How do you judge rock climbing competitions?

Answer 1

A rock climbing competition is either red point or onsight. If it is a red point comp, then many routes are set, with different point values, relative to their difficulty. Their peers sign off on the routes that they have completed. Climbers usually have anywhere from 3-4 hours to climb as many routes as they want, and their top five point values are taken as scores. In this instance, judges simply stand by and make sure participants are not cheating, or if the competition is for sport climbing, not bouldering, they will also belay. In an onsight competition, participants are held in isolation, so that they may not see the routes they will climb beforehand. Once they are called out to climb, they will usually have three routes to climb, and a time limit to climb each one, along with some rest time allowed in between. In this instance, judges mark the highest hold that the climber is able to control (hold on to for more than a moment), and this becomes their score for that route. That score and their scores on the two other climbs are tallied up. In the end, the winners are determined by the highest scores, and ties are broken by the number of falls taken on each qualifying route.