4 season boots.

none of this manta pish going on, its a 3/4 season boot with flex, cheating barstewards.

Re cheating, and considering Tony’s comments; I would think (hope) that everyone involved in the comp abhors cheating of any kind, and we will do all we can to stamp it out. This includes things such as tight ropes, using holds not marked for use and pulling on holds using hands – incidentally all things seen at the AMI comp that Tony mentions. Neil and I have discussed an idea for ‘policing’ the events using participants that should work very well, and we’ll put this into place at the first event. As far as scoring goes, I have now used the A-B-C method at a number of events and it works very well, with no chance of confusion with 10-7-5.

I totally agree that the events should be fun – that’s why we do this in the first place surely!!!??? However, allowing any sort of relaxation of the rules during the heats will have a knock-on effect to the overall heats score thus placings, so no-one should be blase about this. Someone being tugged on a tight rope and who ends up with a higher score than another competitor who has climbed the route in good style has cheated, period.

Mike’s comments are all good value, particularly about the boots – there does seem to have been some artistic shodding going on in the past. As far as finals are concerned, perhaps a standard use of minus, held and plus marks for each hold would work. Matching on the final hold in control, and not just slapping for it, is certainly the way to finish on all routes.

The word on the street is that female competitors are happy to use the same final route as males, which makes sense.

Dates for this year are just being finalised, and Neil will post them on this site very soon.

Can we improve on honesty? My only experience of judging was the AMI comp at Glenmore, the judging was not consistent, one of the judges coached some competitors and criticised others – thats not right. I would keep the format largely unchanged for the heats but police the finals very strictly.

Age bands – this year I am 63 so whatever you do is academic

Time – I had no problems with the 4 mins at Glenmore, another 2 would not have made a difference and the regimentation was the same for everyone.

Scoring – 5, 7 and 10 gave me the option of going broke for 5 on the really hard stuff and a lot of other folk had a similar view. I’d like to see this on all the problems at all the venues

Finally, how about doing a deal on the entries, 6 for the price of 5 or whatever might make more competitors do all the venues.

They only have the one vets category.

On the scoring I think a combination of both the formats would be ideal, Ratho lends itself to highest point gained because of the length of the routes. Boulder problems & shorter routes are better for having 3 attempts.

As for cheating, some might unknowingly err & some err deliberately. I’ve seen it with my own peepers & it’s a hard one to call. I did on one occasion pull the offender about it (nicely) and had it thrown back in my face. What do you do then?

I’m gutted Extreme Dream wont be involved this year as their problems were always highly innovative and really enjoyable. With a bit of luck their Toolin Holds may be ready this time?

Discussion points then:

1. Veterans. As one myself (hard to believe I know….), I would personally go for a 45 and up category. However, this is awkward I know, and a 40 to 50 and then a 50+ means more prizes but perhaps a fairer spread of abilities. I’ll see what others are saying and also what the sponsors are up for.

2. Rules. I definitely agree that there should be a set of competition rules that are adhered to by each venue. I have a generic set that I use for events across the UK, and these stay the same as everyone knows where they stand. There will be, obviously, a few local additions, but they will be more relevant to the style of route setting than the core rule structure. I’m happy to put these rules across for discussion, and will do so when we have a meeting with all the venues a bit later in the year.

3. Judging. This is very lax in some places, with tight ropes being a particular problem. Answer? Self-regulation? More floor-walkers?

4. Scoring. The use of 5-7-10 for highest point gained, along with the 10-7-5 for 1st to 3rd attempts, has the potential for some ‘creative’ scoring. Having a ‘highest point reached’ score is fine, but I would suggest something like C-B-A. Thus, at the end of the day, 3 B’s and a C beats 2 B’s and a C.

5. Timed events. I’m completely in favour of this, as too many people don’t complete the routes in the allotted time. The Lodge system works well, but I agree with Ruairidh that 4 mins is too short, 6 being a better option. I can’t see why this cannot be done at all the venues (apart from creating more organisational paperwork).

6. Route setting. All credit to Ratho for the routes – I was destroyed after completing (!) most of them – but there were some folk who wanted to try an event and were subsequently put off by how hard the routes were. We need to make sure that we cater for everyone and encourage others to come along and take part, whatever their ability. Chatting to the guys at Ratho, they did say that they set some routes but other staff came along and flashed them easily, so they got worried and made them a bit harder!

I’ll think up some more stuff aswell.

I’d like to see the women doing the same final as the blokes. There’s alot of em getting the same or more points as us so I think it’s only fair they should do the same final route.

BMC vets comps run as 40 to 50 vets 50+ super vets however this would mean more prizes from sponsors and you would only get a very small amount of supervets (so prob not worthwhile)

lodge comp
4 mins to get to top is to short all international standards for comps is 6mins (encouraging peeps to rush too much)

Ratho routes i thought this year were the best ever super hard but the qualifiers were actually harder than the final route (def shouldnt be the case finals should be brick)

Ice factor
whoever put the posters up for the sponsoors, should be flogged as they laft lots of bolts sticking out from the wall, some of them far to close to one route )johny feild got one ripped armpit when he slid of a problem and caught on a bolt on the way down (not good i shifted some of them myself )

Judging ?
we all saw a male finalist pull on an ileagal hold and was alloud to continue, he should have been called down imeddiatly ( finals is finals and rules are to be adhered to)

We all saw the male finalist who missed a clip and didnt get called for it ( finals is finals and rules are to be adhered to essesially when itsd a safety issue- you must clip in sequence)

Open invites to do a slide show ,lecture at venues would be nice

All in all fantastic , keep up the hard work