Quote from slopey on February 14, 2010, 19:16you may have noticed that the skill level, and depth of field is slightly different at local TDB comps than at World Cup bouldering comps.  The womens field at comps in Canada is simply not as large, or as deep as the mens field; that is not sexist or discriminatory, it is a fact.

You’re right, girls are not good enough to deserve their place in the final (if you look at the international level).

Send me an email when the level is high enough for you.

Also, I have an idea for you, we should give awards lower for girls because they are less good.

I hope some girl will be insulted by such comments (Weldon, Pepin-Helie, Sethna Berezowski, Ko, Lacasse, Briggs etc.)

Pete,

It has nothing to do with truant not understanding you.  Truant is reading exactly what he wants out of each post.  How you can go from your post to his interpretation is beyond me. 

I’d be curious to know what the women think.  I’ve competed with pretty much all of the women truant listed and consider many friends and I haven’t heard them voice concerns over discrimination because of less women taken to finals.  With the exception of truant all the people I’ve spoken too accept that generally there are not enough women competing in open to warrant taking the same number to finals as the men.  In situations like regionals and nationals equal numbers have been taken because the numbers warrant it.

Truant.  What is the point of a qualifying round if nearly everyone makes it?  If it was only 11 men in open taking 8 to finals would be ridiculous as well.

Mark

Dear Truant,

I agree that it is very important that there be no discrimination or unfair practices when it comes to the rules, especially if we want our sport to grow and mature.  At first glance at the regulations having a lower fixed quota for women than men into the finals doesn’t look right.  I would agree that this might be something that needs to be looked at at the governing body level to ensure fair practices.  I think, however, that rather than fixing a set number of competitors into the final, there could be some mechanism in place to set the number of finalists based on the the number of enrolled competitors. You could, for example have a cut-off, say that if there are less than 20 competitors, then 6 finalists, and if over that number then 8 finalists (My numbers are just used as examples as I really don’t know where the cut-off should be.) That way you would take gender issues out of the mix.

I think this forum is a good place to bring this up, but I think that really if you want to make a real difference, you should see if you can get involved at the governing body level and make changes rather than just make noise here.  I personally do not believe that anyone at that level was trying to discriminate against women when writing the rules.  I feel that most of them feel strongly that having more women in competitive climbing is important and desirable. I think you would find that they are all very interested in making sure that all competitors, both female and male, are treated in a fair and equitable fashion. They would have put in the regulations based on experience, fact, and I would think a fair bit of thought, but that doesn’t mean that some adjustments could be made to make it even better.

As many of the others pointed out, there are a number of reasons to limit the number of finalists in some situations.  One other one mentioned is that if the depth of skill level is too wide in the finals, the quality of the competition is lessened.  Having people closer to the same skill level in a final makes it a better event to be in, as well as a better event to watch.  I know this is arbitrary, you will most likely ask me to then set what the skill levels need to be to make it good, and I can’t do that of course.  Limiting the number of finalists is how they are attempting to do this. 

Actually the best way to have an effect would be to get more women into competitive climbing, it seems to me that this number is growing, and I hope it continues.

Hey Truant,

I know who Slopey is (he signed his name), and Sliver (he signed his name), and the Vsion.

I find myself curious as to who you are. I’ve never been a fan of anonymous postings. It always helps to know who you’re talking to when discussing the finer points of climbing…

As for commenting on the thread, I find myself unable make finals, so I would like the TDB to open the men to the top 25 climbers into finals. Although even then….

Knut

Bonjour à tous,

Knut and Pete, désolé si vous n’avez pas pu vous qualifiez pour la finale. Les jeunes que vous avez entrainés sont plus fort Ou bien c’est nous qui devenons plus vieux!

K and Pete, sorry guys if you have not made the finals. The youngster you have trained are stronger or we are getting older

The main topic here is that Truant find there is discrimination and a unfair process to determine the number of women finalist with the Tour de Bloc format and rules. Here are what the rules said about quotas for each round for Bouldering competition (reference: 2010 CEC rules and regulation).

5.7 QUOTAS FOR EACH ROUND

5.7.1 Section 5.7 shall be read in conjunction with Section 5.6 above, i.e. the ranking procedure shall first be completed before Section 5.7 applies.

5.7.2 The fixed quota for the final round shall be determined by the format of the final round as follows:

In the New Boulder Format, the fixed quota is 8 men and 6 women.
In the Classic Boulder Format the fixed quota is 10 men and 10 women.

If the fixed quota for the final round is exceeded as a result of tied places following the application of the countback procedure, this higher number of competitors shall qualify for the round.

In the event that a semi-final round is held, the quota for competitors advancing to the semi-final round will be announced in the technical meeting.  This quota will be determined by the Jury President in consultation with the Competition Organizer and will be based on the number of registered competitors in the men’s and women’s categories respectively.

5.7.3 If there are two groups in the qualification round, the fixed quota for the next round shall be equally divided and applied to both groups.

5.7.4 The fixed quota shall be filled with the highest ranked competitors in the previous round.

5.7.5 If the fixed quota is exceeded as a result of tied competitors, all those tied competitors shall qualify for the next round of the competition.

And below is quotas for Lead competition

SECTION FOUR QUOTA SYSTEM

With respect to Lead Competitions, the number of competitors who will progress from one round of competition to the next is dependent upon the number of competitors registered for the event. If there are no Semi Finals, then the number of competitors advancing from the Qualifiers to the Finals will be the number set out under the heading “# of Competitors advancing to Final Round”. 

# of Competitors in Qualifier Round
50+
40 to 49
30 to 39
20 to 29
15 to 19
10 to 14
8 or 9
Less than 8

# of Competitors advancing to Semi-Final round
26
22
16
12
10
8
6
5

# of Competitors advancing to Final Round
8
8
8
6
6
5
5
4

SO per exemple at our event where we have 27 men and 12 women in a scramble qualification round, and then a Zone/Bonus final format, by the book we should of have 8 Men and 6 Women advancing to final no matter what is the number of enrollment. On another note, if we follow the LEAD quotas, there would be only 6 men and 5 women advancing to final round. Before the event start we have agree with the head judge that there will be 10 men and 8 women advancing to final… we have expressed this specification at the technical meeting so all competitors are inform.

As event organiser I found this is fair with a preset number of finalist. Everyone know what to expect. Without hurting anyone feeling, if you do not make the cut… it is too bad, but you have something to learn about it. I have been cut off from the final round quite often or one of our local Jr team member or Jr National team athlete at Youth World Championship. It does feel unfair or very frustrating, this is the way things are and make us evolve. It is far from discrimination, sexist, racism… matter or intention.

Truant I am sorry if this debate do not go into your favour. But we do accept your appology for accusing us (The Vsion) being unfair and discriminating women. Next time before you accuse us on something please inform your thoughts with us via this email: info@thevsion.com or 403.678.8803

We love witnessing and seing the ladies giving all what they have to climb at their best. Please note that we do have more girls on our Jr Team than boys, we do encourage both gender to participate in climbing.

Dung Nguyen
The Vsion, Owner/Manager
National Jr Climbing Team, Coach
Canmore Vsion Jr Climbing Team Society, President
ACMG, Climbing Gym Instructor level 3