The IFSC World Championships took place last month from 15th - 24th of July at Arco, Trentino, Italy and i was lucky to be part of the spectacular event that the organizers had taken pains to put up. The World Championships is a separate event from the annual Climbing World Cup Circuit and takes place once every 2 years. ALL the top climbers from every part of the world will descend upon the selected venue to battle it out and be crowned the World Champion in the Lead, Boulder and Speed categories.
Arco is the center of climbing and mountaineering in Italy and is extremely famous for the RockMaster event that is held every year. Participation for this event, however, is by INVITATION only, thus only the creame de la creame of Sport Climbing will get to attend this prestigious event. This year though, it is held in conjunction with the World Championships, thus i jumped at the opportunity to represent Singapore in this event.
I managed to get on my flight and got to Arco the day before the qualifying round for bouldering and checked into the same hotel room as Hafzanizam from Malaysia and Miel Pahati from the Philippines. Rooms cost a premium at this time of the year due to the summer holidays thus i was not too surprise with this arrangement by IFSC.
Arco is the center of climbing and mountaineering in Italy and is extremely famous for the RockMaster event that is held every year. Participation for this event, however, is by INVITATION only, thus only the creame de la creame of Sport Climbing will get to attend this prestigious event. This year though, it is held in conjunction with the World Championships, thus i jumped at the opportunity to represent Singapore in this event.
I managed to get on my flight and got to Arco the day before the qualifying round for bouldering and checked into the same hotel room as Hafzanizam from Malaysia and Miel Pahati from the Philippines. Rooms cost a premium at this time of the year due to the summer holidays thus i was not too surprise with this arrangement by IFSC.
View from the top of our hotel room
Like all official sporting events, there was an opening ceremony which all athletes had to attend. All countries and climbers were introduced and 'paraded' through the little town of Arco, along with the mascot-a fox, which ended at the climbing stadium some distance away. All in all, there were more than 100+ countries participating in the entire event with a similar number in each individual event itself.
View from the road en route to the climbing stadium
My flag bearer - Thomas from Italy!
Miel and his representative!
The bouldering event was the 1st category to be held and boy were the routes HARD. This was my first time in a field of world class athletes as i have not had the opportunity to take part in any bouldering events in the IFSC World Cup Circuit. Though i knew that the routes were going to be hard, i honestly wasn't expecting it to be THAT hard. Other than Hsukuru Hori from Japan, the rest of the Asians were topping out a maximum of 1 route out of 5. Everyone were getting their asses handed to them on a plate. For me, it was a difficulty getting off the ground for many of the routes and i managed to obtain only 1 bonus out of the 5 routes with zero top outs. 1 BONUS !!!! When was the last time i got 1 bonus in ANY bouldering competition in Singapore ?!?!?!?
In retrospect, the easiest route was probably a V9 with the rest being in the V10-12/13 range. Handholds were SMALL, FAR and BAD with more than 60% being screwed-ons. Seldom will you find crimps as most people can crimp reasonably well. In place of crimps, slopers the size of a 50 cent coin will be on most of the volumes, with some being slightly bigger for you to 'crimp' on. Even the footholds on most of the hardest routes in Kinetics are better than the handholds on these routes. There is also no need to sling a chalk bag around your waist as it is unlikely that you have the time or strength to release 1 hand to chalk-up.
Miel and Zam managed only slightly better, with 2 bonus each. Anyway the general consensus on the ground from most participants was that the qualifying routes were WAY too hard. This coming even from the Austrian climbers. Zam also mentioned that during the Imst WC earlier this year, he had managed to top-out 2-3 routes during the qualifying round.
In retrospect, the easiest route was probably a V9 with the rest being in the V10-12/13 range. Handholds were SMALL, FAR and BAD with more than 60% being screwed-ons. Seldom will you find crimps as most people can crimp reasonably well. In place of crimps, slopers the size of a 50 cent coin will be on most of the volumes, with some being slightly bigger for you to 'crimp' on. Even the footholds on most of the hardest routes in Kinetics are better than the handholds on these routes. There is also no need to sling a chalk bag around your waist as it is unlikely that you have the time or strength to release 1 hand to chalk-up.
Miel and Zam managed only slightly better, with 2 bonus each. Anyway the general consensus on the ground from most participants was that the qualifying routes were WAY too hard. This coming even from the Austrian climbers. Zam also mentioned that during the Imst WC earlier this year, he had managed to top-out 2-3 routes during the qualifying round.
The Semi-final boulders for the Men's Category
One thing is for sure though, bouldering in the World Cup is truly the realm of the impossible dynos, the smallest crimps and improbably body positioning. It is hard to comprehend how STRONG the top climbers are until you see them flashing routes when you can't even get off the 1st move or holding onto handholds which you won't even consider using for your feet in your local gym.
Videos for all categories can be viewed here.
the 18m 'high' wall
The lead category took place a couple of days later with the qualifying being 2 routes flashed format. With the routes being graded at about 8a+/b (similar difficulty for the women's category), only a handful of climbers managed to top both with Julian Ramon being one of them. This 1.54m tall 'beast' looked extremely comfortable and solid on ALL his climbs, right up to the last day. My result was pretty decent, climbing up to at least the halfway mark on both routes, considering the last time i was on the tying end of the rope was at the SEACF Circuit in Putrajaya. A fellow climber from SA describes it best about the handholds for the Leading Category: "Its funny how the holds are serious not so bad that you can't climb on them but at the same time not fantastic thus resting and recovering is practically impossible."
A trip to Arco is definitely not completed without visiting the local crag - Massone. This world renowned location is easily accessible by car with the hike being less than 5 minutes from the parking lot itself. Due to the proximity of the various sections and range of climbs(from 6s to 9a), many routes are polished beyond belief. It is however, not uncommon to see people cranking down hard and fellow World Cup participants throwing themselves on the test pieces here.
A trip to Arco is definitely not completed without visiting the local crag - Massone. This world renowned location is easily accessible by car with the hike being less than 5 minutes from the parking lot itself. Due to the proximity of the various sections and range of climbs(from 6s to 9a), many routes are polished beyond belief. It is however, not uncommon to see people cranking down hard and fellow World Cup participants throwing themselves on the test pieces here.
Underground 9a, roof climbing that goes on forever
(this is only 1/3 of the entire route)
We were busy climbing on one of the sectors when Yuji, Obi and Akito showed up (Obi-san dropped by a couple of months ago to route set for the NUS-TNF boulderactive). Looks like we were not the only people who were eager to crank on rock after the competition. Routes here were mostly long, 25m-30m ranging from gentle overhanging walls to severely inclined ones.
Yuji Hirayama, me and Masatoshi Sugita aka Obi - Team The North Face
Although we did not get onto anything hard, i had a couple of good days, with onsights of up to 7Cs. It was really nice to be able to go outdoors and explore as i ain't traveling halfway around the world to climb 2 weeks solely on plastic.
Buffet consisting of bread, cheese, wine, cured meat, meat and more meat!
More food!!
