NEWS

Based on the podium pictures, below are the Combined medalists and their overall result in Lead - Boulder - Speed. It should be mentioned that in the Combined calculation, only athletes doing all three disciplines are included. However, IFSC has not presented any results in Combined. 1. Sean McColl CAN 6 - 17 - 38 2. Manuel Cornu FRA 51 - 3 - 32 3. David Firnenburg GER 17 - 49 - 44 1. Elena Krasovskaia RUS 29 - 6 - 20 2. Claire Buhrfeind USA 7 - 24 - 41 3. Charlotte Durif FRA 13 - 26 - 33 How is it even possible not to present results in the discipline which is supposed to be Olympic in 2020? Should not IFSC give higher priority for this showing the direction for the athletes?

Yesterday, IFSC had an Olympic presentation for the athletes and coaches in Paris and most of the audience actually just shook their heads. In the suggested format 20 competitors should start with Speed, where four of them are knocked out. Then the remaining 16 continues to Boulder with some more cut offs before the big Lead final deciding on the medalists. The athletes and coaches were asked to make written comments and suggestions before the deadline of 25th September in regards to this knock-out format. When it comes to qualification, IFSC said that the decision of this part should be up tonational federations! Many critical comments and questions were raised. Jakob Schubert addressed some as well but he was interrupted by an IFSC representative asking: "Could you please present yourself?" IFSC explained that IOC had given the Olympic conditions: One set of medals, 20 participants, the World Champions in the three disciplines have to participate. Further more, there must be something in the form of a superfinal where the medalists are picked. IFSC did not want a calculated gold medal. The IFSC President, Marco Scolaris, said that it was very important for us to create a good show in order continue with climbing as an Olympic sport; hopefully with three sets of medals in 2024.

Elena Krasovskaia (16) in the Boulder final and about to win in Combined
Elena Krasovskaia (16), who was #14 in the European Youth Bouldering Championship last month, was the big sensation making it into the Final with five big favorites. As she is #20 in Speed at 9.83, she is in the leading position to win the Combined. (c) Eddie Fowke 17:30-19:00 Bouldering Final Men 19:30 Awarding Ceremony 20:15-21:00 Speed Final Men 21:00-22:00 Lead Final Women 22:00 Awarding Ceremony

Janja Garnbret (17) wins in the extraordinary show
Janja Garnbret grabs the second last hold, slips of for a split second, takes it again and continues to the final hold. Once again a World Championship in Paris proved to be an amazing show. Anak Verhoeven actually topped earlier with a margin but as she had worse result in the semi, Janja is the winner, which was based on countback. In the junior events, Janja has been superior for many years. When she started to compete win the seniors in some WCs last year she was was mainly runner up. This year she started by winning the three first World Cups but in the two last events she was #3 and #5 before she got the biggest title in Paris.

Sean McColl has made it into the semifinal in both Lead and Bouldering and, as he was #37 in Speed at 8.65, he has secured the Combined title. The fastest Combined competitor was Manuel Cornu from France #31 at 7.85. Among the Combined female competitors, Elena Krasovskaia (15) was fastest with 9.83 and she together with Charlotte Durif and Andrea Ebner are in the best position. The winner will not be known until the semifinals in Lead and Bouldering.

16 September 2016

Big scandal on Day 2

A 15-year-old girl from Argentina was #15 in the Bouldering qualification. Later it turned out that she is too young as she will not turn 16 in 2016. For some reason, her application to compete in Paris has been approved by IFSC although she was born in 2001. The sad news is that she will not be allowed to compete in the semifinal tonight but a suggestion has been forward that she can be a pre-runner.

Sensational results in Male Bouldering
Extremely technical problems in the male semifinal with very few top outs. The World Cup winner qualified by doing just one problem. But once again, the commentary misled the audience by saying that Tomoa had to top the last problem to make it into the Final. Once the Japanese had gotten the bonus in the right number of attempts, they continued to say a bonus was actually enough but we did not know how many he used. Tomoa needed three attempts and he would have made it to the final if he had used five! Please IFSC, it has been like this for the whole season and now we have commentary misleading the audience in World Championships in a sport going for the Olympics! It is noteworthy that only one of the Top-6 in the qualification made it to the Final and this guy was #6. Complete results.