The Men’s qualifier is in the books at the Bouldering World Cup at the 2009 Teva Mountain Games. The Men appear to have brought their A-games (or the problems were relatively easy) as 14 of the Men were able to top each of the 5 qualifiers compared with just 3 for the Women.
Flashing all 5 problems and leading the pack are World Cup regulars Kilian Fischhuber and Gabriele Moroni who are tied for first with 4 others including local favorite Daniel Woods. Following that group are big names like Nalle Hukkataival (8th place) and Carlo Traversi (16th) as well as relative newcomers Kyle Owen (10th) and Julian Bautista (20th).
Somewhat surprisingly, last year’s 3rd place finisher and Climbingnarc.com favorite Paul Robinson looks like he struggled a bit on problems 3 and 4. He narrowly made it into finals qualifying in 17th place.
Full results from the Men’s Qualifiers
In case the scoring system is confusing to you, here is my explanation from ABS Nationals:
The basic explanation of the scoring system is that there are only two holds that count on each of the problems. There is a so-called Zone or Bonus hold and the finish hold. The bonus hold is a semi-random hold, usually toward the top of the problem. Climbers get credit for controlling the bonus hold and the finish hold. The other holds literally count for nothing. The way the final scoring is done is that climbers are ranked first by # of problems they top out, then by # of attempts to top out, then by # of bonus holds followed by # of attempts to reach a bonus hold.
The position of the Zone/Bonus is obviously quite critical and also very much depends upon the style of the problem.
It is probably the most criticised aspect of the IFSC scoring system – anyone who’s like to contribute additional criticism is welcome to head over to 8a.nu and add to the fun 😉
There are good reasons for its use over the “count the holds” approach used in most US (and some European) competitions. But no-one would offer it as perfect.
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