Charlie Boscoe stops as IFSC commentator

Charlie Boscoe will not be commenting IFSC comps in 2021 as he has been doing since 2016. During five years he covered some 70 events all around the globe getting familiar with both the athletes as well as the audience. Most of the times he was assisted by an athlete who had not made it to the next stage. "Could you please take over. I will run down and try to get some quick words with the winner" and three minutes later the interview was up and running in any language. (c) Eddie Fowke

What were the most intensive periods and how hectic were they?
The first 6 weeks I did at IFSC (in 2016) were brutal - I was starting this huge new job and learning so much every day that I thought my head would explode! And in the first 6 weeks, we had 6 World Cups - Meiringen, Kazo, Chongqing, Nanjing, Mumbai and Innsbruck. Plus, the whole broadcast team was just 3 people (including me) so we'd set up all the cameras, microphones and cables, do the broadcasts and then work all night taking all the equipment down. When all that was done, we'd make the highlights video at about 3 am and put it online before crashing into bed at 4 or 5am. I also had 2 other major work projects that year, both of which finished in autumn, so any spare minute I had I was trying to work on them. In December 2016 I remember being so exhausted that I couldn't do much other than eat, sleep and drink beer! Luckily the broadcast team grew, so we could share the workout, and the calendar became a bit easier - I couldn't have done 5 seasons as intense as 2016.

Any suggestions in regards format and entertainment?
Rather than specific ideas, I just think that we (the competition climbing industry) need to focus on putting on entertaining sporting contests. As the IFSC commentator, I often felt like I had to fill a lot of "dead" time, where not much was happening. Sometimes it's easy to think about the crowd in the venue and put on a show for them, but in reality, there are 100 times more people watching the events on tv than watching them live in the venues. If we take a break from the action so that the MC can pump up the crowd, that's just dead time for the people watching at home. I remember one time we paused the show so that a sponsor could throw t-shirts to the crowd! It took about 10 minutes, and for the whole time there was nothing for the tv audience to watch, and I just had to talk for 10 minutes about anything I could think of. I feel like the events just need to be tightened up and the tv audience should be prioritised ahead of the venue audience - 4000 people attended the 2019 Munich final, but nearly 1 million have watched the livestream of it. At all times during the event, we should be asking "how is this for the tv audience"? If we start doing that more, the solutions will be obvious. But the sport is in a good place - I'm not being negative, I'm just looking at how we can make it even better.

Could you please suggest any ideas when it comes to format or result service that could make commentators job easier?
I think we need a predictive scoring system for Boulder (so that the audience can see exactly what a climber needs to do to move up the rankings) and a progress bar in Lead. As the commentator, it's really hard to keep talking coherently while doing maths in a Boulder final, and it can be easy to forget exactly where each climber got to in Lead, so showing potential scores on screen in Boulder, and marking where each climber got in Lead would be great. I think the formats are OK, we should just try to move things along quicker. I also preferred when the 2 boulder finals ran simultaneously - 4 hours is a long time for the audience to watch a boulder final and it means that if there are a couple of boulders which don't work, there can be a lot of dead time.

What do you like scoring with points and have two bonuses?
I think that scoring with points is a good idea, but it would take a lot of research and testing to find a system that works. On many boulders it would work to have 2 bonuses, but there are some boulders where you can only really have one, so a system where some boulders have one bonus and some boulders have two would be ideal.

Why did you stop as IFSC commentator and what are you working with now?
When I started at IFSC the Olympics was 5 years away, and I just always had in my head that I'd do it for 5 years - it just seemed a logical timetable. Obviously, the Olympics got postponed but I'd already decided I was going to stop and had made other plans. I've always liked a challenge and feeling like I'm making progress, so as the 5 years passed and I felt increasingly comfortable doing the IFSC job, I got more excited by finding new. The job was still hard, but I felt like I knew how to do it, and didn't want to just do it for 20 more years because I couldn't think of anything else to do. I've worked for a long time for an awesome company called FATMAP, and I'm still doing lots of work for them, and I also do freelance broadcasting work - last year I commentated a ski competition, presented some tourist videos in Switzerland and did a big video/voiceover project for a climbing brand. I enjoy the variety of having lots of different work. I'm also working on a couple of new projects which are top secret (!) but check back in 6 months and hopefully, I'll be able to tell you all about them!