SEASON THREE: The Road to 2020 Olympics w John Burgman Podcast Host: Dan Goodwin As most everyone has heard, there will be three disciplines featured as a 'Combined Sport' in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Those three disciplines include speed climbing, bouldering, and lead. Unfortunately, most people are confused as to the format and the process as of which the athletes will be chosen. Until I started digging deeper, I naively assumed every country would be represented, but as I quickly discovered, that isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, there is no guarantee that United States or any other major country will be represented. How can that be when we have so many climbers climbing at such a high level? That’s a really good question. Well, you are about to find out. With me, I have John Burgman with Climbing magazine, who has been reporting on the World Cup Competition scene for as long as I can remember. So, I couldn’t think of anyone better to help us understand the format and how the athletes will be chosen. TOPICS COVERED: 1) How will athletes be chosen? 2)How many opportunities will athletes have to qualify? 3) How many athletes will be allowed to compete? 4) How many athletes per country and genre? 5) Does an athlete have to compete in all three disciplines? 6)How will the scores be computed? 7) How many Gold Medals will be awarded? 8) Who will be representing the USA Climbing Team? 9) What are their strengths and weaknesses? 10) Who will most likely make to the Olympics? USA CLIMBING TEAM Men's: Zach Galla Nathaniel Coleman Sean Bailey Colin Duffy Drew Ruana Women's: Kyra Condie Brooke Raboutou Natalia Grossman Ashima Shiraishi Margo Hayes