It’s the World Cup! Of Bouldering!
By Amanda Fox, courtesy climbing.com
7/6/10 – The second-to-last Bouldering World Cup of 2010 transpired this past weekend in Sheffield, England, where a crowd of more than 20,000 amassed to watch the world’s highest-ranked climbers battle it out.
Belgium’s Chloé Graftiaux climbed back to the top (she placed a disappointing 14th in Eindhoven), finishing first in women’s finals. American Alex Johnson placed a very close second, with Japan’s Akiyo Noguchi – who has finished impressively within the top seven at each event this year – followed with the bronze. Anna Stöhr of Austria, who won in Moscow and Eindhoven, didn’t fare as well in Sheffield, finishing ninth. Graftiaux’s win has shifted rankings, with Stöhr falling to third and Graftiaux taking over first.
The top three women topped out all finals boulders. Only one try separated winner Graftiaux and runner-up Johnson.
Adam Ondra was way ahead of the men’s crowd in finals, topping out all finals problems with only Cedric Lachat of Switzerland, who placed second. Mykhaylo Shalagin of Ukraine finished third. Austria’s Kilian Fischhuber, who remains first in rankings – with only a seven-point lead on Ondra – placed tenth.
Women’s Bouldering Results:
1. Chloé Graftiaux
2. Alex Johnson
3. Akiyo Noguchi
4. Natalija Gros (Slovenia)
5. Juliane Wurm (Germany)
6. Yulia Abramchuk (Russia)
For full results, please check out ifsc-climbing.org.
Men’s Results:
1. Adam Ondra
2. Cédric Lachat
3. Mykhaylo Shalagin
4. Guillaume Glairon Mondet (France)
5. Rustam Gelmanov (Russia)
6. Tsukuru Hori (Japan)
Full results here
Women’s rankings so far:
1. Chloé Graftiaux – 337.22
2. Akiyo Noguchi – 332.90
3. Anna Stöhr – 326.39
4. Alex Johnson – 276.94
5. Juliane Wurm – 216.68
6. Natalija Gros – 199.60
Men’s Rankings:
1. Kilian Fischhuber – 334.74
2. Adam Ondra – 327.10
3. Tsukuru Hori – 250.64
4. Dmitry Sharafutdinov (Russia) – 158.35
5. Rustam Gelmanov – 158.08
6. Guillaume Glairon Mondet – 155.77
I happened to catch the live streaming of the finals of this event Sunday morning. It was great to watch and wonderful to see that all the stages this year are being live-streamed. Hopefully the same will go for the lead world cup coming up later this year. During Sunday’s competition, the announcer said that 15,000 people were watching on the internet worldwide. The interest is definitely there!
One thing the above report doesn’t say is that Adam Ondra didn’t just top all 4 problems, he FLASHED the first three –meaning he climbed them on his first attempt. It is quite remarkable to watch climbers of the highest caliber take many tries or even fail to send a problem, then watch Ondra latch the finishing hold literally in seconds. Not since Sharma’s appearance as a teenager has the climbing world witnessed an athlete who’s so clearly in a league of his own. It appears Ondra may win the bouldering world cup this year (his first time competing in the full series) and also seems in a great position to repeat his feat last year of winning the lead world cup, which starts later this summer. If he succeeds, that would be like an Olympic runner winning both the 100m dash and the 1500m middle distance event. It’s definitely worth paying attention to this 17-year-old “mutant.”