Season 9 difficulty (spoilers)

[madship]

My initial thought was that the ANW producers had shot themselves in the foot with artificially trying to one up season 8's year of the woman with the new top five rule.

We're three episodes into the season and only one woman has made it to the warped wall.  At this point last year two women had cleared the city qualifier courses. Which got me thinking, what did they do that has so greatly affected then women competitors.  Going into Kasas City I am not confident there will be a female clear.  Although there are some well know names in the ninjahq list:

Cassie Craig, Annie Dudek, Camila Gardner, Sara Heesen, Nicole Heyboer, Christine Hovorka, Lori Lloyd, Abigail Paul, Kirsti Pratt, Brittany Reid, Sarah Schoback, Jennifer Tavernier, Maggi Thorne, Liz Babcock

I am not sanguine about any completing the course.  TNW success does not translate to ANW success.  

So thinking they had changed the rule and the courses to get more women up the warped wall and stunned that no woman had cleared the course yet, particularly after Daytona, I started looking at the numbers.

2016

City	Femaie Top 30	Female Clears	Total Clears
Los Angeles	2	1	17
Atlanta	0	0	27
Indianapolis	1	1	25
Oklahoma City	0	0	15
Philadelphis	4	0	9

City	Female Top 30	Female clears	Total clears
Los Angeles	2	0	22
San Antonio	1	0	16
Daytona	1	0	18
Kansas City	0	0	10
Cleveland	2	2	14
Denver	3	0	8

The number so far don't conform to my impression.  To date, although no woman has cleared the course, four have placed in the top 30.  This is ahead of last year with two clears but only three top thirties.  This contradicts my initial thought particularly when you consider that total clears, despite LA, are way down (69/56) this year.

My thought is that ANW has made the courses significantly more difficult this year, but the women have stepped up their game and improved their performance more than ANW.  I'd love to know the completion percentage from last year.  Did ANW Nation have the "What You Didn't See" post last year?  I think the overall clear percentages have gone down while the female top 30 percentage has gone up.  

Daytona it tough to judge, while much harder than Indianapolis (third episode last year) and Atlanta (2016 southeastern region), it was not as difficult as Philadelphia (included rolling thunder).  

Is this the most difficult season of ANW yet? Are the female competitors the best so far in ANW?

[DonalM]

I would say course has gotten easier, female performances have gotten worse.

[Steven π]

The course is ridiculously stay the same difficulty (Qualifier and Finals)
And the females are doing worse...

[chase247]

I feel like the courses are generally easier this year so far, but but the females seem to be doing worse only because of obstacle #5. In both L.A. and Daytona we saw a few strong women get to obstacle #5, but it was just bad luck as to which city had which obstacle. For example, I am almost certain that Jessie can do the Battering Ram. Maybe Barclay could have done the Rolling Thunder. Who knows. But basically, in terms of the well known women, I think it's just bad luck as to who had to do which obstacle. In terms of new females to the show, I do think they have gotten worse. In San Antonio only 2 women made it past the 3rd obstacle...

[MiguelAbuel]

L.A. was one of the easier courses in a while.

[Deleted]

I think Meagan Martin would clear Denver and Jesse Labreck clearing Cleveland (IT IS MY PREDICTIONS NOT SPOILERS)

[SasukeForever]

To be fair, I thought the Daytona Course was very difficult. Granted we got 18 Clears out of it, but still...obviously Philadelphia last year was much tougher but it was still tough. It's interesting to see them playing around with these balance obstacles from past years, it's kinda interesting