20 November 2017
Increase Bouldering finalist to 8 or even 12 participants
8a has suggested a new bouldering format to IFSC allowing more finalists. The Norweigian Sports manager and National coach Reino Horak, hope to see 12 finalists next year on their national competitions.
- 12 finalists mean that double as many get the opportunity to challenge themselves and have fun in the final. It also means a bigger interest to travel to a competition as many more will hope to be able to do two rounds. It is a waste of route setters time to just allow six guys in the final and further more, the more finalists, the greater chance for tied score and drama on the last boulder. I think all coaches and athletes would agree that more finalists would be more fun.
The simple solution for increasing the # of finalists is simple to make three participants rotate on the first three boulders. After a short break, the Top-6 athletes will make it into the "super final", starting in reversed order. This means an increasing drama where everyone will exactly know what the last guy out needs to do to get the best overall score. When it comes to competition time, the rotating format, including 8 or 9 finalist, will save around 20 minutes. Also though having 12 finalist will not increase the competition time.
8a has also suggested a new point scoring system that will be presented in a few days.
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โI stopped focusing on competition bouldering after last yearโs World Cup in Prague, partly because I can already feel it on my body, especially in my shoulders. The modern competition style, with a lot of jumping from one hold to another, is very demanding for the shoulders.
Outdoor bouldering isโฆ



