Verhoeven thinks the Euro Champs in Bouldering should be cancelled

Jorg Verhoeven has presented an article on Facebook where he points out fairness problems for the European Championships in Bouldering as it takes part during the World Cup in Munich. (c) Heiko Wilhelm With the current domination of male Japanese boulderers it just might be that the Euro podium will be decided during the semifinal. Further more, if you are unlucky to end up in a qualifier with many Japanese you could end up as #3 out of the Europeans but still not make the semi. In the other group there just might be seven Europeans qualified. Verhoeven: "In conclusion, there seems to be no way to have a fair bouldering ECH within a worldcup, that's why in my opinion the better solution would be to have no ECH at all." Good point by Verhoeven but I think it is too late to make any changes or to cancel the European Championship. In practice, this unfairness problem for ending up in a tougher qualifier already exist and is part of the game. During the first WC in 2017 Meiringen, the only one in Europe so far, the Top-7 ranked come all from the group B. Yuka Hada from Japan was #11 in group B and if he had competed in the other, not so strong group A, he would probably have made it to the semi. As a matter of a fact, the best guy from group A just did one top in the semi, meanwhile seven in group B did two boulders or more. Another example showing the unfairness with having two starting groups is that Moroni was seventh overall, but nevertheless he had an almost identical result as #10 in the qualifier as #11 Hada from Japan.