Ep. 5 - A Bouldering Series for Everyone

Tour de Bloc has been Canada's favourite bouldering series for 14 years, and countries around the world are looking to it as an example of a national series that brings together recreational and pro athletes of all ages. Tour founder Luigi Montilla talks about the creation and continued operation of the TdB, and he touches on what the future may hold.

World Cup Finals Durations
In an effort to see what kind of effect the new 4 minute rule has on comps, I started compiling data on how long bouldering WC finals have taken over the last couple years. I've excluded World Championships, and I skipped the 2016 Kazo event because it ran men and women separately. I harvested these times by watching the replays on the IFSC Youtube page. These durations reflect the time between the first climbers turning to start their first climb and the last climber either matching the finish hold or falling on their final attempt. I rounded the times to the nearest minute. These durations don't include athlete introductions, problem previews, appeal times or award presentations, because the 4 minute rule doesn't change how those parts run.

The black bar represents the average duration of 1 hour and 58 minutes, while the error bars show the standard deviation of approximately 11 minutes. In total, there's a very unpredictable 45 minute difference between the shortest and longest events of the last 3 seasons. As more event are completed this year, I'll add another graph for comps that were held after the rule change. Until then, you can compare the first event in Meiringen 2 weeks ago at 1 hour and 51 minutes.

I have no background in statistics, so if you can recommend any changes or different ways to approach this info, leave a comment below!