Daniel Woods suggests new scoring in bouldering comps

Daniel Woods, who has won one World Cup and nine US Bouldering Nationals, has written down some interesting thoughts regarding competition climbing. His thoughts go along with the opinions and suggestions from 8a. The scoring could be based on several bonus holds, i.e. in the middle of the two extreames, scoring all holds like in the US and just one bonus like in IFSC. (c) Greg Mionske for USA Climbing "Over the last decade, I have competed at ABS nationals, WC events, international invitational events and the key thing that has always changed is the format/scoring. This might be the most important aspect of a competition especially for the audience. Our main goal as competitors is to go out and see if we can overcome the test in which the route setters present to us (simple to understand for us). The goal of the audience is to be involved and understand what each of us are doing so their attention span is being maintained. If the audience is confused, they become bored and disconnected (also simple to understand). There is no such thing as a perfect way to score a comp. There is such a thing as scoring a comp that is simple and easy for the audience to understand. If the competitors are left confused back in ISO and have no idea what the standings are, then how is the audience supposed to be able to follow as well? With past experience from other events and scoring systems (IFSC and the top then point per hold format) it is at least easier for us to get a sense of how we stand in the event. This allows us to develop a strategy for each boulder. The audience can even tally up what is going on. The new way of scoring things in which the US has developed confuses me to say the least. It puts more pressure on just a single boulder rather than an average of all 4. You do not know your overall placement until the comp is over which in my opinion the audience should know the winner and podium as soon as the final climber finishes. Were not here to do math problems and make things complicated... were here to climb and inspire people to watch us climb and go back having the feeling that they also want to climb or compete one day. The only credit that I give to the new scoring system is how precise it can be... a flaw to this though is that it "determines" the hardest boulder based off of percentages which in the end outweighs overall mean. I want to see competition climbing become successful and for people to feel like they had a good show. The percentage of people that asked me what the podium was, or how we are scored, or just plain out what the fuck is going on left me thinking that the comp had already failed. If we have to watch a 12 min video to understand the scoring then what happens when a non climber asks us what is going on and we as professionals reply back with a shrug and a face of confusion... not really going to sell competition climbing to that person haha. I recently did a comp in January called Di'namik and they used a two zone scoring format which I really liked. 1st zone was 5 points, 2nd 10, top 25. By doing this you can set a hard section down low and up high. The audience can tally up who is doing what but to be honest every finals comp should have a running scoreboard. Make it even more basic so the drunken audience does not have to even question what is going on haha. Even to step things up, place the point value next to the zone so the audience looks at that random piece of tape and immediately knows what it means. Point is simple is better than complex... The only thing that should be complex is what the route setters want to throw out at us. I thought the problems at ABS finals were on point and awesome testing power, balance, and coordination... big up to the route setters and to Nathaniel and Megan for being on point. In order for competition climbing to become popular to the masses we need 2 key components: Simplicity and Consistency DW