This weekend, Shauna Coxsey continued her domination of the 2014 IFSC Boulder World Cup with a second gold. Mina Leslie-Wujastyk reports.
This weekend saw the fourth round of the 2014 IFSC Boulder World Cup take place in Innsbruck, Austria. Our GB team - still on a high from Shauna Coxsey’s first place in Grindelwald - made their way to Innsbruck to compete in the most highly-attended World Cup event ever: 70 women and 81 men testing themselves in the arena erected in Innsbruck Market Platz.
Innsbruck is home to Anna Stöhr and Killian Fischhuber: probably the two most successful competition boulderers in history and the event reflects the support they have from their community.
It was, without a doubt, the best event in the calendar so far, with great setting, good walls, excellent organisation and a huge crowd! The finals drew a crowd of over 4,000 people – not including the overflow of people that watched the live stream at a special viewing 200m down the street!
The qualification round was exciting and we had some Brits to support: Dave Barrans, Jon Partidge and Orrin Coley. All three climbed well on some horrendously tough looking blocs and they finished in 41st, 65th and 45th respectively.
In the women’s qualification, we had Shauna Coxsey, myself (Mina), Diane Merrick and Micheala Tracy. Shauna and I made it to semi-finals in joint first and joint ninth respectively.
Diane and Micheala put in great efforts, but missed out on semis, finishing in 67th and 37th respectively. Noteworthy in the qualification round was the appearance of one Adam Ondra, who only just qualified into the semi-final.
The semi-final day came and the setters had put their creative hats on to test the climbers and entertain the crowd. I had a bit of a tough time on the blocs and dropped to 16th place. Shauna had us worried for a bit but she pulled the last boulder out of the bag just in time, putting her in finals with some, but not all, of the usual suspects.
The finals had some new faces in them this time. In the men’s we had the chance to see what Adam Ondra could do on plastic and we saw Michael Piccolruaz from Italy take the stage. In the women’s, we saw Miho Nonaka’s debut into finals, with Marine Thévenet making reappearance and Mélissa Le Nevé making a comeback.
These less regular faces joined Killian Fischhuber, Dmitrii Sharafutdinov, Rustam Gelmanov and GiGi Glarion-Mondet in the men’s and Shauna Coxsey, Anna Stöhr and Akiyo Noguchi in the women’s.
The Market Platz was heaving for finals, and the show was fantastic. In the men’s it was touch-and-go up until the end between Adam Ondra and Killian Fischhuber, with both of them topping all four boulders and the result coming down to a single attempt that put Killian on top of the podium.
In the women’s, Shauna led from the start, being the only woman to top boulder number one. From then on in she looked unstoppable, topping everything until the last boulder. But it was nail-biting to the end because Anna Stöhr could win on attempts by topping the last boulder - and she got incredibly close. But the gold was Shauna’s again.
BMC competitions officer Rob Adie commented: "Shauna’s medal haul of two golds, a silver and a bronze puts her in a fantastic position for claiming the overall title. She now has a good break so that she can rest and hopefully stand on top of the podium again in Toronto in a couple of weeks."
I asked Shauna what she thought of her second win.
“Innsbruck is always a stand-out event in the season. Last year I didn’t climb very well at this competition, and I remember how it felt watching the finals from the crowd. I didn’t want to be watching again this year. I was so excited about making it to finals. The crowd in Innsbruck is immense, the wall is amazing and the setting is always really fun.
The atmosphere really is incomparable to any of the other events. Standing on top of the podium was indescribable; I still can’t believe that I won! Again (ahh)! I’m pretty overwhelmed.
Next week I will be heading to North America to compete in Canada and Colorado before heading back to China for the penultimate round and then to France for the last one. I am so excited for the next competitions.”
Don't miss the next round of the IFSC Boulder World Cup 2014: 31 May - 1 June, Toronto, Canada.
Shauna is one of seven ambassadors for the BMC.
Finals Results:
1st – Shauna Coxsey and Killian Fischhuber
2nd - Anna Stöhr and Adam Ondra
3rd - Akiyo Noguchi and Rustam Gelmanov
4th - Mélissa Le Nevé and Dmitrii Sharafutdinov
5th - Marine Thévenet and GiGi Glarion-Mondet
6th - Miho Nonaka and Michael Piccolruaz
GB Results:
1st – Shauna Coxsey
16th – Mina Leslie-Wujastyk
37th - Micheala Tracy
67th – Diane Merrick
41st – Dave Barrans
45th – Orrin Coley
65th – Jon Partridge
Watch a replay of the finals of the Innsbruck Boulder World Cup:
Great photo gallery by Alexander Flatz
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