Dear friends.
I am the member of judges\rules commission of IICC UIAA, which is
responsible for IWC-2007 regulations.

Let me explain my personal position and suggest a compromise.

I am not "pro" or "contra" the spurs.
I am for the low (rules\regs IICC) and I am against anarchy.

Every year we have IICC meeting after IWC, where analyse your
suggestions, answer your questions and make changes in the rules.
This year it was meeting in Courmayer in MAY and no one raised a
"spur" question.
I personally invited Harry, Urs, Iness and Kirsten to participate
that meeting and they wrote a letter with a lot of constructive
ideas.
No "spur" question in it.

I want to remember Pitztal-2001 , where it was first "no leash"
IWC competition. It was really disagreeable discussion between judges
(I was one of them) and climbers (Will Gadd was the leader of "pro
leash" group)...
Please, remember last year Daone incident with Evgeniy Krivosheitsev
("no hands on the holes").

The common in both incidents was unlawful changing the rules.

Today everybody compete without leashes.
But I admit the judges (and my personally) mistake in Pitztal-2001.

My proposal:

1. The problem, when athletes rest a lot as a bats with spurs, is
possible to solve by decreasing of attempt time. Any case, we will come
to this decision, because:
- the nomber of participants of IWC increase,
- TV and spectators (therefore sponsors) like forceful action.

2. If TOP climbers are deffinitely want spurfree IWC-2007, they can sign
a gentleman agreement just before comps.

4. During athletes registration in Daone, Saas-Fee and Busteni we have
to get them two lists: - "pro spur", and - "contra spur", and they will
sign first or the second list.

2. During athletes-judges meeting in Daone we`ll organize a discussion.

And only after define information IICC (together with athletes and
manufacturers representatives) can make a decision about
IWC-2008 rules. And publish it in time on UIAA web-site.

Best Regards,

Pavel Shabalin