Semi-final simulation for this year’s World Cup starters in our Boulderwelt München Ost
As a specific training and preparation for competitions, we regularly set training-circuits at a national and international level for our Boulderwelt Athlete Team. On the 12th and the 13th of August the final round of the 2016 Bouldering World Cup series will take place at the Olympic Stadium in Munich.
For this reason, we organised one last onsight training for our own athletes, so that they are as well prepared as possible for the real competition. Since this is a valuable training for all athletes, we decided to invite all World Cup starters currently staying in the Munich area to join us.
The starter field was made up of 17 men and 11 women from Germany, Australia, South Africa and a Russia, including former World Champion Dmitri Sharafutdinov, Russian Nationals Champion Olga Iakovleva and two of Germanys finest: German Nationals Champion Monika Retschy and Boulderwelt Team Athlete Alex Averdunk!
To make the simulation even more realistic we brought in Robert Heinrich and Dirk Uhlig, who will be setting the real World Cup in Munich this year, to set the boulders for us. Add a Jury, 8 boulder judges, isolation area, the official 5 minute interval modus and you get very close to the feeling of a real competition. Finally, thanks to many spectators watching and cheering on the competitors, the competition wall was alive and the event super exciting!
For the men it was a very hard circuit and very comparable to a real World Cup semi-final! The only flash in the whole simulation and an impressive display of slab skills, was from Alex Averdunk in Boulder 1. Dmitri Sharafputinov also managed to climb Boulder 1 in his fourth attempt and secured his victory with a top in Boulder 3. The rest of the field had to give everything to get even a bonus or two. For the ladies circuit the routesetters showed a little more heart with only two boulders full in the grade for a World Cup semi-final and the other two were set a bit easier. In the two easier boulders though, the mental pressure is much higher because the competitors know that, if they want to win, they MUST climb the boulders in their first attempt and can’t allow any mistakes. Sure enough, in these boulders we saw lots of tops, but also a lot of nervous foot wobbles! 🙂
The podium was dominated by an impressively strong Russian Team with Dmitri Sharafutdinov in first place followed by Alex Averdunk in second place and Dmitri Fakirianov in third place. And with the ladies 3 out of 3 for the Russians! First place Olga Iakovleva, second place Evgeniya Lapshina and third place Ekaterina Andreeva.
Thanks to all of the competitors for taking part, we hope you enjoyed it and we wish you all a successful World Cup next weekend. Thanks also to all the spectators for cheering everyone on and creating such an exciting atmosphere.
See you all next weekend!
Find more pictures here.
