It may be fun to rank climbers, but using more than one regional event to gain points towards a national ranking is only going to put pressure on the regionals. Regional events are not a national circuit.
The south island - with only 1 regional - already has 40+ climbers. It's great to see good climbers from outside a region attending, but with more climbers attending to gain national points this could result in the capping of numbers of climbers or the shortening down of events to get through the day.
Capping of numbers could result in new / young / inexperienced climbers not entering in their own regional, and it may be intimidating for new climbers to go up against a nationally recognized field who will be out to get points. It would suck if climbers in their own region couldn't compete due to a capped number.
Shortening down of the events can reduce the challenge of the climbs, creating a bigger difference between standards at regional and national comps. Regionals should be fun for new people and challenging enough for the experienced.
It has been said before and i will say it again... being a good competition climber does not automatically make you a good arborist. They are two different things.
There's nothing stopping employers conducting a climb instead of an interview.
Competitions from outside your region should be excluded from the ranking system.
We need to keep the regionals as regionals and not make them national competitions... and why are Australians amongst our national ranks?
