Faster and more exciting boulder format

As there are some discussions within the IFSC on how to make the bouldering format faster and more exciting, here is an update of some suggestions I have forwarded during the last 15 years. As of today, a bouldering final often takes 90 minutes although there are no breaks and there are just six athletes in the final. The idea is to have 8 finalists and this would mean a two hours event with today's format. At the same time, there are often long sequences with no action as the boulders are too hard and, furthermore, in the end, sometimes there is no drama as the winner has been decided before the last boulder.

Having eight finalists is clearly better also from the point of view that more nations will have competitors in the final. As it stands, sometimes there are just males from japan plus two more climbers in the final. More finalists also increase the possibility that more climbers will battle for the win on the last boulder.

The easiest format change to make it faster and more exciting is simply to have two competitors climb simultaneously on the first two boulders. You can let new climbers start as soon as one boulder is topped today. Alternatively, you can rotate with a fixed four-minute schedule, with a two-minute initial separation. This would mean that all eight finalists have done the two first problems after around 24-34 minutes.

Then there could be a short break of six minutes or so, and one climber is eliminated before boulder #3.

On boulder #3, the seven remaining competitors climb in a row and then one more is eliminated before boulder four. This would mean that the final would take around 70-90 minutes. This can be compared with the around 100-120 minutes with the current format.

There are of course more options, like starting on the first three boulders at the same time. This would reduce time, but it might just be too much action. The fastest format would be to eliminate two competitors before the last two boulders and continue with two climbers also on these boulders. Such a format would just take 50-70 minutes. It should be noted that also the duration of the qualification and the semi could be shortened by some 30 minutes if you start with climbers on all boulders directly from the start.