The modus

Summary

Each climbing or bouldering gym hosts a qualification round of two months. Depending on the mode, 60 or 100 specifically tagged boulder problems of all grades are set. Participants receive a score card on which they mark the problems they’ve sent. News and other information such as interim scores are published during the qualification period on the League’s own website www.hard-moves.de. After the 4-6-week qualification period, the 10 best boulderers (including a women’s quota) from each gym qualify for the finale.

The finale is organised by the DAV Kletterzentrum Wupperwände. On this day, from 1.30-6pm, the 200 finalists pit their strength against 40 specifically set problems. From 8pm onwards, the best five teams face off in the super finale, with five team members contesting on five problems.

When and how

To join, you can register in any of the twelve participating gyms named on www.hard-moves.de. Beginning on the respective start date and for a small fee of 3,50€, you receive a score card and can test yourself on the qualification boulders. The score card should be returned to the gym in order to help us publish interim scores; in any case, the score card must be returned before the end of the qualification period in order to register your results.

Qualification mode

Prior to the qualification period, HardMoves problems of all grades are set into blocks and walls by the local route setters as well as Tobias Reichert of the HardMoves Boulder League team. The problems receive their own start and top tags.

Within the qualification period you can take as much time and as many attempts as you like to send the problems – the only thing that matters in the end will be whether you managed to send the problem or not. Each sent problem is marked on your score card and counts as one point towards your final score.

The best seven lads and the best three girls qualify to represent their gym in the finale in Wuppertal on 5 March 2011. The gyms have some leeway as to how they distil their best lads and lassies for the finale team, creating the two following qualification modes:

Mode I

Within Mode I, 100 boulder problems are set and the qualification period extends over six weeks.

Mode II

Within Mode II, only 60 problems are set and the qualification period ends after 4 weeks.

Finale

The finale takes place on 5 March 2011 at the DAV Kletterzentrum Wupperwände in Wuppertal. From 1.30-6pm the finalists from the twelve teams collect points by sending some or all of the 40 newly-set problems. As in the qualification period, contestants themselves are responsible for marking sent problems on their score card. Each sent problem adds one point to the team score, which is tallied after 6pm.

At 8pm, the five highest-scoring teams, represented by their finest five, meet up in the big clash of the super finale, facing five spectacular problems. The teams will furthermore have to determine who will attempt to send which problem, with each team member of course dedicating themselves to one problem. In addition there will be a time limit for the problems of the super finale. The team sending the most problems in the super finale wins.

Details will be updated in the coming weeks. The finale problems will be masterminded and set by Tobias Reichert and Jonas Baumann.