Climbing

The 2015 UIAA Ice Climbing World Tour Started off without Ice

The 18th Bozeman Ice Festival held last week in Montana, USA is a wrap. Climbers from across the world descended on Montana's ground to launch the 2015 UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup Tour, competing in Speed and Lead (Difficulty) on an artificial wall. Supposed to be covered in ice, the unseasonably warm weather meant there was no ice on the wall, which however didn’t stop the crowds that gathered at the Emerson Cultural Centre in downtown Bozeman, from cheering on a thrilling evening finals.

19. 12. 2014

Bozeman is a mountain town that loves ice climbing and residents showed what that means when they came out in droves to witness world class climbers like Maxim Tomilov, Park Hee Yong, Angelika Rainer, Woon Seon Shin, Lidumila Badalyan and Petra Klinger for the first time.

The Bozeman competition is the first of six events that are held in the U.S.A., Cheongsong (Korea), Saas Fee (Switzerland), Rabenstein (Italy), Champagny-en-Vanoise (France) and Kirov, Russia where the tour concludes on 8 March 2015. About 200 male and female athletes from 30 nations are expected to compete in the various events throughout the tour with winners announced at each stage of the tour, and an overall winner declared at the end.

First up was Kendra Stritch, who made history by becoming the first American to win a stage of the UIAA Ice Climbing World Tour in Montana after grandiose final performance where she beat out Russian Nadezhda Gallyamova in Speed Finals with a 7.8 second run and a 8.2 second run for a combined score of 16.4 seconds.

Happy Kendra Stritch

What a contrast the competition was from last year with minus 25 degrees Celsius temperatures replaced by balmy weather that resulted in spectators watching the Lead Qualifications during the day in shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. But that didn’t stop the crowds from cheering on a thrilling evening Speed Men final won by Nikolai Kuzovlov. He beat fellow Russian Egor Trapeznikov in the finals with the final two runs being a 5.17 second and 5.43 run for a combined score of 10.6 seconds.

Nikolai Kuzovlov

The next day (Lead Finals) at the Emerson Cultural Centre began cold but with bright sunshine which, by mid-afternoon, however, turned into rain and then to wet, slushy snow making climbing difficult. In Women Lead finals, it was down to only Liudmila Badalyan and Angelika Rainer, to deliver a top for a crowd hungry to see someone conquer the Montana Cow Bell. When Badalyan fell, all eyes turned on Rainer, who won in last year’s championships but before she could reached for the Cow Bell she too fell. That’s when Badalyan, who had the most number of clips, was declared the new Lead champion of Bozeman.

After Women finals, all eyes expectantly waited for Men's semi-finals as a real challenge was ahead. Russion climer Pavel Dobrinksy, who designed the routes, prepared a special challenge in which he placed a hold under the swinging Montana Cow Bell, a challenge that drew gasps from audience.

Hee Yong Park

cheering crowd

Fresh from his stunning dash to win the Speed championships last night, Nikolai Kuzovlov was the first to solve the under the barrel hold problem. Others who solved it included included fellow Russian toppers Maxim Tomilov, brother Alexey and Ukrainian star Valentyn Sypavin. Also Park Hee Yong managed to reach the swinging box. It looked like the final climber Nikolai Kuzovlov, fresh from his victory at the Speed final on Friday, would give Tomilov competition, but he moved fast and maybe too quickly – resulting in an early fall. That put forward Maxim Tomilov to first place, in second place was Park Hee Yong but the biggest cheer of the night went to Sergey Tarasov, at 48 years, the oldest climber in the competition who came in third.