Josh Larsson and the USA success

The USA has during the last years evolved to be one of the strongest nations in the international competition scene and they had four athletes in the Tokyo Olympics. The great progress goes in hand with Josh Larsson being their new head coach sending big teams to each event. The Japanese coach Benjamin since 2008 says he has noticed that team USA is much more of a team compared to some ten years ago. Asking Josh if he can explain the great USA progress he explains.

- You know, when I started competing in 2011, we just went to the comps by ourselves and not like in a team. I remember that I saw Daniel Woods in my first competition and realized he was on my team but we did not know each other. Since I have become the coach, I have been part of making Salt Lake City the centre for USA competition climbing. Now, most of the athletes live there and if not they come there regularly. It is great to be a big team and going on long road trips in Europe like this one is fun and it is like a long team-building activity. Everyone supports each other and I am sure this is part of why we have gotten more athletes in the semifinals and podiums.

Besides having done some 20 World Cups between 2001 and 2017, the best result is #12, Josh has since 2008 worked as a route setter, In 2014, he first became an assistant for the youth national team. A big part of his USA Team manager and coach is still setting routes in the USA national climbing centre in Salt Lake City.

Together with his partner Charlotte Durif, one of the best female climbers in the history, they run A World Less Traveled, basically pioneering and bolting new climbing destinations in the world. In total, they have published 17 feature videos from new remote climbing places like in; Nepal, Tasmania, Peru and Serbia.