Speed is a key also in Lead

The big dilemma for the Lead route setters is that the audience, especially the non-climbers, want to see Tops. For climbers who top, however, ranking is decided by who climbed faster. From a fairness perspective, it is good that there will be no spectators at the venue, meaning that the climbers waiting will hopefully not know if the route was topped. In any case, most probably some Olympians will climb faster than normal as also ties earlier on the route will be ranked based on who reached the scoring fastest.

I have asked the chief route setter, Adam Pustelnik, if they have gotten any instructions from IFSC for how to deal with the “Tops/Ties” dilemma. Adam said, logically, that he cannot comment on internal matters.

“I would say that we’ve already had combined competitions and we’ve experienced how it works, but from the route setting I would just repeat it’s not like 1+1. You can never know what will happen and it’s the athletes who are the key players here. They perform and showcase our sport. We try to prepare the stage for them the best we can. In general in Lead, we always try to have a good split between the competitors. As the nature of the job is that it’s hardly predictable, it’s not always that we arrive with such. But we always try our best.”

It should be mentioned that in the Combined Championships, the Olympic selection was often decided by who climbed fastest to the top.