IFSC confirms - Time to climb faster

The Lead European Championship starts in Italy 30/6 and in the final, the max time will be six minutes instead of previous eight minutes. Even with eight minutes in the World Cup in 2016, the females were sometimes timed out or were often forced to climb the last moves very fast, which made them fall. With a change to six minutes in the final, it is about time for Garnbret, Verhoeven, Röck, Markovic, Kim and others who want to be on the podium to change climbing style. In practice, this will mean no more hanging around, trying different beta and chalking. Right from the start they need to climb fast to save time for the more difficult finish. The other change of rules is that there will not be 4+ minutes in the boulder finals but instead a maximum time of four minutes. In practice this also means that the best boulderer should focus slightly more on endurance in their training for the Boulder WC 2017. IFSC reports that the rules handbook 2017 will be released very soon.