The 2011 SCS Open National Championships went off this weekend in Boulder, CO with Magnus Midtbø and the red-hot Sasha DiGiulian taking the top spot on their respective podiums.
Not surprisingly given the month of March she just had, DiGiulian flashed both qualifying routes and the finals route on her way to victory.
For the Men Carlo Traversi actually got the high point during finals, however the scores were tabulated using a weighted system that counted qualifying round scores which is how Midtbø became the winner.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPyA9zEGw3U&sns=em&w=540]
Chris Van Leuven was at the comp and wrote a play-by-play of events as they unfolded. I’ll update this post if/when media from the event starts to roll in.
| Men’s Final Results | Women’s Final Results |
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| *indicates qualification for the U.S. National Team | |
Update: Photo gallery at Climbing.com
Update #2: Highlight reels are done! Click here for the Men and click here for the Women.
Update #3: Carlo Traversi has an interesting update on his blog about some problems with the scoring system that should have resulted in him finishing 2nd. USA Climbing has apparently apologized to him and offered 2nd place prize money and the Italy World Cup stipend that goes along with it.
Update #4: Mike Doyle’s take on the event as well as how he went home the day after the comp, went straight to the crag and fired a 5.14b!
Hi,
I’m very interested in the logic behind the scoring system. I couldn’t find any info on usa climbing website.
Could someone explain the logic to me? Also the regulations and the preadsheet (including formula’s) would be great.
based on:
http://scsnationals.org/news/2011%20SCS%20Open%20National%20Championship%20Scoresheet-%20Male.pdf
It seems that Magnus did slightly better on route 1 than matty and Matty slightly better on route 2 then magnus. It seems that in the final they had the same score.
So these qualifiers made the difference, lets examine:
Route 1
Magnus held hold 48
Matty touched a hold above 46 (either hold 47 or 48)
No climber in between magnus and Matty
Route 2
Magnus touched a hold above 47
Matty Touched a hold above 48
No climber in between magnus and Matty
So the scoring system works in a way that based only on the infortmation mentioned above we know which climber is “better”. I understand that you can do some nice math with this and produce a winner. But al I see is that they both beat the other guy once. Wether it is by one move or by 2 doesn’t matter to me because that might be a super easy move, a intermediate hold, or a superdifficult move.
I understand the beauty – and the transparancy- of the scoring by hold, certainly if explained to an outsider “you get one point for each hold”, but the difficulty of the route is not linear to the number of holds climbed, and this scoring system is.
Let me illustrate one drawback of the “points for holds” system. Suppose that in the finals at hold 57 the route became slightly easier, or -which is the same- not more difficult, or -which is still the same- contained a small rest to recuperate. And that the next difficult move was at hold 61.
Now suppose that on the changed route matty and magnus still fell on hold 56 and that Carlo still fell at the first difficult move after hold 57. On the original route this was at hold 57. On the changed route it is hold 61. As the changed route is not more difficult you cannot claim that he is a better climber then as hold 57 on the original route. But still those 4 extra holds would have given him some extra points, and he would have won the competition.
So to make this scoring system fair the routes will have to be set with continuisly increased difficulty. Easier sections will have to be avoided. This has implications for the setting style and the way the audience perceives the sport. At IFSC world cups, the routesetters try to present a route with more cruxy sections followed by a easier section. this decreases the “predictability” and increases the spectacle. IMO this setting style does not produce a fair result using the “points for holds” system.
Don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying one scoring system is better then the other, I’m saying that each has consequences and I’m trying to understand the logic behind them.
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Herman,
The scores you are going by are wrong. Magnus actually got 2-3 moves further than Matty on Q2. The confusion was striaghtened out during the final score keeping. The Routes were set with increasing difficultly, and also with following your comment “At IFSC world cups, the routesetters try to present a route with more cruxy sections followed by a easier section.” There were periods of crux/easy sections. It was very clear who the strongest climbers of the event were and the results confirm that.
Hardin
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Jeremy, thanks for your answer.
I based my analysis on the scores that i found on -what seems to me- the official website. and the scoring as published in the rule book. (article 31.2.5 of this document: http://usaclimbing.net/rockcomps/resources/SCS%20Sport%20Climbing%20rule%20book%20042010.pdf
So either one of these documents is wrong / not updated, or i’m totally not understanding the results. You indicate that the scores are wrong. Could you point me to the correct official results?
Regarding your other point. It’s good to hear that the scoring system + the setting style has produced the “correct” results.
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From watching the competition I thought it was pretty clear that both Matty and Carlo grabbed at and fell going to a hold that Magnus did not on the Finals route. I’m not sure why the scores don’t reflect this.
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all answers to the rules used posted in the comments here: http://spotsettingblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/usa-climbing-scs-nationals-2011-results/#comment-683
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If the chatter on Facebook means anything even the competitors still have some questions about how the scoring was done
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New post on Carlo Traversi’s blog explaining a mistake in scoring this year – apparently, the official results won’t change but they did apologize to Carlo for getting the scoring wrong in his case.
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