I gotta be honest, I have no excuse for this one. She fully deserves to be on the list Interesting question, who would you kick off and where would you put her? Miho or Babsi probably, maybe put katie somewhere in the 9-6 range? Her outdoor resume is pretty on par with Oriane and Brooke

« Best outdoor boulderer in the world at the moment » i dont think so. I feel many guys from mellow are better than her / William Bosi / Matt Fultz / etc.

@@x3i4n obv its abour female boulderers ;)

@@lastshadow123 I could tell it’s about female boulderers but it’s kinda weird everyone is just saying like boulder/climber/etc instead of differentiating it. Cause it clearly can be confusing

@@Sytsn_ yeah but i think its because its so obvious

That's totally fair!! Honestly, in a weird way Laura sort of influenced me into having Ai so low. When Laura won Briancon 2020, beating Janja, I immediately hopped on the Laura hype train and was ready to declare her the best leader in the world. Now, 3 years later, we see that while Laura is still an incredible lead climber, she hasn't been able to show consistency in the same way that Janja has. That's really the only reason I'm holding off on Ai. Three golds in a row is INSANE, don't get me wrong, but I want to see what she does in 2023. The competition season is looooong, and I'm hesitant to put her at the #2 spot without seeing how she does over the course of a full season. As for Laura, it sounds like we just have different biases. I personally am an old man at heart and so I'm biased towards the outdoors. Laura's resume clears everyone else on this list by a mile, which honestly locks her into a top-5 spot in my head until someone else gets either a 15b or we see a woman do v16. This is just me on a tangent now, but v16 is SO feasible for so many women on this list that I want to see them crush it. I would bet good money that Oriane, Brooke, Natalia, Janja, and Ai could all crush v16 if they put their mind to it and found a problem that wasn't too height-dependent

@@ascentionism As for me I am actually surprised that Ai Mori even made it into your top ten. Let's just say she is not exactly making headlines with crazy outdoor ascents. She is the one climber I am most interested to follow at the moment, and her competition performance this year is remarkable. I think she did not lose once on lead in 2022. As you said let's see how she does over the course of a full season. But she proved this year that she can handle the pressure of competition just fine, even after winning and establishing herself as one of the few who can give challenge and/or beat Janja on the lead wall.

If Covid scare rises , Ai Mori might not compete consistently again. She's more happy practicing than comps and long isolation when coming back from overseas is something she hates. She has outdoor sends in youtube, but only in Japan. She plans to do climbs all her life so she'd probably climb overseas when she can.

Before watching the video I bet Janja obviously had to be top-1 and Ai had to be top-2. The first time I saw Ai climbing I just thought 'wow'! She's so unique. Love her style from the first watching

Yeah, that's a great point of feedback! I'll start doing that going forwards, just so it's more clear to everyone

Agree with everything you said there. I was also going to ask for french grades

Oriane's outdoor resume > Brooke's outdoor resume IMO, that was the differentiator for me. Also, as much as I love Brooke, I see more "best boulderer in the world" potential in Oriane than I do in Brooke (even though Brooke is incredible. Also, about the resume thing, Brooke is apparently scary close to crushing a v15/16, as per Shawn, but I can't rank off of speculation). In terms of Ai, it's that tension between resume and potential. I've gotten burned in the past by getting too excited about athletes who had a few good comps in a row, so I'm a little hesitant to say she's the second best climber in the world after only 3 competitions (plus, I'm really not sure what her outdoor resume is like) Like I said, though, it's all made up and the points don't matter!

If you’re focusing mostly on 2022 with some consideration of resume Oriane was injured for a big chunk of the competitive season. She also underperformed(my opinion) when coming back from injury.

@@ascentionism yeah, good points. I’m just prone to really liking Brooke and Aí so I had to throw that out there. Also you did make the point that outdoor stuff trumps indoor stuff for you so that’s fair. Hopefully this competition season (and Brooke’s outdoor resume this year) will catapult them up your list for this time next year 😃

​@@ABSVabeautifulsunsetvlog Like I said, it's all subjective!! According to Shawn, Brooke came really close to sending and downgrading a v16 (it's graded 16 but both Brooke and Shawn felt like it was probably a 15). She could absolutely do some incredible stuff outdoors if she really wanted to

@@ascentionism I was going to ask about that? Shawn said that no woman besides Ashima has sent V15 and isn’t that wrong? I thought oriane sent a v15 a few years ago and two other women also?

I saw that 7 number somewhere too, but I would swear the article I read said 10 attempts - maybe it was 7 attempts over 10 days? Maybe I'm just dumb. I agree, though, Chaehyun is one of the most exciting prospects on the scene right now. This year definitely wasn't her best in terms of comps, but she looked SO much better in bouldering (even making finals is such an exciting development for her). I totally see her in the upper echelon of comp climbers with Ai, Janja, and Natalia. That's a great point about development! Get as many comp minutes as she can in 2023, even if it harms her results a little bit, and come in guns blazing in 2024. Also, random point, isn't she also an ice climbing champion??

@@ascentionism her instagram does indeed say the 7th try. Amazing end of 2022 for with that and also the onsights. Curious to see how hard she can climb with even more time. I too have heard something about the ice climbing,but unfortunately do not remember from where or the detail, except that she did not have a lot of (almost any) training with the gear I seem to recall.

You lose stamina when you focus on muscles for the bouldering not to mention injuries from falls from dynos. Look at Janja last year ditching almost all bouldering to focus on lead and almost all her competition clearly didn't have the stamina to compete.

Really, it's just because most of the best men climbed outdoors this year more than they competed. Like I said, I'm biased towards the outdoors, so when I realized that for the men's list I could comfortably pick the top 10 without having to look at comp results, I went with that. If someone had had a super impressive, 2019-Janja-esque comp season, that would have changed things, but no one really did. In contrast, there weren't as many female outdoor ascents this year, and so I think comps were a lot more important in differentiating people

Good luck with 1L!! Enjoy the hell out of it (but remember to keep climbing)

But this list was great and super fun!

Yeah, totally agree - Ai looked next-level this year! I can't wait to see how she does over the course of a full year. She's probably the only one on the scene who I think could be an actual threat to Janja's #1 position (but I'm not fully sold yet - I want to see how she manages consistently in bouldering. I know she did well in Morioka, but I do think her height has more possibility of being a detriment in bouldering than in lead)

That’s why you look at those who can do both at the elite level when ranking the top 10.

eh not really. janja still dominates

Definitely not completely different but certainly different. However, with the women we are starting to see many crush the outdoors as a secondary hobby whereas the men do this in the reverse, but I think this is mostly age differences influencing how steeped in competition climbing the women are and the emergence of the Olympics. Clearly, the skills transfer better than many want to think

No Laura?

If you don’t mention Jain kim , you aren’t are climber

In the same place as Margo Hayes. She's in the "has a Reel Rock movie about them and absolutely crushes hard but hasn't done enough in the last 2-4 years to replace anyone on this list" category

@@ascentionism actually I haven't heard any news about her for a long time... I wonder if she's climbing at all?

They're retired??

@@ascentionism Jain Kim wants to come back, not a headline but she was on the podium for lead in the Asian games in Korea despite not being on the scene to take care of her kid. I’m sure if she comes back she would be a regular in lead finals

Lol bro they are both retired 🤣

@@euphoria667 www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/news/855-kim-jain-came-back-with-a-clear-goal-in-mind-paris-2024

@@ascentionism www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/news/855-kim-jain-came-back-with-a-clear-goal-in-mind-paris-2024

Hey, thanks for the feedback! Full honesty, I ran tests on my videos last year - views go down by a noticeable amount if I say "best female climbers in the world" or something of the sort. Interestingly, it doesn't happen when I do it for the male video. Y'all can think that I'm over-obsessing about views, but I have sponsors who want this video to do well, and I want these climbers to get the exposure they deserve. I also say in the first 5 seconds that we're talking about the female climbing scene.

​@@ML32. My dude, the thumbnail has two women in it. I dropped a video 10 days ago with the men in it. It's process of elimination at this point. If the viewers clicked on the video with "women" in the title, I would put women in the title

@@ascentionism What a sad story. I am actually more excited about the female climbers because male world cups are just Japanese championships if Ondra and Schubert dont show up.

@@RipperJack77 Female comp climbing scene >>>> mens comp climbing scene any day of the week

We found one of the bros who definitely wouldn’t have watched if you included “female” in the title.