracted, but hopefully

01:03:54,400 --> 01:04:02,080
IFC next year as well. Epic TV work will sort of step back a little bit. I think it's, I've been

01:04:02,080 --> 01:04:09,520
doing less and less with them. And then really it was only down to a couple of shoots. And then I

01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:17,920
did the gear shows for them. And I think, I think I'll probably stop doing that pretty soon and just

01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:23,760
occasionally do sort of hopefully some bigger projects with them. So occasionally appearing

01:04:23,760 --> 01:04:28,640
on camera maybe, but more sort of producing work and perhaps doing some filming projects with them,

01:04:28,640 --> 01:04:33,760
but on a much looser basis. So sort of Epic TV. And it's sad to say goodbye, because it's been a

01:04:33,760 --> 01:04:37,760
long time I've been there, but it's, it's probably time to step away from that a little bit and do

01:04:37,760 --> 01:04:44,560
something different. And then, yeah, there's quite a big thing, hopefully happening in March,

01:04:44,560 --> 01:04:48,560
which is, and again, I'm not going to say exactly what it is, because not a hundred percent, but

01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:52,160
hopefully in the buildup to March, you'll find out about it because there is something that I

01:04:52,160 --> 01:05:01,360
went to do with a bunch of amazing people telling a story that has, it was, it was two weeks of the

01:05:01,360 --> 01:05:07,200
most insane journey I've ever been on into a very, very dangerous place and very sad place to be

01:05:07,200 --> 01:05:12,320
right now. So that will be coming hopefully fingers crossed in March 2024. So yeah, there's

01:05:12,320 --> 01:05:17,920
a few things, hopefully for next year, but yeah, that's, that's what I do outside of, of the talking

01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:23,760
bit. Exciting. People are going to be very upset that you can't talk about what's going on in March,

01:05:23,760 --> 01:05:28,320
though. I think people can guess. Like if you, if you, if you follow me on any platforms and you've,

01:05:28,320 --> 01:05:33,280
you've read various things, you look back at my Instagram, you'll know it's, it's, it's, yeah,

01:05:33,280 --> 01:05:37,520
I'm not, I'm not going to say anything else, but it's from what I've seen, it's likely to happen. And,

01:05:37,520 --> 01:05:43,600
and it's, it's going to be a step forward in me in terms of my filmmaking and some of the stories I

01:05:43,600 --> 01:05:49,760
try to tell. And it's a side that I love to do. And I really hope that people enjoy it.

01:05:49,760 --> 01:05:56,080
A plug to look through all of your socials. Exactly. Is, would you say that's like

01:05:57,040 --> 01:05:59,920
the proudest thing that you've worked on, or is there anything else in your

01:05:59,920 --> 01:06:04,240
career again, that you're, that you feel like you're most excited about?

01:06:04,720 --> 01:06:08,080
There's been some amazing moments along the way that have just,

01:06:09,280 --> 01:06:13,680
and in every company that I've worked for, I've had these moments, you know, there's been

01:06:14,320 --> 01:06:19,600
climbing daily shoots where I've been working with athletes who are my heroes and I'll sort of catch

01:06:19,600 --> 01:06:26,960
myself. We did a very, I think we did quite, I think one thing Epic TV has done pretty well over

01:06:26,960 --> 01:06:33,920
the years is sort of try to evolve. And we've done a lot of things with climbing daily that was new.

01:06:33,920 --> 01:06:39,040
And I think people tend to forget Epic TV was the original YouTube channel before everyone had a

01:06:39,040 --> 01:06:44,080
YouTube channel. We were there and we sort of moved it from five minute shows, or it would just be

01:06:44,080 --> 01:06:50,640
like a social media grab gossip into mini documentaries. And, you know, I remember,

01:06:50,640 --> 01:06:55,600
I'll tell you one thing actually that I was proud of was that when,

01:06:57,600 --> 01:07:04,960
and what am I proud of most of? There's been moments where I've had people who I respect a lot

01:07:05,600 --> 01:07:14,720
say like they enjoyed something. And it might be like, I remember the gentleman who was head of

01:07:14,720 --> 01:07:21,840
the British Mountain Guide Association, Graham Ettel, I knew him before I started the job and

01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:28,080
he's this very Scottish, very brusque mountain guide. And I remembered wanting to be an alpinist

01:07:28,080 --> 01:07:32,080
and respecting the heck out of this guy. And then I started the climbing daily job and I remember

01:07:32,080 --> 01:07:36,000
doing various things, but I came back and I saw him, I happened to see him, he came up to me.

01:07:36,800 --> 01:07:40,640
Then, you know, this is me moving from, he knew me as this squirt little guy trying to climb into

01:07:40,640 --> 01:07:45,440
like this person who's a gatekeeper for climbing stories. And he just came up and was just nodded

01:07:45,440 --> 01:07:48,960
to me and was like, yeah, you know, I don't remember exactly what he said, but he said he

01:07:48,960 --> 01:07:53,920
really enjoyed it. And I just remember being like, wow, that's like a proper climber watching my

01:07:53,920 --> 01:08:00,560
videos. And, you know, whenever anyone comes up to me and they just say like, thank you, or like,

01:08:00,560 --> 01:08:05,680
I enjoy this, you suddenly realize that you touch people with it. And that's been a really,

01:08:05,680 --> 01:08:08,400
it keeps me going, honestly, that's really, really special to find that.

01:08:08,400 --> 01:08:15,440
And then I don't know with the commentating, I think, I think in this pre, it's a hint,

01:08:15,440 --> 01:08:22,320
it even more the most amazing moment I've had of watching so far has been watching Daniel Boldyrev

01:08:22,320 --> 01:08:31,760
win the European speed championships in Munich in the summer. So not the summer, summer before,

01:08:31,760 --> 01:08:37,760
it was this massive event right in the middle of Munich. And this was, you know,

01:08:37,760 --> 01:08:47,120
this was, you know, as the war was kind of all kicking around and, and, and Daniel won this

01:08:47,120 --> 01:08:52,880
competition. And I remember forgetting he's a Ukraine athlete. And I remember forgetting that

01:08:52,880 --> 01:08:58,240
he was Ukraine, not even considering that he was Ukrainian until he won, he topped out. And he came

01:08:58,240 --> 01:09:03,680
down and he reclimbed the wall. And he celebrated in the top and he came down, he had a flag. And

01:09:03,680 --> 01:09:09,680
it was at this moment on air, I sort of realized the significance of what he'd done, because he

01:09:09,680 --> 01:09:17,680
just won the biggest competition of the year for Ukraine in Munich. And I remember just realizing

01:09:17,680 --> 01:09:22,480
that I was going to cry. And that all I was desperately trying to do was like push down on

01:09:22,480 --> 01:09:27,040
that feeling, because I knew that if I cried, anyone listening isn't going to be affected by

01:09:27,040 --> 01:09:30,640
it. They're just going to hear me crying. They don't want to hear that. So I was shoving this

01:09:30,640 --> 01:09:36,160
emotion down, like pushing it, pushing it down. But it was, I'm choking up even speaking about

01:09:36,160 --> 01:09:40,480
it, because it was just, it was this moment where like, it didn't matter about the sport,

01:09:40,480 --> 01:09:45,840
but what he was saying on stage, it was the most powerful statement I've ever seen. And

01:09:46,960 --> 01:09:53,040
I, I was proud of holding it together until the end of that. And I just remember sitting in that

01:09:53,040 --> 01:09:56,960
empty stadium and, and when everyone had left and I couldn't leave, I remember I had to do a link

01:09:56,960 --> 01:10:02,880
for Epic TV and I had to do it like six times. And I just remember being proud to get to a position

01:10:02,880 --> 01:10:09,440
where I was allowed to speak about the most incredible, talented people. And that's such a

01:10:09,440 --> 01:10:14,640
privilege. And I'm proud of myself. I've got myself to that position where I get to experience it,

01:10:14,640 --> 01:10:20,720
because it's amazing. Wow. Yeah. That's really meaningful. Is it, is there a video on that

01:10:20,720 --> 01:10:28,400
somewhere? I'd love to link it. You can watch it. You have to VPN it. It's like the, I'll send you

01:10:28,400 --> 01:10:33,920
a link if you want after this, but it's, you have to, you might be able to get it in the States.

01:10:36,320 --> 01:10:40,240
Well, I'll send it to you. But yeah, it's European Championship and it's in Munich. It's the speed

01:10:40,240 --> 01:10:47,520
finals for the men. That's, that's incredible. Yeah. I'll link it below. So yeah, I guess that's not

01:10:47,520 --> 01:10:52,960
an IFSC broadcast. Are there any other competitions that you love commentating for?

01:10:54,640 --> 01:11:00,240
Oh, like outside. Yeah. Whenever there's a, whenever there's an exterior, I'm still amazed

01:11:00,240 --> 01:11:03,600
people ask me to do it, honestly. And like, it's incredible. Like I'll get a message from someone,

01:11:03,600 --> 01:11:09,120
I'll be like, really? Like you want me to commentate your, like, it's awesome. They're a lot more fun

01:11:09,120 --> 01:11:15,440
because I feel like with the IFSC, I have to be quite well behaved. Because, you know, it's all

01:11:15,440 --> 01:11:21,600
it's all Eurosport and stuff. Like I have to be well behaved. Whereas for more domestic comps,

01:11:21,600 --> 01:11:25,520
although I try to still be as professional as I'd hoped to be on a normal broadcast, you can

01:11:25,520 --> 01:11:31,280
definitely have a different style of it. So I love doing them because they're just fun.

01:11:33,120 --> 01:11:36,160
That's my favorite. I had a great time at Doc Masters. I can't go back this year. They asked

01:11:36,160 --> 01:11:39,360
me to go, but I can't cause I've got ice climbing stuff, but that was a fun one in,

01:11:39,360 --> 01:11:46,400
uh, Ooh, some Utrecht near Amsterdam. That was cool. I just came back from Israel for the Golden

01:11:46,400 --> 01:11:54,240
Holds comp and, uh, that is, and I'd in no way trying to make this political because I've had

01:11:54,240 --> 01:11:59,520
the feedback from people about that, but whatever, and obviously the situation recently, I mean, I

01:11:59,520 --> 01:12:05,040
flew out a day, day and a half before it all started. So it's something that's kind of touched

01:12:05,040 --> 01:12:10,960
me personally quite recently, but that is a, uh, an amazing comp to be part of. It's just, uh,

01:12:10,960 --> 01:12:15,040
they look after the athletes beautifully and it's, um, it's a good one to be part of. So they're fun.

01:12:15,040 --> 01:12:20,320
All the exterior ones are fun. They're great. They're just, uh, they're pure and that's good.

01:12:20,320 --> 01:12:22,960
What's your, what's your favorite this year? What did you enjoy?

01:12:23,920 --> 01:12:28,080
Oh, like non-IFSC competitions?

01:12:28,080 --> 01:12:31,600
I don't know. What, like IFC was, is there a moment for you?

01:12:31,600 --> 01:12:40,480
Ooh, they all kind of blend together a little bit. Um, I'm trying to think if there's any.

01:12:40,480 --> 01:12:44,800
It's hard to remember specific moments, isn't it? Like when you think about it, it's all just

01:12:45,520 --> 01:12:46,240
that season.

01:12:46,240 --> 01:12:53,040
Yeah. I feel like there were a lot of moments I saw where, like, Brooke surprised me a lot,

01:12:53,040 --> 01:13:00,640
um, in bouldering. Um, I remember like the moment where Toby won gold in bouldering.

01:13:00,640 --> 01:13:01,600
Oh yeah.

01:13:01,600 --> 01:13:02,560
That was a good one.

01:13:03,280 --> 01:13:03,760
Yeah.

01:13:03,760 --> 01:13:06,720
Um, outside of that.

01:13:06,720 --> 01:13:11,680
That was the Toby moment was I think probably one of the best. It's got to be top three of the season.

01:13:11,680 --> 01:13:17,600
Yeah. I just, I worry about mentioning it because it's going to play into that.

01:13:17,600 --> 01:13:20,240
You fanboying over British climbers.

01:13:22,240 --> 01:13:22,720
Yeah.

01:13:22,720 --> 01:13:26,400
I think this is unfair, right? Okay. That's seriously, I think this is unfair because

01:13:26,400 --> 01:13:31,200
number one, like, how do I think about this? People do say this, but I'm like,

01:13:31,200 --> 01:13:35,360
I swear I'm more enthusiastic about everyone apart from the British guys because I try not to be

01:13:35,360 --> 01:13:40,720
because like, in all honesty, people, I live in France. I've lived in France for like 10 years.

01:13:40,720 --> 01:13:45,280
I'm very removed from the British bouldering scene. There are some athletes that I find really

01:13:45,280 --> 01:13:50,000
interesting within the British team. And like Molly obviously is someone who's just so talented, both

01:13:50,000 --> 01:13:56,160
as a climber and as you know, a co-commentator and, and as a person, she's just wicked. And I would

01:13:56,160 --> 01:14:01,040
have the same enthusiasm for Molly, whether she was British or like Austrian. So like, I think

01:14:01,040 --> 01:14:08,560
sometimes people see that as a different way, but like, I don't know. I think inevitably I must do

01:14:08,560 --> 01:14:13,840
it because I am British and for sure, but like someone like Toby, I don't see how people can't

01:14:13,840 --> 01:14:21,920
cheer him on. Like, I mean, the man uses his face for God's sake. Like, I don't know. I'm being

01:14:21,920 --> 01:14:26,400
enthusiastic because it's awesome what he's doing. Like, I don't know. But yes, I'll try to avoid the

01:14:26,400 --> 01:14:33,360
bias from it. I mean, it's unfair to like everyone. You can't avoid it. You can't avoid it. I could

01:14:33,360 --> 01:14:38,480
try though. I'll be better. Are there like other, you said that was one of your top three moments.

01:14:38,480 --> 01:14:42,720
Do you have other moments in mind? Sorry, just actually one, I've got one more defense thing to

01:14:42,720 --> 01:14:48,800
say, right? I'll be thinking about this. You got to remember. So for Eurosport, for a lot of countries,

01:14:48,800 --> 01:14:53,360
they have their own commentary team in their language. So throughout the whole world, there

01:14:53,360 --> 01:14:58,400
are different Eurosport teams. I'm the only one at the events and I'm like the international one,

01:14:58,400 --> 01:15:02,080
but there's certain countries where you can't select English commentary. So if you're in Germany,

01:15:02,080 --> 01:15:07,360
for example, you can't select English commentary on Eurosport. And I do think because of that,

01:15:07,360 --> 01:15:11,520
I might be allowed a slight bias. And that's because like, imagine if you're watching like,

01:15:12,880 --> 01:15:17,120
like in the Olympics, for example, you, if you watch British commentating on a British TV channel,

01:15:17,120 --> 01:15:20,800
there's always a little bit of it. Like if you watch a world cup and it's England playing and

01:15:20,800 --> 01:15:26,000
you've got English commentary. So maybe I'm allowed it. I don't know. We'll have to let,

01:15:26,000 --> 01:15:30,640
people can tell me if I'm allowed to do it because of that. I mean, I guess, yeah, I,

01:15:30,640 --> 01:15:35,840
I didn't know that there was like, are you saying there's like separate commentary in each language?

01:15:35,840 --> 01:15:42,000
Yeah. Yeah. And so there's a, not in obviously every single country, but there's a lot of

01:15:42,000 --> 01:15:45,840
countries with their own commentary team and they have, so what happens with them is they have

01:15:45,840 --> 01:15:52,480
our feed sent through to them. So they'll be sitting in a room in a, in a Eurosport studio,

01:15:52,480 --> 01:15:56,080
somewhere in the country they're broadcasting from, and they'll get all their information just

01:15:56,080 --> 01:16:03,040
from the screen. So yeah, so that comes through, but also what people don't know is that we,

01:16:03,040 --> 01:16:08,640
so Eurosport talk to us all, the entire commentary team at the same time. And there's various points

01:16:08,640 --> 01:16:12,240
during a broadcast where there'll be advert breaks or there'll be something called,

01:16:12,240 --> 01:16:17,040
this is just a bit geeky knowledge for anyone to know. There'll be sort of like breaks and those,

01:16:17,040 --> 01:16:20,720
and they're called editing breaks. And that's because at certain points, people who are

01:16:20,720 --> 01:16:25,360
directing it want clean audio. So they want everyone around the world at the same time to

01:16:25,360 --> 01:16:28,880
stop talking. So the way they do that is they pick a moment where they hope it's not going to be too

01:16:28,880 --> 01:16:33,840
busy. And then they count us down from five seconds. So, and this comes fairly randomly in your

01:16:33,840 --> 01:16:36,720
ears. So you can be talking like we are now. And suddenly someone will tell you that in five

01:16:36,720 --> 01:16:41,280
seconds, you have to stop talking for about five seconds. So that's where we're at.

01:16:41,280 --> 01:16:45,120
Five seconds. So you have to like stop, bring your sentence to a close pause,

01:16:45,760 --> 01:16:49,680
and then pick it up and make it sound natural. But everyone around the world in the commentary

01:16:49,680 --> 01:16:53,840
teams is doing this. So this is what I mean when I say there's lots of levels to this. It's,

01:16:53,840 --> 01:17:00,160
it's really complicated and there's an awful lot going on. Yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah. That's a lot to

01:17:00,160 --> 01:17:07,520
think about. Just something I have no idea about that would be really hard for me to do as just

01:17:07,520 --> 01:17:14,800
like a person who is talking right now and trying to make a podcast, but has no experience.

01:17:15,600 --> 01:17:19,520
Well, there's not just, so there's Eurosport in one ear, there's a director from the TV crew in

01:17:19,520 --> 01:17:23,040
the other ear. You're trying to listen to the co-commentator and have a conversation as well

01:17:23,040 --> 01:17:27,440
as watching the screen to try to work out what's going on. You've got to read stats that are coming

01:17:27,440 --> 01:17:31,840
up because no one feeds the stats. We have to find, we have systems, we have to find it. And

01:17:31,840 --> 01:17:37,200
then now we have a new system for judging where we get a group sent where they tell us if there's

01:17:37,200 --> 01:17:41,040
appeals. So we have, so the incident like in Chamonix won't happen again because we actually

01:17:41,040 --> 01:17:45,760
know what happened. So there is a lot that goes on. And I think when people are screaming at the

01:17:45,760 --> 01:17:49,520
screens, perhaps when we miss something, again, it's that thing where we're trying to be,

01:17:50,080 --> 01:17:52,640
we're punching above our weight. We're trying to be a sport that is,

01:17:53,920 --> 01:17:57,360
has all these things and we're still building towards it. And you know, we,

01:17:58,320 --> 01:18:02,640
everyone is trying to do the best possible job to try to give you guys the action because no one

01:18:02,640 --> 01:18:06,160
wants to do it badly. None of the route setters want to set a route that's impossible or bolder

01:18:06,160 --> 01:18:09,680
that can't be climbed. The judges don't want to make mistakes. The athletes don't want to

01:18:09,680 --> 01:18:14,880
fall off the wall and we don't want to miss names and miss things. And you know, everyone is trying.

01:18:16,160 --> 01:18:21,360
And I do think we usually do a pretty good job. And you know, it's pretty cool to watch people

01:18:21,360 --> 01:18:24,640
coming along with us and also so many new people come to the sport. It's incredible.

01:18:25,920 --> 01:18:32,960
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot going on. Distractions are everywhere. I literally just like saw a window

01:18:32,960 --> 01:18:39,040
open behind you and I'm still thinking about it. Is it? No, it was just like an automatic system.

01:18:40,560 --> 01:18:45,520
It was like a minute ago and I'm still thinking about it and then I'm so distracted by it. So

01:18:45,520 --> 01:18:53,520
I've got a long way to go, but that's fine. But okay. So outside of working,

01:18:54,240 --> 01:19:00,560
because we've been talking a lot about you working, what are your own climbing goals?

01:19:00,560 --> 01:19:07,680
How long have you been climbing? Yeah. So I'm 37 now and I started climbing when I was about

01:19:08,800 --> 01:19:16,800
25 or 26, I think. Pretty late. Yeah, it was pretty late. I'd always done sport, but climbing

01:19:16,800 --> 01:19:24,560
was new. I don't know. It's a funny one with me because I, especially this year, it's been such a

01:19:24,560 --> 01:19:32,240
crazy schedule that there just hasn't been the time to regularly train for me. And I really tried to

01:19:32,240 --> 01:19:36,800
fight it at the beginning of the season in terms of like squeezing visits to the gym. And I did

01:19:36,800 --> 01:19:41,760
better this year, but sometimes we're just in the middle of nowhere and, or like it's hard because

01:19:41,760 --> 01:19:46,000
when the athletes go to these events, their whole job is to stay fit. So they'll arrive and their

01:19:46,000 --> 01:19:50,240
schedule is busy, but they'll have time where it's like, okay, this is gym time and they'll

01:19:50,240 --> 01:19:55,920
travel an hour to go to a gym, whereas I can't do that necessarily. So it's quite hard during the

01:19:55,920 --> 01:20:04,320
season to keep fit, I found. I run, but this year for sure, it just like the last month, September,

01:20:04,320 --> 01:20:09,600
I think I was working every single day and I just didn't, there was no time for gym. So for me, it

01:20:09,600 --> 01:20:13,840
kind of, it tends to get quite strong over winter and then I hit summer all blazing and then have

01:20:13,840 --> 01:20:18,800
this season that crops up and then it drops off a cliff. And I think one thing I'm trying to do is

01:20:18,800 --> 01:20:25,600
maybe just row back on the work side a little bit and have a bit of a life, which would be nice.

01:20:25,600 --> 01:20:31,040
So I haven't got a rock climbing goal at the moment. Like I did, I bolded 8A almost a year

01:20:31,040 --> 01:20:36,480
ago to the date and that was my goal. And I was always been to do an 8A boulder. Like I always

01:20:36,480 --> 01:20:44,080
thought that was like outrageously ridiculously impossible. And yeah, there's only one, but hey,

01:20:44,080 --> 01:20:49,840
it's done. It's probably soft for everyone saying. You've got to pick a soft one for your first

01:20:49,840 --> 01:20:56,160
anyway. Like you can't climb the first grid. This is my excuses rolling out. Yeah. But no,

01:20:56,160 --> 01:20:59,040
that was cool. But I haven't really got one right now. Like it'd be nice. I've started training

01:20:59,040 --> 01:21:04,400
again recently. Like I think I've done seven days in a trot now and like back to climbing

01:21:04,400 --> 01:21:10,000
fairly hard again. But I don't know. We'll see. But I have time off coming. So hopefully I can

01:21:10,000 --> 01:21:15,040
get out on the rock and do something. Yeah. Do you ever get a chance to climb with any of the athletes?

01:21:18,240 --> 01:21:24,880
Sometimes. I think sometimes like at an event, it's a weird one because they have a very different

01:21:24,880 --> 01:21:36,400
schedule from me. And it's a weird one to answer because I, I'm, it's not like I'm always sort of

01:21:36,400 --> 01:21:44,640
hanging out with the athletes necessarily, because again, it's this, I feel like maybe I need to

01:21:44,640 --> 01:21:48,240
sometimes keep a bit of distance because again, it's that thing where I talk about them for a

01:21:48,240 --> 01:21:53,280
living. And if they're all my best friends and I'm sort of like it, I think it would be a bit of a

01:21:53,280 --> 01:21:58,480
weird dynamic. So I step back a little bit from it. I don't try to get too involved. I'm not trying

01:21:58,480 --> 01:22:03,200
to get in on personal climbing trips and stuff like that. Um, but having said that there are

01:22:03,200 --> 01:22:08,880
athletes like I do climb with and really enjoy it. And, uh, you know, they're a lot, a lot better

01:22:08,880 --> 01:22:13,040
than me. And that's also worth remembering. Like, you know, they're really good. They're really good.

01:22:13,840 --> 01:22:16,960
So it's not like, you know, you go for a session and then you can keep up. It's like,

01:22:16,960 --> 01:22:21,440
shut you down pretty quick. But, uh, yeah, you know, it's, it's fun sometimes to get

01:22:21,440 --> 01:22:28,320
remembered how bad you are. I can only imagine. Um, do you ever participate in competitions yourself?

01:22:28,320 --> 01:22:33,920
I've never done a client, a rock client or like a plastic climbing comp. I once entered the,

01:22:34,640 --> 01:22:39,520
yeah, I once entered the European ice climbing championships

01:22:40,880 --> 01:22:45,200
as the only representative of great Britain, because we were there filming for Epic TV and

01:22:45,200 --> 01:22:50,080
we'd, we'd had, we were in the gym getting ready for the comp. Like they had a party in the gym

01:22:50,080 --> 01:22:56,480
to like celebrate everyone coming in. And, uh, I definitely had at least two, too many beers.

01:22:56,480 --> 01:23:01,920
And then I found out that theoretically I could enter this competition. And then I thought it

01:23:01,920 --> 01:23:06,160
would just be the best video for Epic TV ever. So I sort of made this decision. I remember going

01:23:06,160 --> 01:23:10,480
to Hugo and being like, I can enter. And he was like, what? It was like, I was like, I can enter

01:23:10,480 --> 01:23:15,200
the competition. I'm going to enter and then we can film it. And I just remember then just being

01:23:15,200 --> 01:23:20,160
so scared about that because I, I, I've dry tooled a bit and you vaguely what I was doing. But like,

01:23:20,160 --> 01:23:24,480
again, it's like, I'm, I don't, but I didn't come last. And I was, I was super happy about that,

01:23:24,480 --> 01:23:26,880
but that's the only competition I've ever entered was that one.

01:23:26,880 --> 01:23:30,000
Geez. You should do more. I think that would be a lot of fun.

01:23:30,880 --> 01:23:33,360
No, there's so much better than me. Like,

01:23:33,360 --> 01:23:38,160
well, not like a, not like an international event, like a local one or.

01:23:38,960 --> 01:23:43,520
It doesn't, honestly, it doesn't really do it for me. Like I like, I like, I like an audience when

01:23:43,520 --> 01:23:48,560
I climb. I like if, if people are watching, I definitely climb harder, but I just don't,

01:23:48,560 --> 01:23:52,400
I don't think I'm any good, honestly. And I just think I get shut down and I don't see

01:23:52,400 --> 01:23:59,040
the appeal of doing, I don't know, maybe it's weird. I think I just, I'd want to do quite well in it.

01:23:59,680 --> 01:24:03,360
And I don't think I would do very well in it. And I think that almost puts me off

01:24:03,360 --> 01:24:06,880
entering because I don't think I could be happy with just like having a great day,

01:24:06,880 --> 01:24:11,600
trying a bunch of Qualley boulders and coming 50th. I think I'd, I'm, I'm competitive.

01:24:12,400 --> 01:24:13,840
So I think that's why I haven't done it.

01:24:15,840 --> 01:24:21,040
It would be really interesting to see you do one and do well. I mean, I'm sure,

01:24:21,040 --> 01:24:28,640
at like a local competition or I don't know, maybe like British competition.

01:24:28,640 --> 01:24:32,880
Maybe someone could invite me as like a sort of veteran category.

01:24:32,880 --> 01:24:35,280
That would be a lot of fun. I would recommend it for you.

01:24:35,280 --> 01:24:36,480
One day, we'll see.

01:24:36,480 --> 01:24:42,960
All right. So I think that's all I had. We have a few more Discord questions that we'll go into.

01:24:42,960 --> 01:24:48,160
Yeah, yeah, sure. So this is what people have asked who are interested in.

01:24:48,160 --> 01:24:53,840
Yeah. I mean, some of the questions I've already gone over just because those were also my questions.

01:24:53,840 --> 01:24:59,440
And so these are just things that I didn't think about or things that I don't, not really familiar with.

01:24:59,440 --> 01:25:07,200
No, that's cool. Yeah. So first one, do you get much feedback from athletes on your commentary?

01:25:09,600 --> 01:25:17,200
No, actually. And I feel like they'll occasionally take the piss, like an athlete

01:25:17,200 --> 01:25:22,160
actually surprises me that they and when they take the piss, then I realize they're watching,

01:25:22,160 --> 01:25:27,840
which is always quite a moment because it is quite an odd one because I stand the same hotels as them.

01:25:27,840 --> 01:25:31,600
I see them like I talk to them like, you know, friends with some of them. And it's like,

01:25:32,160 --> 01:25:36,000
and then I'm aware that and I think if I thought about it, I go crazy.

01:25:36,000 --> 01:25:38,720
Because if you think about the fact that you're saying something about someone,

01:25:38,720 --> 01:25:44,320
you just had breakfast with it, which is really do you add in. So very little feedback, honestly,

01:25:44,320 --> 01:25:50,960
like there's been a couple of really nice people who have said, like either thank you or well done,

01:25:50,960 --> 01:25:56,560
or like, I remember, I can't remember who I was Max. I actually can't remember who it was with

01:25:56,560 --> 01:26:01,120
someone in the German team. I got Hannah Moyles name mixed up with Leachier because they had this

01:26:01,120 --> 01:26:05,360
really wide shot and I just, I just said the wrong name and they were taking, they were joking about

01:26:05,360 --> 01:26:09,680
it with me and then whoever it was, and I think it was Max, but I'm sorry if it's not Max, I've got

01:26:09,680 --> 01:26:14,560
name wrong again. He like, he obviously like thought about that he was joking. It wasn't fun. It was

01:26:14,560 --> 01:26:19,840
total jest. It was like funny, but he came to me after it was just like, oh, he was like, I know,

01:26:19,840 --> 01:26:23,680
he was like, I hope you know you're joking because like you do a really good job and thank you so

01:26:23,680 --> 01:26:30,800
much. And I was just like, wow, like that's like, that's, that's cool. And I, it's occasionally when

01:26:30,800 --> 01:26:36,000
it happens, it does, it means an awful lot to me when they say that because it's, this is what they

01:26:36,000 --> 01:26:41,520
do for a living. This is what they spend hours in the gym training for. And the very least I can do

01:26:41,520 --> 01:26:46,800
is, is hopefully say something that they like hearing. And so yeah, it's awesome when they say

01:26:46,800 --> 01:26:52,320
that I think it's special, but no, it never really happens. Well, it's a cue for more people to give

01:26:52,320 --> 01:27:01,840
you feedback if, or do you want to? Yeah. If they also said to me like, and I'd love it if they said

01:27:01,840 --> 01:27:06,880
more like, like people teaching me stuff is like, and I learn it in the commentary box because like,

01:27:08,080 --> 01:27:11,120
you know, and that's what the brilliance of having them, because someone will say something

01:27:11,120 --> 01:27:14,880
and you're like, oh my God, I've never thought of that. And I'll always say, like I usually say,

01:27:14,880 --> 01:27:21,040
if it's genuinely a new thing that I've never heard of before, I'm like, wow. And certainly

01:27:21,040 --> 01:27:24,320
they could have taught me technical things. I definitely wasn't very technical when I started

01:27:24,320 --> 01:27:28,160
the job and I think I've got better at that. So, and that's something that they sort of gave me

01:27:28,160 --> 01:27:33,680
feedback on just by doing what they do. And I just learned from them a little bit. But yeah,

01:27:33,680 --> 01:27:39,360
any criticism, please tell me genuinely. Another question, a bit of a joke. Will

01:27:39,360 --> 01:27:45,360
Charlie Bosco ever have a job that you won't end up stealing? I know right. Literally Charlie, he's,

01:27:45,360 --> 01:27:50,960
I owe him my career for sure. I owe him my career. And again, it's never been that he's like,

01:27:50,960 --> 01:27:56,480
mate's rates got me in the back door, but he's just been there and he's had an eye out for me. And

01:27:56,480 --> 01:28:01,280
like the story of how I met Charlie was that I was, I just started climbing. I was psyched over

01:28:01,280 --> 01:28:06,880
the moon about it. And he came at that point, he was quite big on the sort of alpinism scene. He

01:28:06,880 --> 01:28:12,160
was like a bit of a, he was a blog writer and he came to the gym I was at, he was invited there to

01:28:12,160 --> 01:28:19,280
give a talk. And we all went to the pub afterwards. And I remember just being a bit fanboy over Charlie.

01:28:19,280 --> 01:28:24,240
And then one of Charlie's friends died in Chamonix and left him all of his guidebooks. And Charlie

01:28:24,240 --> 01:28:30,160
had the guidebooks and he wrote, he sent a message to the war and said, could you send these books

01:28:30,160 --> 01:28:35,920
to the really enthusiastic guy at the pub, which was me. And I was like, oh, wow. So he gave me all

01:28:35,920 --> 01:28:39,520
these guidebooks. And then when I was in Chamonix for the first time, I messaged Charlie and I just

01:28:39,520 --> 01:28:45,840
said, do you want to go climbing? And we started climbing together, but he, he definitely had the

01:28:45,840 --> 01:28:50,880
jobs that I wanted. And he had his eye out for me in terms of when he knew they were coming to a

01:28:50,880 --> 01:28:56,480
close, he suggested me or put me forward for those roles. So with that, without Charlie, I, I, I

01:28:56,480 --> 01:29:00,720
wouldn't be where I am now, honestly. And he messaged me the other day because I shouted him out on

01:29:00,720 --> 01:29:06,560
air and he said, he said, thank you for the shout out, but it's your sport to commentate now. You

01:29:06,560 --> 01:29:09,920
don't need to do that. And I just remember that being a really humble thing for him to say,

01:29:09,920 --> 01:29:15,360
because he paved the way for me and the professional standard that I try to maintain. So,

01:29:15,360 --> 01:29:20,720
yeah, he's, he's a legend. So thank you, Charlie. Cheers. Are you guys still in touch or like, what

01:29:20,720 --> 01:29:25,120
is he doing now? Are you going to steal whatever he's doing now? If it's a better job than mine,

01:29:25,120 --> 01:29:28,880
then I hope so. Yeah. Like he just needs to like, what I want Charlie to do is go into a job and

01:29:28,880 --> 01:29:32,640
prepare it for me and then I'll come in and improve it for him. That's how the system works.

01:29:32,640 --> 01:29:40,480
Okay. Gotcha. Good to know. In a dream world, what kind of broadcast features or technology

01:29:40,480 --> 01:29:47,600
would you like to see or have? I would love someone behind the scenes crunching the numbers,

01:29:47,600 --> 01:29:53,360
which isn't really a, that isn't really a technical thing, but it, it's something that I think

01:29:53,360 --> 01:29:58,480
some sports have that we would benefit from because we have this amazing guy called Paul,

01:29:58,480 --> 01:30:02,400
who started off doing it completely. I think he still does do it for free, but he has this whole

01:30:02,400 --> 01:30:07,680
database and he just is a huge climbing nerd. It's brilliant. And he just sends me all these stats,

01:30:07,680 --> 01:30:12,800
but I find it quite difficult to process some of that whilst I'm trying to talk and interact with

01:30:12,800 --> 01:30:17,440
the co-commentator to someone in my ear being like our graphics guy, for example, guy called them

01:30:17,440 --> 01:30:23,680
Antonin has this encyclopedic knowledge for climbing competitions that I do not possess.

01:30:24,400 --> 01:30:28,480
And he sat next to me during the Verona's youth comp and he wasn't really doing very much because

01:30:28,480 --> 01:30:34,320
the graphics for youth is pretty minimal. And he just fed me incredible facts that I then could

01:30:34,320 --> 01:30:40,320
use. And so someone like that would be amazing. But in terms of like what's going on, technically,

01:30:40,320 --> 01:30:46,400
I think speed could be, I'd like to see some kind of a system where we can show exactly where,

01:30:46,400 --> 01:30:52,240
where an athlete lost time, some kind of like ghost mode or some kind of like sector lighting

01:30:52,240 --> 01:30:56,240
up system. So the audience also can see, cause we're getting so close now in terms of how close

01:30:56,240 --> 01:31:01,120
they are. It'd be cool to have a graphic representation of who's actually ahead. Yeah.

01:31:01,120 --> 01:31:06,240
That would be interesting. There's for sure things that can be done improved in terms of predicting

01:31:06,240 --> 01:31:12,080
results as well. Because, you know, a computer knows better than we do what's going to happen

01:31:12,080 --> 01:31:16,240
and what the likelihood is. So we have that in quite a basic function at the moment. It would

01:31:16,240 --> 01:31:21,440
be really good to see that prediction system. So we know more clearly, for example, in a combined

01:31:21,440 --> 01:31:25,520
comp, exactly what an athlete has to do to get to a certain position to be safe.

01:31:25,520 --> 01:31:35,120
That would, I think, benefit everyone hugely. Sort of like how they show in the, the graphics,

01:31:35,120 --> 01:31:42,240
like, oh, needs a top in five attempts or something to get gold. Like that, but just easier to

01:31:42,240 --> 01:31:46,000
understand. Like I know that graph, and also that graphic can kind of change depending on what other

01:31:46,000 --> 01:31:51,760
people do. So it's, it's just some way of, you know, when they have a good graph, they can

01:31:51,760 --> 01:31:56,560
do the maths on it. Because they're not doing the play by play. They have time to do that.

01:31:56,560 --> 01:32:02,000
So I tend to leave them to work out exactly who's doing what where, because they have this eye for

01:32:02,000 --> 01:32:07,120
it where they can just see their way through a score sheet very quickly. But to have someone

01:32:07,120 --> 01:32:11,520
doing that for us so we don't get distracted from what's happening would be really helpful.

01:32:11,520 --> 01:32:15,200
Not things I'd ever thought about. So that's really different. And a clock in semi-finals.

01:32:15,200 --> 01:32:18,000
So that's really helpful. And I think that's a really good thing.

01:32:18,000 --> 01:32:21,920
Not things I'd ever thought about. So that's really different. And a clock in semi-finals.

01:32:21,920 --> 01:32:30,640
I'd like a clock in semi-finals. Wait, is there not? No. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

01:32:31,680 --> 01:32:38,480
One day we'll get a clock. Yeah. Hopefully. I've been assured. Yeah. All right. Last question.

01:32:39,360 --> 01:32:45,840
We need to know the origin of Sticky Serato. Someone told me, and I can't remember who it was

01:32:45,840 --> 01:32:50,560
you told me, but someone told me that his nickname, either in the Japanese team or just amongst his

01:32:50,560 --> 01:32:56,400
sort of peers, was Sticky Serato. And I just thought, so, and then when I found this out,

01:32:56,400 --> 01:33:00,240
as I tend to do, when I find something I quite like, I tend to get a bit hooked up in it for a

01:33:00,240 --> 01:33:06,080
moment without realizing I'm doing it. But there's been an Instagram video where someone's edited my,

01:33:06,080 --> 01:33:10,640
which is brilliant, but edited all my times together. That was over 36 hours or whatever

01:33:10,640 --> 01:33:15,760
it was of broadcast time. But yeah, that was my real. That was Sticky Hands. Was that your real?

01:33:15,760 --> 01:33:20,480
Oh, it was wicked. I loved it. Sorry. I found it so funny when you did that. It was brilliant.

01:33:21,120 --> 01:33:25,280
I was like, ah, it's awesome. I love it when people do that. People sometimes ask me,

01:33:25,280 --> 01:33:31,360
are you okay? And I say, yes. Parody is funny. And there's no way I can speak for as long as I do

01:33:31,360 --> 01:33:36,400
and not say ridiculous things occasionally. And honestly, it's probably part of what makes me who

01:33:36,400 --> 01:33:43,200
I am. As in, it's really going to annoy someone sometimes that I occasionally do that, but it's

01:33:43,200 --> 01:33:54,560
me. So, you know, it's who I am. I mean, yeah, I was actually contemplating whether or not I should

01:33:54,560 --> 01:34:00,720
put it out because it was a little bit gross. Yeah, I agree. But then like we've seen lots of,

01:34:00,720 --> 01:34:04,000
I mean, after the athlete started licking their hands after the world champs thing for the,

01:34:04,560 --> 01:34:07,920
I don't think we can go to a grosser level. So maybe there's no more gross than climbing.

01:34:07,920 --> 01:34:13,280
Maybe that was it. We peaked. But I think apparently it's just because of his skin.

01:34:13,280 --> 01:34:17,280
Like he's just amazing at holding onto volumes. So he's like a gecko, apparently. He can just,

01:34:17,840 --> 01:34:22,800
and you see, and the thing is, once you start seeing something, you start seeing it.

01:34:22,800 --> 01:34:26,800
So people, people listening to this watch the next time he's on a volume problem,

01:34:26,800 --> 01:34:31,760
because he hits it and he doesn't adjust. Like there's no movement. So most athletes will hit

01:34:31,760 --> 01:34:37,120
a slope and have a little twist or something. Usually he's just bang and that's it.

01:34:37,120 --> 01:34:42,080
So it's, it's a, it's a good sort of energy saver he has as well.

01:34:42,080 --> 01:34:48,640
Yeah, definitely. He was just him climbing in general was one of the best moments of the season.

01:34:49,680 --> 01:34:50,320
It's cool, isn't it?

01:34:50,320 --> 01:34:56,480
Actually, it was a bit of a surprise to me that he did not podium during world champs.

01:34:56,480 --> 01:35:03,520
Yeah. I think it, I think it was maybe to a lot of people, but it is where he is 16. It's his

01:35:03,520 --> 01:35:10,720
first season. And I think in the same way as Toby, people expected him, I think, I think sometimes

01:35:11,520 --> 01:35:17,200
he's got time and I think sometimes it's maybe good to have that moment earlier on.

01:35:18,320 --> 01:35:22,640
And I don't think there's any bad thing with Serato fighting through a few more qualification

01:35:22,640 --> 01:35:27,040
rounds. I, you know, he's, if he gets into the Olympics, he's going to be one of the favorites.

01:35:27,040 --> 01:35:34,560
If things continue to win the Olympics. And I think having that knowledge that you can be beaten

01:35:34,560 --> 01:35:40,720
and to have that is no bad thing for him to go through. So I, and I, you know, we've got the

01:35:40,720 --> 01:35:45,040
Asian qualifier soon. I'll be there in Jakarta in a couple of weeks. So, you know, that's his moment.

01:35:45,040 --> 01:35:50,640
And it'd be interesting to see whether he's taken that experience and learn from it.

01:35:50,640 --> 01:35:57,760
I really hope, I hope he shows up in the, in the Olympics. I think it would be really nice to have

01:35:57,760 --> 01:36:04,320
someone young so that there's someone that can be a favorite, like multiple Olympics in a row.

01:36:04,320 --> 01:36:08,960
I feel like that would be great for the sport in general. I agree. I agree. And he's, he's really

01:36:08,960 --> 01:36:14,160
nice as well. Serato is such a cool kid. He's like a bit quirky, a bit weird and just awesome.

01:36:14,800 --> 01:36:17,920
I really like him. He's great. Yeah. I wish we could hear more from him.

01:36:17,920 --> 01:36:23,600
Yeah. And also that, by the way, people always say that we should provide him with a translator.

01:36:23,600 --> 01:36:27,920
We do provide him with a translator. There is a translator literally there, but like it's very

01:36:27,920 --> 01:36:34,400
much his choice to speak in English. And like the interview questions are one of those things that

01:36:34,400 --> 01:36:41,680
is quite hard to do sometimes. And it is a lot going on and I'm not there ever. Certainly when

01:36:41,680 --> 01:36:45,200
I have been there occasionally we'll make a call where it's like an athlete will maybe want to try

01:36:45,200 --> 01:36:48,720
to speak in English and we'll just be like, look, it's like, it's just going to be easier to do it

01:36:48,720 --> 01:36:52,960
with a translator because they're just more, you know, they're more expressive in the language they

01:36:52,960 --> 01:36:59,120
want to speak in. But if an athlete is speaking in English on a, on a, on a interview, it's because

01:36:59,120 --> 01:37:03,920
they've literally chosen to do so. So it's, we have that option for them. I just see, I see that

01:37:03,920 --> 01:37:08,720
comment a lot, but it's disgraceful. And you're like, there is one standing right there. They just,

01:37:08,720 --> 01:37:14,320
they decide not to use it. Yeah. I just, I wish we could know more about his thoughts after, but I

01:37:14,320 --> 01:37:20,800
get him wanting to get the practice and speak in English. So yeah, maybe I'll assist. I mean,

01:37:20,800 --> 01:37:28,320
next time we might, we might sort of insist on it, but maybe it'll be better next time. Maybe,

01:37:28,320 --> 01:37:34,160
maybe. All right. Well, I think that's all the questions I had. Thank you so much for joining

01:37:34,160 --> 01:37:41,760
me today. It was great to hear about everything behind the scenes. Anything you want to shout out

01:37:41,760 --> 01:37:46,080
or let people know where they can find you? No, just say, if anyone ever wants to send me

01:37:46,720 --> 01:37:50,720
a message or like a discussion, I'll try to answer as much as possible. My Instagram is

01:37:50,720 --> 01:38:01,760
mackroom1. You can go into that. And then, yeah, and genuinely like it's, I, the comments people

01:38:01,760 --> 01:38:06,800
have is always appreciated. And I like, please keep sending them in everyone. And, and as I said,

01:38:06,800 --> 01:38:12,400
like I look at the nasty ones and the nice ones and the nice ones though, mean a huge amount. And

01:38:12,400 --> 01:38:17,120
there's been a few people in the last year, just random people. And it's been a bit of a tough year

01:38:17,120 --> 01:38:22,080
for me for various things. And the people who have reached out, I just want to say thank you so much

01:38:22,080 --> 01:38:26,720
because occasionally someone sending a message at the right moment has genuinely like saved me for

01:38:26,720 --> 01:38:31,920
some pretty dark places. So thank you to the people who, you know, out the blue will send you

01:38:31,920 --> 01:38:36,960
something just being like, oh, this made you laugh or like, you know, something happened. And I appreciate

01:38:36,960 --> 01:38:42,080
that. And so thank you to everyone who did that. Awesome. Well, yeah, thank you so much for joining

01:38:42,080 --> 01:38:47,360
me. No worries. Thank you for having me. I'll see you soon. Thank you so much for making it to the

01:38:47,360 --> 01:38:52,560
end of the podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, I would love to hear your discussion and thoughts

01:38:52,560 --> 01:38:58,400
in the comments below. And don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed. If you're listening

01:38:58,400 --> 01:39:03,600
through a podcasting platform, I'd appreciate if you rate it five stars and you can continue the

01:39:03,600 --> 01:39:09,680
discussion through my competition climbing discord linked in all of the descriptions

01:39:09,680 --> 01:39:28,960
through all the platforms. Thanks again for listening.