It's about to get even more exciting at the 2019 IFSC World Climbing Championships in Hachioji, Japan. Now that the three individual discipline rounds of Boulder, Lead and Speed have taken place, the 20 top-performing athletes across all three events have now been established. Rankings from each round are multiplied to calculate combined points (e.g. 1st x 2nd x 3rd = 6 points). Great Britain's Shauna Coxsey has qualified in 3rd place, putting herself in a strong position for making the top 7 and qualifying for possible Tokyo 2020 Olympic selection if she reaches the Combined final (top 8 from qualifying round.) Her teammate Will Bosi narrowly missed out, finishing in 25th place.
© Eddie Fowke/IFSC
Having climbed almost every day over the past week, the qualified athletes now have a further three rounds of qualifying in Boulder, Lead and Speed and potentially yet another three rounds if they make finals. Athletes ranking outside of the top 7 in Hachioji have further chances to qualify for Tokyo 2020 via the Olympic Qualifying Event in Toulouse in November (6 places per sex) or through IFSC Combined Continental Championships in 2020 (5 places per sex), Host Country places (1 place per sex) or Tripartite Commission Invitation (1 place per sex).
Aleksandra Miroslaw (POL) and Ludovico Fossali (ITA) won Gold in the Speed finals today.
Stay tuned for IFSC commentator Charlie Boscoe's Combined report...
Read Charlie's UKC article about the Olympic qualification pathway.
IFSC Climbing World Championships - Hachioji (JPN) 2019
Results
Comments
This is a good illustration of why "speed" doesn't fit in with the other two.
The winner of the men's speed event came 49th and 61st in the other two, and the people who came 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th didn't even make the top 20 overall.
Meanwhile, Ondra (1st and 6th in lead and boulder) came 47th in speed, and Schubert (2nd and 3rd) came 48th.
which means that speed won't have much effect on the overall result - yay!
and it'll have even less effect once speed is officially segregated in Paris in 2024
There is an argument to be made that the points system was designed to disadvantage the speed climbers.
As in?:
IOC: You need to include speed whether you like it or not.
IFSC: OK, if we must, but we'll invent a scoring system so that they do badly.
It's designed that people who only do well in one of the three disciplines does not do as well as someone who does well in two of the three disciplines. Anything else would be unfair.