I'm sure there where others that were different but looking at the routes, hold by hold, and as they were climbed while judging I really don't think they changed much.
The climbers hardly slowed down regardless on many of the routes. And when there were hard cruxes, if they weren't stopped by them, they tended to top out succesfully. Comp routes don't need 'cruxes', they need increasing difficulty, so that one person needs to find 'their' crux at 4 metres, the next at 5 etc.
And once again. If James Hampton and Seishiro Nishimura could almost top out on an A grade route after all the climbing they had done, and the routes were indeed a test of an A grade climbers abilities, then if they were fresh, I must assume they would have won the A grade comp? Or maybe we would have just had another super mega dupa final, but on what route?
Interesting that someone with only four months climbing experience missed out on getting into the B grade final (by about a point) |