First European Stop of the IFSC Climbing World Cup This Weekend
Who to watch out for in this weekends event
This weekend sees Chamonix host the first European stop of the 16th IFSC Lead and Speed World Cup series.
Over the last few days the qualifying routes have been set on two climbing walls erected in Place du Mont Blanc and Thursday sees the start of the men’s lead qualification, kicking off the weekend’s spectacle of skill and strength.
Competitors to look out for this year are the overall winners of the 2013 IFSC Leading Climbing World Cup; Korea's Jain Kim and Japan's Sachi Amma. Although neither of them won in Kranj, Slovenia, the final event of the 2013 season, they finished high enough to claim the overall win for the season.
After being runner up for the past 2 years, Kim, who won four World Cup Climbing events and finished second in 2 more, claimed her first title. In the men's event, Sachi Amma retained the title he won in 2012.
Also worth keeping an eye on is Canadian Sean McColl, who finished 5th last year overall despite also competing in the Boulder World Cup and finishing 3rd in that. The first lead and speed event of 2014 took place in Haiyang (China) on 20th- 22th June. Of his competing in all three disciplines there, Sean wrote in his blog: “To compete in 3 disciplines in one weekend is exhausting. I’ve done it 4 times before, but never in 3 days. Every other time I’ve done 3 disciplines, there’s been a rest day somewhere in the middle; here there was none. A lot of people wonder why I compete in all 3, if I don’t worry about being tired. Honestly, it’s because I love the challenge. Why shouldn’t I be able to do it?”
Czech climber Adam Ondra recently climbed two 9a’s, but he’s been scaling down his outdoor climbing in preparation for this year’s World Cup season. He told 8a.nu, “Two months of hard training is over, let's see if it pays off.” Last year, Ondra made history when climbed La Dura Dura (9b+) in Oliana, Spain, considered the hardest sport climb in the world. But Ondra has also excelled at competitions, becoming the first athlete to win lead climbing (2009) and bouldering (2010) in the IFSC Climbing World Cup.
The less well known discipline of Speed climbing is a basically a race against the clock. For most speed events there is a fixed 10 metr IFSC speed route that athletes get to train on before the competition. There isn’t a set grade for the IFSC speed route but it’s around 6b/6b+ when climbed at a normal pace. Generally competitors race next to another climber, but it is just the time that matters in the end. The current men's 15 Metre Speed World Record of 5.88 seconds is held by Evgenii Vaitcekhovskii (RUS) at the 2012 IFSC World Cup (Semi-Finals) in Xining, China and for the women Luliia Kaplina (RUS) who set a record of 7.85 seconds at the 2013 IFSC World Cup (Finals) in Wujiang, China.
The results so far following the IFSC Climbing Worldcup in Haiyang (China) in June:
Men’s Lead:
1 SCHUBERT Jakob (AUT)
2 MCCOLL Sean (CAN)
3 SUPPER Gautier (FRA)
Women’s Lead:
1 KIM Jain (KOR)
2 RÖCK Magdalena (AUT)
3 VERHOEVEN Anak (BEL)
Men’s Speed:
1 ZHONG Qixin (CHN)
2 DZIENSKI Marcin (POL)
3 BOLDYREV Danylo (UKR)
Womens speed:
1 KRASAVINA Mariia (RUS)
2 KAPLINA Iuliia (RUS)
3 JAUBERT Anouck (FRA)
The full schedule for the weekend can be found here.
