Shauna Coxsey in her first season as a member of the GB Bouldering Team put in a world class performance by coming 4th in the last round of the 2011 IFSC Bouldering World Cup.

Shauna and six other members of the GB Bouldering travelled to the Munich event which took place on the 19th and 20th of August and was attended by over 100 athletes. Footage of the competition can be seen at www.ifsc.tv.

The qualification round took place on Friday and in the men’s event both Ned Feehally and Stewart Watson climbed exceptionally well and made it through to Saturday’s semi-final where they finished 11th and 17th respectively. Also competing in the men’s event were James Garden and Jon Partridge who both missed qualifying for the semi-final by the narrowest of margins by placing 22nd and 23rd respectively. These are all world class performances especially when you take into account that any of the top 30 ranked men are capable of getting into a final.

In the women’s event a minimum of 3 tops in 3 attempts was required to qualify for Saturday’s semi-final. Shauna qualified in 7th place having topped all of the blocs in 6 attempts. Gill Peet and Diane Merrick were both very unlucky not to qualify due to taking slightly more attempts on 3 of the blocs. They finished in 26th and 27th place respectively.

The difficulty of the problems in the women’s semi final was significantly harder than the qualification round where all 5 blocs got topped. In the semi-final only 2 blocs were topped and two of the competitors made it into the final despite failing to top any of the problems and it coming down to the number of attempts on the bonus holds. Shauna qualified for the final in 2nd place having made the first problem look like a warm up whereas the majority of the other competitors struggled.

In her first world cup final Shauna flashed the first bloc with comparative ease and by the end of the round was very close to getting a place on the podium. With Anna Stohr and Shauna both on 1 top each, third place came down to the number of attempts to get the bonus holds. Unfortunately for Shauna, Anna took fewer attempts which meant Shauna finished in 4th place. This was an inspirational performance by the youngest member of the GB Bouldering Team and is a fitting finale to a season which has seen numerous impressive performances from members of the GB Team.

The winner of the women’s event was Mina Markovic of Slovenia and the men’s winner was the World Champion Dmitry Sharafutdinov from Russia. The full set of results can be seen on the IFSC website.

Currently the Team has four members Stewart Watson, Dave Barrans, Ned Fehally and Shauna Coxsey who have all qualified for a World Cup final in the last two years. Diane Merrick and Jon Partridge have also placed in the top ten this year and five other team members have now qualified for a world cup semi-final. The future definitely looks promising for the Team.

At present none of the members of the GB Bouldering Team are fully paid sponsored climbers. Although the Team receives some funding and support from the BMC and clothing from Five Finger Thing (for which they are very grateful) this does not cover all of the Team’s transport and accommodation costs at World Cup events. So all of the achievements outlined above have been accomplished by individuals who for the majority of competitions have had to self fund.

In order for the GB Bouldering Team to maximise its full potential in future International Bouldering competitions we need to be able to send as many members of the Team to as many competitions. If we can’t enter Team members into events in China or USA next year due to budget restrictions or Team members not being able to self finance then we will be severely restricting the potential of the Team.

If there are any individuals or companies who would like to support the GB Bouldering Team financially (no matter how big or small) please contact the Team Manager Nick Clement via Rob Adie at the BMC.

I would like to thank the BMC and the Team’s clothing sponsor, Five Finger Thing, for continuing to support the Team. I would also like to thank all of the members of the Management Team and Coaching staff for all of their hard work. Thanks also go to all of the Bouldering/Climbing Wall Managers who have allowed the Team to use their facilities for training purposes, your support is greatly appreciated.

Nick Clement
GB Bouldering Team Manager
 

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