USA Speed Championships Cancelled

USA Climbing announced on 7/30 the cancellation of the 2020 Sport and Speed championships. Originally scheduled for March 13th and 14th, the championships were delayed until the fall due to the rapid outbreak of the novel coronavirus Covid-19 throughout the world.

This is unsurprising, although unfortunate. While many countries have been able to successfully mitigate the spread and have returned to a semblance of normalcy, the US is not among those. With the spread accelerating throughout much of the US there was no other choice but to cancel the 2020 season altogether.

My heart goes out to the athletes that were preparing for this season. Competition is the greatest training tool and over a year off from competitions is tough. Tough on the mind, and tough on the sharpness that an athlete needs entering an Olympic year.

Because this seems like it will be affecting the US for longer than many other countries, it also creates the situation where US athletes will be at a competitive disadvantage. Less competitions = less experience and fewer events to hone their competitive skill.

Competitions also contribute to training volume and intensity loads. As the season progresses, those higher intensities at competitions is needed to continually develop your speed and power. Anecdotal evidence shows that sprinters do not hit the same speeds in practice as they do in a race. This is easily seen when comparing official IAAF speeds in races to the speeds reported in practice by personal timing systems.

Hopefully USA climbing will put together safe training camps with adequate quarantine time, social distancing, etc, to allow intra-squad competitions to mimic the competitions the athletes will be missing.

On an entirely different note, I have an amazing piece of training tech arriving later this week that I can't wait to review! The article should be up Wednesday!

Later speed freaks!