UKC

Where to begin with last night's final? The first medal event in Sport Climbing's debut Games demonstrated the unpredictability of the Combined scoring and that it's undeniably very much a case of 'it's not over 'til it's over' in this quirky format. 

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The scoring system lead to an incredibly exciting final.

But how can it be fit for purpose when it A) gives Ondra a bye to a top four place in his worst discipline and then B) demotes him, not just by one place, but from GOLD medal to NO medal on the basis of a different climber getting a single move higher! I'd like to see how this would have come out if they'd combined scores through addition rather than through multiplication (I might work it out later).

On a separate subject, I felt very sorry for Ondra on the boulders. The second in particular tested the type of muscle recruitment essential for speed, almost irrelevant to "real" climbing, and which Ondra lacks. It was almost like having a second speed round.

The final boulder was just too powerful and complex to be done in the time, but I had the feeling that with a few more minutes Adam would have been the one to crack it.

I was musing how if the Zone hold on problem 3 had been 2 more along, Adam would have come first in bouldering and maybe got gold... there but for the grace etc etc

Don't think he would. Coleman had 2 tops by then and Ondra was the only one to miss the zone of P2. His only chance of winning was beating Shxcubert in the lead.

Agree though that the zone was in the wrong place on that problem.

Alan

Twas certainly exciting, but in the end felt rather arbitrary.

Boulder set was disappointing. Not enough tops, too little separation, with one too east and one way too hard. I expected more from the setting team.

Announcing was truly atrocious and clueless. 

I look forward to 2024 when we have independent events.

I worked it out by addition. The gold medal would have gone to Narasaki with 11 points, and then 5 different climbers tied with 12 points... I didn't go into tiebreakers... I don't think it works out to a better outcome...

Not necessarily a better outcome, but it shows just how arbitrary it is, as Rad said. Next time will be less arbitrary due to there being two events to combine rather than three. But if they persist with the "multiplied positions" equation I think it will still be pretty random. Not at all what you want in a prestige event. Most other sports (e.g. gymnastics) use an additive system, although this is obviously easier when all the events are scored on the same scale.

I agree and I expect the competition for the lead event by then will be fierce as the younger climbers will improve on what they can do already. . The standard will be raised for outdoor OS and there might be some very impressive developments coming down the road as the bar gets raised for that activity. by a wider group of climbers perhaps.

The handy thing about multiplication where scoring is in the form of ranked positions is in the case of one athlete getting 1st in one event and 3rd in another, they will score higher than someone who gains 2nd place in both events. With an adding system it would be a draw which is not ideal!

I posted some stats I did about additive v multiplicative for a 2 event competition on one of the other threads (can't remember which), but basically multiplicative leads to less ties than additive. Which is (semi-) obvious if you think that the range of possible marks in an 8 person final is 1-64 rather than 2-16.

But, even with just 2 events, which scoring system you use can make a big difference to the medallists; e.g: 1&5, 2&3, 3&2, 4&4, 5&1

I suppose it depends on what the medals are for. If it is intended to be the 'best overall', it should (IMHO) punish a poor performance more than reward a good one, e.g., 2nd/2nd/2nd should rate higher than 1st/1st/7th.

Personally, I'd go for a track-cycling-like elimination race style where the last person at each stage gets eliminated and the rest go round again. It would also add a test of endurance and pacing to the top competitors. I might be joking. Or not. I'm not sure.

That elimination style would work great for speed (maybe hold something back for next round, but risk getting caught out). So the winner and 2nd would have done it 7 times - but then they'd have more to recover from (which is exactly what happens with hept/decathletes with best high jumps and pole vaults).

It would also work in the lead, showing slightly different skills as well - more akin to redpointing after the initial on sight.

If the elimination was determined by "your best effort so far" then that would introduce more tactics. E.g. go fast in first round then pass a couple (for the speed specialists), try to on sight to the max and skip a round (for lead specialists).

Not so sure how this would be so easily applied to the bouldering but I'm sure something could be sorted.

Good point. Intuitively I'd have thought 2nd & 3rd was a stronger position than 1st & 5th. Amongst the top spots, multiplication definitely favours one of those who can get first place in one of the disciplines.   

I wonder what would decide the winner in the event of one athlete getting 1st & 4th and another getting 2nd & 2nd? Move them to the speed wall?

I didn't watch. If 100m runners and 200m runners, or freestyle swimmers and breaststroke swimmers can all get individual medals, but climbers aren't allowed to excel in their disciplines, then the whole thing is just a farce that isn't fair to any athlete or viewer.

I does appear to be well overly crammed into one event. It's akin to having a running combined event where the best 100m sprinters then went on to do the 1500m it just wouldn't happen.  I as a climber myself struggled to keep interest until the lead final but then we had an pretty amazing shake up to finish. To anyone not into sport climbing watching it probably wouldn't seam worth investing in keeping up with the whole combined aspect.

Remember that this is the first time sport climbing has been in the Olympics. It's a bit of a "toe in the door" job, not ideal but it's a start.

Paris 24 will have the speed separated so that's 4 golds rather than 2. The IOC limit the total number of Olympic medals (I don't think they want it to be always increasing), but if climbing turns out to be good for the Olympics, then maybe the number of climbing medals available will increase further and we'll ultimately end up with separate speed, boulder and lead medals plus a combined event.

The runners have had their fair share for decades. Why not combine 100m, 1500m and marathon into one medal and make them share their medals with other sports. Because that's what they made the climbers do. 

I thought it would be shite, and it was. But evidently it was popular with the sort of people who like BMX biking and skateboarding, which is what counts, I guess. It's a shame Ondra got involved with this circus.

jcm

Unless he came first, he was a bit damned if he did participate, damned if he didn't.

But that of course is merely about everyone's opinion of whether he should have taken part.

In reality, it was pretty much up to him (plus him taking his sponsors views into account) whether he wanted to be involved, a decision he made over 2 years ago.

The number of medals for athletics seems rather stingy compared with swimming and track cycling (and are therefore probably seen as being of greater value - a double gold medallist in athletics is a real superstar).

The number of running events seems about right (could maybe ditch the mixed relays). There are far too many swimming medals up for grabs, same with track cycling.

Looking forward to that, how did skate boarding manage to get 4 events though I wonder, (street and park for men and women). Better negotiations?