16 September 2009

DUR&GO Climbing Master

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style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">DUR&GO Climbing Master

style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Text & pics: Ignacio Sandoval Burón.

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Presenting the competitors with the wall in the background.

The winner, Mina Markovic, climbing the first moves on the girls' final.

Patxi Usobiaga, the winner of the first DUR&GO Climbing Master.

Maja disappointed and frustrated after her premature falling in the superfinal.

Johanna Ernst (16), ended tied up with Natalija Gros in the bouldering comp.

Chris Sharma, absolute king in the Block&GO.

Natalija Gros.

Jorg Verhoeven reaching the savior hold in Sharma's boulder problem.

Dani Andrada bouldering on which was the hardest problem, his own.

Vidmar: “Nice competitions, nice public, nice place. I enjoyed all the competitions… I prefer the lead competition, bouldering is just for fun…”

 “This is my third year in this competition and I think they’ve got to arrange it every year… I missed it last year just because of an injury.”

All the machinery of the old Dima Rock Master has moved this year to Durango, another Biscayne town 25 kms away from the former.  The crisis and the need to accommodate an event with higher figures every year (spectators, structure, industry, etc..) has encouraged the change.

The events begun last week, Monday, September 7th, with the opening of the fair stands and the “Herriblok” or, which is the same, the popular bouldering competition.

Another year and another Walltopia’ spectacular climbing wall built for the occasion; Blue Arrow provided the holds and the boulders structures by Rokópolis.

DUEL (complete results)

The most interesting started on Friday with the duel event,  which confronted the international masters against a selection of Spanish climbers, giving the later a chance to qualify for the lead event next day. A less typical format was used with two different routes to flash as fast as they could. Thus, the participants had a go in the first route for then moving to the other one and the times were summed up.    

The most commented thing of the evening was the limited efforts of Chris Sharma, climbing peacefully as if he was warming up.

Chris: "Honestly ... eso es una mierda... That sucks ... for me it is not climbing. I climbed like I normally do... Furthermore, I had the wild card and there was no prize ... "

Another surprise was the non-qualification of Dani Andrada, who, over motivated,  climbed passed a quickdraw, having to downclimb to amend the error. Later, he said that maybe it’d be better to do it in top-rope.

DUR&GO CLIMBING MASTER (complete results)

Carles Brasco, the setters chief, keeps leaving a good taste in international competitions after the work done in the WC ledges in Imst and Barcelona. This time for the DUR&GO and together with Ander Gardeazabal and Jon Lazcoz set a very good men’s route where they fell gradually. Maybe a bit easy for the girls, taking into account the level shown by the masters, making 4 girls tied by reaching the top.

Men’s final route began with a serie of some 10 hard movements that leaded to a spectacular throw where all but Patxilín jumped, feet-off, to a good hold. Perhaps, the fact of making this movement more static, gave Patxi the extra strength to endure and fall just at 2 or 3 holds of the top.

Patxi: "It was good and it was a dream to start in Durango and winning. I think the route has been rather better than last year, I only have to congratulate the route setters. This competition is getting better every year and this time the truth is that there has been a fairly qualitative leap.

 

Girls’ super final took place on men’s final. Eiter and Ernst fell  trying to control the throw. The only one able to come out of this dyno was Mina Markovic, who kept climbing for a few more movements. Surprisingly, Vidmar did not even got to the crux.   

   

Vidmar: “I didn not  take the hold in the right position and I’m not happy with the result. I wanted to climb better…”

“The final was nice but too easy… I think it was like 7c. It wasn’t 8a… we were four on the top. The superfinal was a little bit tough for girls, long moves from the beginning ”

 

BLOCK&GO (Results)

The participants in this curious and colourful bouldering competition equipped their problem 3 days before the event, so that everyone could try it "comfortably" before it started.  There were climbers who tried the boulders a lot and some others, like Usobiaga, who chose to save strength for the lead competition and once it finished, stay until 3:00 a.m. to do the homework that others made before...

During the comp, each athlete bet 600 euros, which were lost or gained proportionally according to the others solved the problem or not. They had 10 minutes per boulder and all the goes they wished to send it. The last round, when they were pretty tired, was in their own boulder problem.

Making it easy, Chris Sharma won for the second consecutive year, by pocketing all the 7 boulders. Jakob Schubert and Jorg Verhoeven fired-off 6 problems. Placing in the lower part of this event rankings, Patxilín said "without discussion, I was the one who fought the more..."

Sharma: "The problem I liked the most was Dani’s again, but I liked most last year’s, they were harder. In the end, I think that the boulders were too easy ... " -Even though he practically did not climb during the summer, repairing the house he bought together with Daila and going to the U.S. outdoor fairs style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">.-  style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">“But I'm very happy to be here and have fun."

 

On girls side, Natalija Gros and Johanna Ernst were the boulderers who sent the more, with 4 problems out of 5.

 

style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Gros: "I enjoyed very much the bouldering competition. Each boulder was different in every competitor’s own style. For me the hardest was Johanna’s which I made in four tries. I felt very happy to ticked it… I climbed without any calculation and when I came to my boulder I was so tired that I couldn’t do it ” 

“I ended 5th in the lead competition, I fell at the top but I was satisfied in a way” “The route was nice, really smooth, I really enjoyed it… I think it could have been a little bit harder but it was interesting when 4 girls went in the men’s. When I saw them it was really attractive, so it has to be repeated more times. I think the public also enjoyed it.”

 

Dani Andrada:"The boulders seemed to me more or less the same difficulty, there was none much harder than the rest... However, it was assumed that Patxi’s  was the easiest, but it had a crimp ... I'm not very good at it and I have an injured finger, then I didn’t tried it much... I knew I was not going to do it... Nor did Tomasz’s nor Verhoeven’s... I was close to do Verhoeven’s, I could have done it... In Tomasz’s I fell in the last move... Hopefully, I’d have sent 6, but not Patxi’s... I've climbed 5 days in the last month and a half, but no excuse because Chris has not climbed much and has ticked 7... "  

 

If we were to suggest something to an organization that makes all the efforts to improve year after year putting it already among the best in the world, would be to elevate and align the boulders so that viewers might see it better and do not have to move from boulder to boulder. It would be also interesting to place clocks and screens with results immediately updated for the boulder and duel events; in addition, a press stud for the later.

 

Sharma: "I come to this competition because it is near where I live and because it fits in my schedule. I really want to assist to more competitions, but I have many conferences and work to do and when I have some free time I prefer to go climbing. I go when it fits in my schedule cause I like it, but it’s not a goal. I go to have fun and share those cool moments with the people, but it is not something for which I train, nor I got obsessed "

 

Text & photos: Ignacio Sandoval Burón.

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