Climbing - IFSC Bouldering World Cup - Free to Watch
"Bouldering is... many things to many people.
For some, it's the ultimate expression of climbing. No ropes, no gear - just the joy of pure movement, in relative safety, not too high above the ground.
For some, it's a never-ending quest for technical perfection. The hardest moves will nearly always be on boulders.
For some, it's the proven method to gain power, suppleness and technique." © Mick Ward 2006
The IFSC Bouldering World Cup
The major attraction at the Cliffhanger has to be the IFSC Bouldering World Cup. The Sheffield round of the World Cup is one of 8 events worldwide, the other rounds being in China, America, The Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Russia & Switzerland.
The IFSC Bouldering World Cup at Cliffhanger will see around 120 of the world's top boulderers battle it out for the £13,000 prize fund in the first Bouldering World Cup held in the UK since 2006.
The competition is spread over 2 days, with the qualification rounds taking part on the Saturday and the semi finals and finals on the Sunday.
Each round is slightly different but the basic rule of ‘most top outs in the least number of attempts' is a constant. One other constant is the use of a bonus hold, although a tie break hold would be a better description. The bonus hold is normally about 2/3rds of the way up each climb (or problem as they are called in bouldering).
So a scorecard in the qualification round might look something like this after each climber has attempted all 5 problems):
Jerry Moffat 4t6 5b5 meaning Jerry finished 4 problems in 6 attempts and got all 5 bonus holds in a total of 5 attempts.
Ben Moon 5t17 5b5 meaning Ben finished 5 problems in 17 attempts and got 5 bonus holds in a total of 5 attempts.
Ben would be ranked higher than Jerry as Ben completed 5 problems
The qualification round will see the field split into 2 groups, each group climbs 5 problems. Each climber has 5 minutes to attempt each problem with as many attempts within the 5 minutes as they require to complete the problem. Each climber then has 5 minutes rest before moving onto the next problem. One key thing in the qualification round is that the 5 minute changeover period runs concurrently for all climbers so when the 5 minutes are up the climber must stop.
The semi finals use exactly the same format as the qualification except that there are only 4 problems to attempt and the rotation time is 6 minutes.
The finals are a bit different though. There are 4 problems to attempt and the rotation time is unique to the climber - the rotation time is 4+ minutes which means that if the climber has left the ground they can continue until they complete the problem or fall off. As Magnus Magnusson would say "I have started so I will finish". The other big difference is that all of the climbers finish their attempts on problem 1 before everyone moves onto problem 2.
The competition will be located in the main event marquee in the Climbing and Bouldering Zone.
