In reply to niddclimber:
Hi again folks,
Thanks for your patience with regards to this. We have sought feedback from our customers both locally and at our other centres, considered how changes to the Winter Bouldering League can be made fairly for this and then future competitions, and have made the following announcement, relating to Harrogate Climbing Centre's competition:
This year, in an attempt to make the competition more inclusive, the adult category has been split into a V0-V4 and V5-V8+ category, designed to give competition to the strongest climbers, whilst creating an achievable competition to newer and developing climbers.
Due to low attendance across our three climbing centres, the Vets (40+) category was integrated into the above competition.
These changes have resulted in negative feedback from some of our customers, and as a result, we have decided to make some changes to this year's competition, and will also take the feedback on board for future competitions.
With effect from Round Three of this Winter's competition, climbers in the V0-V4 category will be able to score points for harder problems. We realised that containing people into a band category does not promote progression, and so hopefully this change will help climbers progress their skill levels through the five rounds. Those who are climbing in the V5 – V8+ category will score points only for the problems in that grade bracket.
We realise some competitors will worry that there is a possibility of competitors entering themselves into the lower category when they should be in the higher. The La Sportiva Winter Bouldering League is a friendly, open competition, depending on honesty throughout. We trust our customers to be fair when allocating themselves a category, and would expect all participants to want genuine competition.
As the competition is now into its second round the decision has been made not to reintroduce the Vets category for this year; however this category will be re-instated for next Winter's competition.
We would like to thank all our customers for their feedback, which will hopefully lead to improvements in our competition, making it fun and enjoyable for the greatest number of our local climbers as possible.
All the best,
Mike