The UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup starts this weekend at the Bozeman Ice Festival in Montana, USA. Four of the GB Ice Climbing Team are heading out to compete against the worlds best ice climbers.

The event itself almost did not go ahead as a hurricane came through Montana a few weeks ago and blew over the scaffolding tower that the competition was going to be run on. The event was almost certainly going to be cancelled, but with some donations from the local climbing community enough money was raised to repair the tower and get it back upright just in time for the ice climbers to arrive and try to pull it over again!

With qualifiers starting on Friday four GB Team members will be competing:

Anna Wells
Tom Ballard
Scott Grosandoff
Will Woodhead

The rest of the GB Ice Climbing Team who will be competing at the other Ice World Cup events this season are:-

Viki Harvey
Harry Holmes
Simon Ward
Dave Bowes

Youth Team
Emma Powell
Adam Willison

Manager
Steve Johnstone

You can read the bio's of the GB Ice Climbing team on the GB Team page here very soon.

In the region of 70 international athletes from around the world have registered for the first World Cup competition of the season which takes place from 11-12 December. Bozeman hosts not only the calendar opener but will also crown the North American champions. The competition schedule for the weekend can be viewed here.

You can watch the competition live on the UIAA website.

Friday 11 Dec - Speed competition - 1000-1500 GMT

Saturday 12 Dec - Difficulty Semi-final - 0400-0930, Difficulty Final - 1200-1500 GMT
 

2016 UIAA Ice Climbing World Tour calendar:

11– 12 December 2015: Bozeman, USA. World Cup & North America Championships

16 – 17 January 2016: Cheongsong, South Korea. World Cup & Asian Championships

22 – 23 January 2016: Saas Fee, Switzerland. World Cup

29 – 31 January 2016: Rabenstein, Italy. World Cup & European Championships

6 – 7 February 2016: Rabenstein, Italy UIAA Ice Climbing World Youth Championships

The defending UIAA Ice Climbing World Tour champions are:

Women’s Lead, Angelika Rainer (ITA)

Women’s Speed, Ekaterina Feoktistova (RUS)

Men’s Lead, Maxim Tomilov (RUS)

Men’s Speed, Nikolai Kuzovlev (RUS)

The second round of the British Drytooling Series is also this weekend - full details here.

Watch - UIAA 2016 Ice World Cup Tour Video

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