22 July 2015

Equal strength = More boring Lead WCs = Skip observation

The cooperation among the climbers in the observation is great and it sends out good spirit for our greatest but possibly, it would be best to skip it? The difficulty for the lead route setters is increasing as it seems more athletes have the same standard. Some years ago, it was often the last guy out who won and sometimes topped, which pleased the crowd. This year, most of the best climb quite easily high up on the wall and then the top climbers fall in more or less the same sequence. This is of course super exciting for certain seconds but on the other hand, in reality it means that there is less action during the first few minutes. The top climbers cooperate and read the sequences so good that everyone does the same sequences so it is normally just a foot slip that can create some action during the first half. Probably, the top climbers standard will even out more in the future and watching a Olympic semifinal and final might be dead boring, excluding some few seconds. It just might be that most surf on their mobiles for the first four minutes before some excitement is offered. One alternative, which has been suggested by 8a before, is to shorten the maximum time more. Another alternative is to make the routes half a grade easier and let the fastest climber win if there are several tops. Imagine how much more interesting it would be to follow several split times to see who is in a good position. As is already known, time has several times decided who will win but possibly this could be done more often. One alternative for this controversial suggestion could be to skip the observation so there will be some real onsight climbing going on where not everyone is not doing exactly the same boring sequence! What do you think would make Lead WCs more exciting?
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