UKC

One of four Olympic selection events that were postponed three times this year finally happened last week: the IFSC European Championships in Moscow. A 10-day climbing marathon of individual Speed, Boulder and Lead events and the all-important Combined qualifiers and finals made for exhausting viewing for spectators online - and the few spectators who were in the crowd - let alone for the athletes competing.

Great report Natalie.

I enjoyed watching the comps. I missed Charlie Boscoe, but Matt did a good job and surely he will continue to improve in the future. The event seemed well organised, but there were a couple of thigs that could have been done better.

1. The camera work was great, but the production team sometimes made weird choices (showing a replay while somebody was close to a top, lingering on someone on the mat instead of somebody climbing, etc). Understandable during such a long event, but sometimes frustrating.
2. During the bouldering and lead (not combined) they failed to show the updated scores, making it hard to keep up sometimes. They did a better job during the combined event.
3. Once again, the combined event was decided by the speed of completing a relatively easy lead route. I think after a long week of competitions it made sense for the setters to set an "easy" lead route and as you said it was difficult to second guess the athletes' fitness level in this crazy year. I hope though that this won't happen in the Olympics itself. The athletes will be on top form there and the boulders and lead route should be as hard as they would be during any World Cup events.

Anyway, it was good to see some climbing again. How I have missed it!

Seconded 

As happens from time to time at these comps a local team does the production. I presume that's what happened here. Most of the cutaways were to cover Russian climbers and I can understand why they did that. It did get a bit annoying.  The stream was in HD at at 1080p and I really noticed the difference in quality.  IFSC if you haven't updated your cameras please do so now. 

Comp climbing just gets better and better.

Women's European Combined Championship results table, shows the lead results only?

Thanks Natalie for a great report!

I watched most of everything this week. There were loads of positive aspects in the coverage, and some very exciting competitions. I can't help thinking that the scoring system in the Combined event is in desperate need of revision generally, but especially for Tokyo. You need to present an Olympic sport in such a fashion that even a lay audience can grasp the system and understand what's going on, who has a chance and why, and what's needed to win. The tables shown were completely unintelligible with regard as to how the multipliers are decided upon. Matt Groom in this respect failed completely; he seemed just as much out of his depth as I was and didn't even attempt to explain why, if several climbers are shown on equal first place in one of the three Combined competitions, the multiplier is sometimes 2, sometimes 1.5, but never 1.

The classic example of how to make a sport broadcasting-compatible for a wide audience is the ski Biathlon, which is now one of the most exciting and popular winter sports. The IFSC should pay someone to sit down and do some serious thinking about how their big chance should be presented next year.

P. S. Are the Asian championships going to happen? No information about teams etc. on the website... 

Sorry, just updated the women's results screenshot. My brain is a bit fried!!

Yeah, the tie-break situations can be complicated. I don't find the IFSC written rules that clear. Essentially it's the middle ground (median) of the number of ties, so 1.5 for a two-way tie, 2 for a 3-way tie, 2.5 for a 4-way tie, etc. At least, that's how I work it out in my head. I assume that's what a 'fractional ranking' is, as it's written in the rules. Paging Graeme...

I think the results both on screen and on the IFSC website could definitely be improved. 

I was having to work this out while the comp was on and you're correct. (Although technically their calculation is the mean, it's always the same as the median here).

It's also a bit confusing sometimes remembering what happens when there's a tie in a Boulder round or a Lead round (or Speed, but it's rarer) and knowing when it counts back to previous rounds and when it goes to time on routes, and then the tie-break for the Combined rankings which is all about relative positions unless there's a tie there then it goes back to the qualifier...

I suppose it's usually not so common to have so many ties all over the place, but due to the easier level of some rounds in Moscow it just kept coming up. 

I just wish that we'd had this explained as clearly at relevant points during the competition! 

That must be the main lesson for all concerned with the presentation, but it's going to take some ingenious graphics and a lightning-sharp commentator to do the job when basically every hold reached by a competitor can not only affect his final ranking, but also decide who wins. 

Interesting scenario: Yuval happens to be Swiss and gets the message before climbing that he should in no way attempt to beat Sascha's time, just to ensure that a Swiss takes gold... Definitely thinkable, but not sport. 

P. S. Not meaning to detract from both Sascha's and Yuval's amazing lead climbs! 

I was actually writing out the scores on paper as I find it easier to visualise than online results, plus I couldn't download the app on my phone for some reason. I got ahead of myself though and didn't bother to write the men's down after a certain point as I thought I could figure it out easier having mulled over the women's, but I didn't see how strong Alexei's position was until it was happening before my eyes!

Yes, it's definitely open to some tactics. It was also interesting to see some athletes withdrawing from semi-finals to rest for the Combined.

Right, off to bed. YouTube's Plastic Weekly show want to discuss the event with me for 2 hours tomorrow! I'm not sure my brain can handle it

The women's bouldering was a great round - good problems and close to the last climb.

The pictures of "Masked Observation period" makes me laugh - one person with a mask around their neck, another off their nose and one person wearing it properly.

It didn't escape ones notice how world class athletes are setting a public example

Was I dreaming or was Will initially placed above Alexei on the combined lead final score? Was there an appeal? It looked like they both dynoed and touched but failed to hold the top. Alexei was placed above Will on time. It shows how close these things are as if Alexei came 5th on lead he would not be heading to Tokyo.

Yes, Will could have got Sascha the ticket too by being faster or reaching the next hold. 

Alexei wasn't initially given the Plus on his score for some reason, perhaps because there's a judgment call to be made.

I don't think anyone could dispute that he deserved the Plus, but a casual observer would note that while Will very nearly latched the next hold (and Sascha would be going to the Olympics if he had) Alexei was nowhere near doing the move, but he did make the required change in centre of gravity. Very tight margins which are enhanced by the importance of the ranking over the score.

I missed what happened to Chloe Caulier's score in lead. Watching a replay it seems she may have touched a bolt with her knee, but it wasn't clear to me?

I thought the same. Will was definitely a lot closer to sticking that move than Alexei. I hadn't realised that made the difference in Alexei going to Tokyo. (I also thought that to get a plus you had to actually touch the next hold, is that wrong?)

It's moving your centre of gravity using the previous hold rather than touching the next one that counts.

IMO the biggest problem with the scoring system is the head to head nature of the speed final - its possible for the second fastest climber to come 5th! This happened in Hachioji and potentially cost Futaba Ito an Olympic place. A time trial style format seems a lot fairer to me.

This is a product of the route setting being to easy. Surely an combined final lead route should never be seeing multiple tops and overall results depending on time - we've got the speed round for that!

Her toe was placed under a bolt, sort of toe-hooking it but it didn't look like she 'used' it. Why does this only ever seem to happen in Olympic qualifying events?! Twice in Hachioji and now here...

The speed has head to head in the finals because that's what happens in the Speed World Cups.

Even if the route was hard time would still be used to split ties.

It happened in Kranj last year as well. And I am pretty sure we had Appeals in Chamonix last year but I can't remember the outcome. So it is not just OQE's - but when you consider how important an OQE is then it is not surprising that so many Appeals get lodged.

I don't think this is a good argument that it is a sensible or fair system to use in a combined final.

Yes but with a well set sustained route you are surely much less likely to get ties than if the route is easy and gets multiple tops.

The other problem with the scoring system is that the final ranking is too dependent on other athlete's performance. This year Sacha Lehmann missed out on first place because Yuval Shemla - who placed fifth overall - beat Sacha in the lead. Sacha's performance in relation to the winner Aleksei Rubtsov did not change, but their result did. A completely unrelated athlete changed the outcome for those two.

If you look at other sports with multiple events such as the heptathlon, you don't get this interaction in results because the athletes performance is measured by a fixed standard and not by the relative ranking of the athletes. In the heptathlon, the athletes get a certain number of points depending on how well they as individuals perform in a given event. That means the overall score of an athlete can not be altered by the performance of another athlete.

I'm sure there must be a way to apply this same thing to climbing. In speed (if you were to keep speed... I wouldn't unless it's onsight) you could award points depending on the best time. In boulder you could give points for the number of tops and/or zones. In Lead you could give points for the highest hold reached.

In terms of giving points depending on your position, thats kind of what they do already - your position is the number of points you get and then they are multiplied together, the one with the fewest points at the end wins.

I don't think the multiplication system is too bad overall. It was disappointing to see Sascha lose the Olympic position, but imagine for a moment that Yuval had climbed before him, then Sascha might never have been in the prospective first position.

I suppose in lead and boulder each climber has an equal oppurtunity to place 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc, and this is in my mind a prerequisite for a fair competition. In speed, if the fastest and second fastest are drawn against each other in the first round then the second fastest climber is consigned to 5th place, despite posting the second fastest time. I simply cannot understand why this system is to be used in the Olympics when a much fairer system (time trial) is so easy to implement.

It's not an argument, it is merely stating why we use head to head. IFSC were told no major rule changes, and whilst it is difficult to define exactly what is a major rule change, changing the whole system for speed finals is definately a major change.

And yes the route was too easy. But if you are going to have ties then it is better to have ties with Top than on a random hold because the route was cruxy. With Tops you have a very defined end of the climb, when the lower off is clipped. But with any hold you have the issue of when do you stop the time, it is done when the athlete falls but imagine 2 athletes fall on the same hold (no + involved). Athlete #1 got to hold 23 in 3.00 and then rested/chalked for30 seconds and then fell, so time = 3.30. Athlete #2 got there in 3.15 and immediatly fell. Who is better?

The speed final pairing are determined by the time trial that is qualification. It is exactly like seeding at Wimbledon. If there are no surprises then the final is between the fastest 2 from the time trial

I had not considered the complication arising from ties on lower holds. All the more reason to avoid ties! I agree that if ties are going to happen its probably better for them to happen at the top hold - but maybe not if at least one climber gets higher than the tied position. Best case scenario is a sustained route that splits all the climbers - of course this is not always going to happen, even with a perfectly set route.

PS: I am in no way pooh-poohing the efforts of the route setters, they usually do a great job!

This is another area where changing the scoring system would work. If the score was done on points rather than ranking then it wouldn't matter if they got to the same hold. They would secure the same number of points but that isn't an issue as it all goes towards the final score. It's also more in keeping with what climbing is, as a sport. Some people climb slow and some climb fast, but who is to say that the faster person is better on a lead route? This is just something invented by modern comp climbing.

I think the natural conclusion here is that the combined format is the problem, because any scoring system will have flaws. The scoring you describe works for events where conditions are essentially the same every time - so it could work for speed. If the problems/routes change every time then you've got an issue of weighting between the disciplines. Set an easy lead route and that gives an advantage to lead specialists etc. Of course you can layer ever more complex ways of dealing with those problems.

Another option is to score the rankings, instead of multiplying. But if you weight it to provide incentives for 1st, 2nd and 3rd, as most sports do (Downhill world cup is 200, 160, 125), then the results are much the same, including the position swap based on a third party that occurred here. If you don't weight them you have more scenarios where the overall winner didn't win any events. This sort of scoring works well when the events are essentially similar, and there are lots of them. So it rewards consistency rather than specialisms.

Yes I agree, "benchmarking" would be very difficult. In the heptathlon obviously this isn't an issue as the events are always the same. In climbing there would be an unfairness between the events, although on the day each athlete is on the same playing field.

Welcome to the world of an IFSC Technical Delegate who has been involved with writing rules since around 1994

Time was added in for Lead after the infamous World Cup Chamonix 2011 where we had a 4 way tie for gold!

Thanks for all your replies Graeme. To illustrate my point with a real life example: in the pan american comp womens final, the climber with the second fastest time came 7th in the speed round, whereas the second slowest climber came 2nd - in a fair system this wouldn't be a possibility IMO.

From what you say it sounds like the format for the competition was out of the IFSC's hands, but I really think that adopting a time trial format should be considered if combined comps are to be continued after this Olympic games.

Cheers

Haha I will have to check that out! That is well before I started watching comps

I'm actually arguing that awarding anything based on rank is a problem. It allows an unrelated athlete to change the outcome because an athletes score is not independent of other athlete's performance. Instead points could be awarded solely on your performance at the sport, not on your performance in comparison to other people.

Put it this way. If Yuval had been ultra-aware of the situation, and perhaps owed Sacha a favour, he could have chosen Sacha to win simply by purposefully losing. I'm not saying he ever would have done that but this scoring system allows that to be a possibility. Remove the emphasis on ranking and no athlete could ever influence the outcome - except of course by being good at the sport and winning. Sacha would have got his points, Aleksei would have got his points, and whoever had the most would have won. Yuval wouldn't come into it.

In Speed finals it is only about winning each race, absolute time is irrelevant. It's like saying that Bottas was on pole but the race itself was wet so pole was the fastest time but Hamilton crossed the line first and gets the win.

There are numerous scenarios where an athlete can win a race with a very slow time, the World Chammpionships was won in a really slow time 6.87 seconds. Both athletes made a mistake, Jan made another error and he fell, Ludo slowed up.

Or that our respected Technical Delegate hasn't informed us what sanctions have been applied by the IFSC and the national federations and what action is being taken to improve the stewards performance. The competitors are representatives of the Olympic ideal, the national federations, the sponsors and the sport in general. One's impression is they couldn't care less but as one with no idea what the rules are one would appreciate some clarity

Only if you set out with that in mind. You can easily re-frame it as being the climber against the wall and it doesn't really change the situation at all. Aren't we trying to find the best climber? Shouldn't the person with the best time win, in a competition called "Speed"?

I understand this, I guess I just find it a bit unsatisfying in this format. Thanks again.

Thanks Natalie. Nice write-up.

It was exciting to the end, in no small part due to the format. Yes, there are quirks, but we've all known the rules for quite some time (2 years?), so no surprise there.

I just hope we get to see the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021!

But in other sports this is normal.  Take F1.  If Hamilton and Bottas are 1st-2nd it's a 8 point swing.  If they are 9th-10th it's a one point swing.   In every example unrelated people are influencing their outcome relative to each other.

The problem I think with combined is the multiplication is a bit slow to do in your head and multiple sums are needed to work it out.

You can get the same effect of rewarding high places with a points scheme designed to do that, while also being more intuitive to the viewer.

I'm quite surprised they didn't base the overall result on the WC Series points system for placings, effectively making the comp a three-round series. Would have been far easier conceptually.