[a dense loner]

From my armchair I also thought the men's were too hard and the women's too easy. Nobody should be winning World Cup finals with a fucked finger! I thought it was pretty soulless tbh.

[Sasquatch]

I loved it.  Was captivated by both the mens and womens.  I though the women's were a bit on the easy side.  noy fussed about the winner flashing all 4, but looking at the difference to silver and bronze, it was very very close.  It looked to me like Akiyo was going through the motions.  The mens was so hard it there was no sure thing until the end.  Only complaints were the missing send footage for a couple of the problems as mentioned. 

[Duma]

Nobody should be winning World Cup finals with a fucked finger! I thought it was pretty soulless tbh.

That's the other competitors fault though, not the problems surely? I enjoyed it, esp the mens after the first problem

[a dense loner]

Oh yeh, I didn't mean the problems. Nah I didn't enjoy it and I was looking fwd to it 

[fatneck]

I really enjoyed it! Good end to the series and looking forward to next year. Hopefully Crushtam will have sorted his hair out by then... Great effort by Shauna 

[Durbs]

I enjoyed it overall – top result from Shauna, think Megan (and hopefully Pooch) will be key challengers next year, and hopefully the more varied venues should encourage greater participation across the board.

Does anyone know if the Mumbai round is going to be inside or outside? Could be a bit of a sweatathon.

Slight grumble about the lack of split screen – they had it for semis, so not sure why they didn’t for finals. Also on M3 & F3, the problems could both be kept in one shot, but they instead went with the close-up, focussing on one climber (or the floor…), so missed Rustram topping 3 and Shauna too, and no replays either. Shame.

In the semi’s the route-setter interview was quite interesting and possibly explains the finals. For the men, they were thinking it would be all 3 potential winners in the final, so set it extra challenging to really push them. Sadly I think they over-cooked by a fraction, though having said that Jan was having an off-day and only just scraped the finals, and other people were topping routes so they were all do-able.

Similarly they said that as the overall winner had already been decided they were going for more “spectacle”, which may be why the routes were slightly easier. This is a shame as the competitions should stand on their own merit, outside of the overall. Not saying they were too easy, but a couple more attempts would’ve been interesting. Not sure if Akiyo was just resting on her laurels or was having an off day – I still think she’d give it her all despite already being #1 – but maybe subconsciously the drive wasn’t quite there?

Overall, the season had had its ups and downs. Technically as discussed at length they’re needs to be better continuity and a set standard of broadcast across the season. I also think the choice of countries (or lack thereof) impacted the competitors who entered and thus the season overall.

The women were plagued by injury and then Jule’s retirement, the men didn’t seem to have much consistency in who made finals so there wasn’t the tight battle we saw last year.

Hopefully 2016 will be all killer no filler. Shauna, Akiyo, Pooch, Megan, Anna (I assume?), Miho and Fanny will be a really tight fight. For the men, I think a lot will come down to who actually enters the rounds. No McColl, not sure what Ondra’s plans are, Jan’s looked a bit wobbly of late, Russians seem to struggle to make it to every comp (or place consistently when they do)… Tough one to call.

Sidenote: Do you think Ondra actually trained for the WC’s? At the start he was probably the favourite, but wasn’t particularly threatening and seemed to struggle either with the setting, his skin, or the style of comp.

Thanks Graeme and the rest of your team for bringing us these comps. For all the grumbling, it’s still a great season to follow and your hard work is really appreciated!

[GraemeA]

Mumbai will be indoors, there was a team from Mumbai in Munich checking things out and I had a few natters with them.

Re Akiyo. One of Akiyo's motivations is to always beat Miho, well Miho wasn't in the finals so maybe that dulled Akiyo's edge. Or maybe she didn't have her team mate in the finals to help her. Or maybe a bit of both.

[Grubes]

What a way to finish.

Following on from some of the commentary, I checked out next year's (provisional) bumper calendar:

• 16-17/04/16 - Meiringen (SUI)
• 23-24/04/16 - Kazo (JPN)
• 30/04/-01/05/16 - Chongqing (CHN)
• 13-15/05/16 - Navi Mumbai (IND)
• 20-21/05/16 - Tyrol (AUT)
• 04-05/06/16 - (CAN)
• 09-12/06/16 - Vail (USA)
• 12-13/08/16 - Munich (GER)

Seven WC's in 8 weeks! It really is going to be a battle of the fittest.

sounds a bit of a logistics nightmare.
Just getting visas sorted will be a pain. At least the UK people can ge two passports and don't need visas for europe not sure about over countries

India in may should be fun hotest time of the year and mixed with potentially some dehli belly it might not be the best competitor that wins. Will add spice to the competition

[Duma]

How many discards next year? If it's not none then with the transfers and two weeks between China and India, I can see a lot of people not turning up at Dehli.

[a dense loner]

Fuckin Delhi, you're shittin me?

[GraemeA]

New Bombay not New Delhi, c'mon Dense, keep up

[Doug]

Rules state you discard your worst score if there 6 or more WC's; so next year there's 200 more points up for grabs.

I really hope that with so many WC's, competitors participation is not limited due to funding and visa problems.

[Doylo]

Fuckin Delhi, you're shittin me?

They better not wear those little shorts.

[a dense loner]

Duma put the place in my head! Damn

Christ I've got an image of puccio that I don't need in my head!

[Duma]

I seriously can't see anyone (except possibly the Japanese and Koreans) bothering with the Mumbai round if there's a discard. I suppose possibly as insurance against a duff round later, or cheap points against a reduced field, but otherwise it seems a waste of time, money, and training. You could fly home after China, have three weeks at home to recover and train, come into tyrol fresh against a field that's knackered from over a month in hotels, jetlagged, and jaded. Know what I'd choose. I know I go on about this, but the ifsc really need to stop holding these comps in countries with no competitive athletes, and away from the consumer/fans. I get that the Chinese pay, but that's not a good enough reason to me. Climbing, and especially bouldering is a first world sport with no money in it, stop trying to export it to developing countries. I know it's not this simple, but here's the season I'd like to see:
Call it the world series or league, not cup, sounds too much like one offs.
6 or 7 rounds, plus the world championships.
No summer break, unless it's between the end of the series and the World Champs, which would work well.
1 in Japan, 2 in N. America, 3 in Europe. Plus the Worlds.

[Lund]

Yeah, and defo one in hathersage