The big risks with Combined points in the Olympics

A working group in IFSC has suggested that the one getting the highest point sum in Bouldering and Lead will be rewarded the Combined gold in Paris 2024. The maximum score will be 200 points, based on getting 25 for a Top in Bouldering and 100 points for topping the Lead route. This sounds good in theory but there are big risks for unfairness, due to the lack of consistency in the route setting, as well as no drama on the Lead route.

One good (bad) example of this is the Olympic male final where the seven finalists only made a total of seven tops. If combined points would have been given out in Tokyo, the bouldering results would have had very little impact overall and the medal ranking would have been the same as the ranking in Lead; Schubert, Ondra and Duffy.

If we look at the four Boulder World Cups in 2021, we see the opposite problem. The difference average point-scoring in between #1 and #6 is too big, i.e. around 80 respectively 20 points. History shows that routes and boulders often are too hard or too easy. This could mean that we would have unfair Combined results in Paris. Another problem could be that there could be little drama and excitement in the Lead final as the medals more or less could already have been set after the Boulder event. Below is the female results in Meiringen in 2021 converted to an estimation of points.

1. Janja Garnbret 99.7 points
2. Oriane Bertone 59.78 points
3. Natalia Grossman 59.67 points
4. Akiyo Noguchi 14.79 points

In theory, Noguchi could still get a medal and Janja could lose the gold. However, by looking at the statistics, we can that in practice, the only excitement in the Lead event would have been to see who would get the silver. Remember that the very much criticised, and totally opposite ranking method in Tokyo, at least created extreme drama to the very last climber out.