'Climbing...my life will never become boring.'

Fabi Christof est l?inconnu, n°3 mondial au classement combiné de 8a.nu depuis quelques années.  Les compétitions, les médias et les sponsors ne semblent pas s?intéresser à lui. Il se concentre uniquement sur l?enchaînement de 8c et de 8B. Essayez de trouver un n°3 mondial qui  paye son matériel ! Enfin, ce grimpeur allemand répond à une interview.

Delusion of grandeur, 8B in Chironico	Fred Feuerstein, 8b+ in Frankenjura	Burn 4 you, 8c in Frankenjura

Tomas Mrazek hangs horizontal, smiles and gives thumps up and start waving with his left hand to get us scream more. The world champion from 2003 has done it again. The first four WC events didn't turn out very good and he decided to skip the Zürich event to be better prepared for the championship in Münich. The qualifications started out with him setting a new isolation world record at 16 hours and 50 minutes. He was also last out in both the semi and the final but all this waiting didn't break down the world's best male climber in the world. Runner up is Patxi Usobiaga and the bronze goes to Alexandre Chabot.

Angela Eiter (19) has won the last five WC events and she seems to to be more superior then ever. In the roof she looses her feets but this dosen´t seem to bother her and she continues with a one-arm pull-up campusing through the crux. Runner up among the female is sensationally Emily Harrington followed by Akiyo Noguchi who were tied at #8 in the semifinal.

Angela Eiter, the superior world champion	Angela doing the one-arm pull up, campusing the crux
Tomas Mrazek with the Czech flag	Patxi Usobiaga a happy runner-up
Katharina Sauwerin from Austria #8 - 18 years old	Tomas Mrazek finding the no-hands rest in the semi
Emily Harrington from USA #2	Muriel Sarkany from Belgium #10

Pictures by Björn Strömberg

The lead event turned out to be a great success with perfect routes and some 3 000 cherfull spectators. The only debacle was that the leader from the semifinal, Ramon Julian Puigblanque unfortunately was discqulified from the final as he had missed that the isolation closing time was changed. A protest was delivered by the spanish team but the jury said that this change had been presented at the official message board.

Tomorrow starts the spped event and you better follow it at the official website as we are going Frankenjura for some climbing. The boulder event will start on monday and Tomas will for the first time participate. Angela has to wait two years as she didn't quallify - I was busy doing my final exams, she tells us as she is in the Press centrum getting the prize money of Euro 2 300.

The women had the hardest schedule with the qualifying round at Saturday and both the semi-final and the final at Sunday. Olga Bibik from had the most powers in the final and won the event. Runner up was Emelie Abgrall from  and the third place went to Juliette Danion, also she from . Anna Stöhr (17) from ended up #4, Chloe Graftiaux (18) from  #5 and on #6 we had Celine Combaz from

Olga Bibik has the most powers left and won the worldcup	Gabriele Moroni #13 on the dubbledyno.
Jéróme Meyer climbs convincing and won the mens event.	The routesetters did a superb job.
Anna Stöhr ends up #4	Cristian Core gave all and ends up #3
Anja Hodann #9	Killian Fischhuber topping out the 3rd problem and ends up #2

Killian shows his muscles, trying to scare the french team ;)	Stephane Julien wins the semi but end up #5

 

UIAA Climbing Deligate was Mr. Maco Scolaris who was very satisfied with the event, "no no, no problems, just solutions :)"

The new formate was a great success just like the whole event. I belive that having a semifinal for the best 20 will motivate many of the climbers to compete in the upcoming events.
Some of the women looked really tired in the final, wich is not so hard to understand. I belive that some of the climbers will do some more endurance training before the next event in Bulgary. The public enjoyed the show and the climbers were very happy about the boulderproblems. "The problems were great, perfect level", Daniel Dulac who sensationally missed the semifinal and ended up #25.

 

Text and Pictures by: Björn Strömberg

 

Day 1 - Isolation marathon

	A new record of participators created an isolation marathon. #1 Björn Stromberg had to wake up at 5.12 in order to be prepared for an early start at 08.00.  Tomas Mrazek, who won the championships two years ago in Chamonix, is scheduled to start climbing the first route at 20.00. Then he has to go to isolation #2 and if everything goes OK, he will be ready at 21.15, after a total of 14 hours in the isolation. Mrazek don't really complain. He thinks it's great with many competitors but say that they have to reduce isolation time. Most probably he will stay 10 hours on an average over four days, in the iso, as he also will participate in bouldering.
- I think that they could divide the participators into two groups or close the iso five hours later for the last starters. An other alternative would be flash in the qually as in the junior world. Imagine the waiting hall in a Ryan air airport on strike. People trying their best to "kill time" and at 14.45 the Slovenian team seems to be in the lead. They have been in this situation before. I talk to some other but most are quite happy at this time of the day. The winner last weekend in Zürich, Cedric Lachat, is just relaxed and say that the iso is much better here. In Zürich it was smaller, hotter and no food. Patxi Usobiaga pops by and I just hear him say, with a big smile - Flash, flash flash!
	Warming up wall.
	Arman Salada from the Phillipines with a sample of his personal climbing brand.

A Perfect Show

Last out in the finals is Olha Shalagina from Ukraine. Nobody has done the last boulder. Olha has so far done 11 boulders in 11 tries and off course she does it directely and the crowd salutes her. Olha is the queen of the world championship as she also was #4 in the lead event, quite surprising as she hasn't competed in boulder WC's in a year and in lead she was outside the top-10 in the world ranking prior to the world. An interview is hopefully on the way to explain all this.

The men event turned out be another perfect show with super dynamic and spectacular problems which Salavat Rakhmetov from Russia managed to do all in first try, rather easy it actually seemed. Second was Kilian Fischhuber from Austria followed by Gérome Pouvreau who also did all six problems.  

Pictures by: Björn Strömberg

#1 Olha Shalagina - a superior winner and queen of the championship	#3 Vera Kotasova - fighting for the last hold
#2 Ioulina Abramtchouk	Olha
Vera	#5 Anna Stöhr Austria -only girl outside Eastern Europe, top-8
#1 Salavat RAKHMETOV (RUS)	#4 Serik KAZBEKOV (UKR)
#12 Jorg VERHOEVEN (NED)	#12 Jorg VERHOEVEN (NED)
#3 Gérome POUVREAU (FRA)

The World Championships 2005 in Munich was a great success for our growing sport. There were some 500 names from 45 countries on the starting lists. In fact, the success made it hard for both the competitors, the organisators and the spectators with very long days for everyone. Tomas Mrazek spent 17 hours in the isolation on the first day, and in total he was locked up there for close to 30 hours. ICC are planning to modify the format and we would not be surprised if they will try to introduce flash in the lead qualifications next year. 

It is easy to analyse what is needed to be a winner as all top-8 in the six categories, except three French climbers (45 out of 48), either (1) come from Eastern Europe, (2) train in Kletterzentrum in Insbruck or (3) are 19 years or younger. It is remarkable that about half of the top-8 men and women in lead climbing train regularly in Insbruck, including Mrazek, Usobiaga, Verhoeven, Petrenko and Kazbekov. The strongest Eastern dominance is found in women bouldering where all except Anna Stöhr (19) were from Eastern Europe.

Reini Scherer - trainer from Kletterzentrum in Insbruck "Everyone is welcome to train". Interview is coming up!

"No secrets, a good community creates motivation". "Next year, David Lama will be among the top ten".

The average age on the women's lead podium was 18 with third-placed Japanese Akiyo Noguchi as the youngster at 16. Youngest of the best men was 18-year-old Nalle Hukkataival, who finished 5th in bouldering. 

There has been some turbulence in Spain because of the discqualification of Ramón Puigblanque. The Spanish coach has resigned taking full responsibility of the debacle. However, on the Desnivel website the federation has expressed that the former Spanish coach did say that he thought the trainers of Patxi Usobiaga could have done more. Patxi and his trainers have responded, through the website of Patxi, that there was nothing they could do once the isolation had been closed. Ramón travelled with the official Spanish coach and Patxi's trainers had no responsibility to check if he had got the correct time. It should have been the other way around.

It was interesting to see that seven climbers made it to the finals in both lead and bouldering. Maybe not such a big surprise as the boulder competition format also favours onsight and endurance since the climbers have to do six boulders in 54 minutes, including anything up to 15 attempts. However, in the men's final the route setters had made two problems (a mantle and a bridge move) which were virtually impossible for route climbers.The routesetters did a very good job overall, except with the speed route which had to be modified and the qualitication re-started after several women failed to climb it;) 

Patxi Usobiaga topping out the final and salutes to our photographer - Jörg Zeidelhack	Emily Harrington (19) from USA, a sensational silver medalist. - I didn't feel I had any pressure, I just had fun.
Ramón Julian Puigblanque missed the changed isolation closure time and was disqualified. Otherwise with 90 % probability he would have been the World Champion. "The Championship was stolen from me."	The French in general and Sandrine Levet in particular didn't meet expectations. Eastern Europe dominated the women's boulder scene.

Kilian Fischhuber (22) from Austria. No trainer, climbs mostly routes outdoors. Interview is coming up.	Gerome Pouvreau (22) from France, 3rd in bouldering 2005 and winner in lead 2001.
Olha Shalagina (22) from Ukraine - winner in bouldering and 4th in lead! She also had a victory in speed in 2004. Interview is coming up!	Salavat Rakhmetov (37) from Russia - 12 boulders in 12 attempts. Outstanding! Close to 100 World Cup competitions since his first victory in 1991.