Great show I thought :D
Agree the men's was a little tough - but when you've got such a strong line-up in the Quali's including Jimmy Web, Sean, Chon, Rustam etc. it must be really hard to get the level right.
Melissa and Jule looked insanely strong for climbers who have retired from comps. Michaela looked on good form, anyone know if she's doing the full circuit this year?
Would've been nice to see some Pooch and/or MM as they're potentially very strong contenders for the season.
Agree with most that I'm really not a fan of the new 4-minute rule.
It removes a lot of the tension, and also makes slabs or overly technical routes less likely to appear, or if they do - it'll just be one or two attempts.
Surely also either makes it harder to get tops, or routes will get easier to accommodate shorter recovery time.
Graeme - is this set for this season (and all others) or do you think it'll change given the generally negative feedback from the fans (and climbers?)?
I like the suggestion on t'other channel of a "4+, 5-cap" format, i.e. if you're on the wall before 4 minutes is up, you can climb for 5 minutes, but if you drop on the mat at 4:01 your go is up.
Allows for post-buzzer excitement, whilst still remaining TV-friendly.
I'm kinda surprised that they're bowing to TV schedules... I think it's great they're being shown on TV, but seems they could remove some of the filler if they wanted to reduce show-times.
Also seems strange you get longer for semi's than finals?
