Is La Sportiva’s Ondra Comp the Best New Indoor Shoe of 2024?

La Sportiva’s line has traditionally been biased in favor of stiffly structured shoes. Even its softest products like the Solution Comp and the Theory are built with a supportive P3 system that disperses the shoe’s bendability across the foot rather than providing it with a single hinge point. Now—thanks, apparently, to Adam Ondra’s prodding—La Sportiva has decided to lean into a smeary specialization, building a shoe that is designed to hinge under the main joint of the big toe, allowing it to excel on the volumes and smedgy* edges so common in modern gym and competition bouldering. The resulting Ondra Comp is one of the strangest new performance shoes on the market. It took me several sessions to revise my footwork tactics (heels up!) before I started to get a feel for the shoe—after which I began using it all the time.