Limit # of participants and add points

It was great to see the first Bouldering World Cup in 20 months but the problems for the qualifications remain the same. As there were 101 participants, these were divided into two groups, meaning that the ten boulders had to go almost straight up. There was no room for parkour running or big sideway dynos etc. For some reason, it seemed to be very few coordination moves also, meaning that it was quite an old school route setting with modern holds.

If IFSC would limit the number of participants or reduce the maximum time to four minutes, like in the European Cup last weekend, just one group would be needed. Reino Horak, head coach of the Norweigan team, has suggested several options to IFSC based on a max quota of two per country plus the ones who have ranking points etc. From one perspective it seems disadvantageous for the World Cup to allow four participants from one country where are all among the last in the results. The competition, including the route setters, would benefit if just 80 would compete in the qualification. One option is of course that more climbers could participate, but then there should be one more round where the best are allowed to compete in the qualification.

Another problem with two starting groups is that they can be quite uneven and also that the route setting can differ as it did for the females in Meiringen.

Furthermore, it is impossible to know how close Jakob Schubert and others were to get into the Top-20 semi. Did he touch any of the three top holds of the problems he did not make? If the scoring were based on points and there could be two zones or possibly three, with the last being awarded based on touching the top, more drama would have been created.