What happens if a hold breaks or the rope goes tight during a climb?

• What it is: a broken or loose hold, a badly positioned quickdraw, a tight rope caused by the belayer, a critical timing failure or any unusual circumstance that puts one climber in a different situation from the rest.
• Two tests: it must cause "a material disadvantage or advantage", and must not result from "the climber's own action or inaction".
• Who decides: the on-field officials, consulting the Head Routesetter where needed.
• Carrying on: a climber who continues after an incident that hurt their attempt has waived it.
• An advantage cannot be waived: if the incident helped the climber, they may not choose to keep the benefit.
• The better result: the result is "the better of the progress made before the incident and after any restart".
• Waiting: the climber is held in a separate area and may speak only to officials.
• Recovery: one minute for each scoring hold used before the incident, up to 20 minutes.
• No restart needed: it is cancelled if the new attempt could not change the climber's ranking.
• Deadline: an incident cannot be claimed after the next climber has started.
• Blood: a bleeding injury is not a technical incident. Holds are cleaned and the wound dressed, with no extra time.

The glossary has the technical incident, the jury president, the hold, the attempt, the climbing time and the belay entry.

The rules start from the principle that "climbers are primarily responsible for their own actions and decisions" while accepting that outside factors can spoil an attempt. The waiver stops a climber from carrying on to see how it goes and claiming the incident only if it goes badly.