

The second Bouldering World Cup in the 2012 season kicked off today with a long qualification round. The wall is wood and looks much like the World Cup wall used at the IFSC World Cups held for the last several years in Vail.

See The Vail Wall Here If You Forgot What It Looks Like – IFSC Vail World Cup 2011

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Team America had a few strong representatives in Slovenia…

Angie Payne!

Angie Payne came out for what I believe is her first Bouldering World Cup not in North America (though she did get 17th at the World Championship in Arco, Italy, in 2011 and competed in several international lead events as a junior). For bouldering World Cups she has competed twice in Vail (22nd in 2008 and 6th in 2011) and took 11th in Canmore, Canada, also in 2011. In February she got 2nd at ABS Nationals to Alex Puccio.

Angie finished Slovenian qualifiers tied for 31st out of 48 female competitors with 1 flash and 4 bonus holds. She was in Qualification Group A, which based on competitor scores seemed to be the more difficult of the two groups. She is slated to compete next weekend in Vienna, Austria, as well.

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Alex Puccio!

Alex had a great season in last year’s Bouldering World Cups, finishing 3rd in the world overall, making finals 7 times, and podiuming 5 times, including a 3rd place last year in Slovenia. She made semifinals in every World Cup she entered in 2011 besides the World Championships in Arco, where she ended up tied for 23rd. In Vail she placed 6th in 2008, 1st in 2009, 4th in 2010, and 2nd in 2011. In February she took 1st in ABS Nationals in Colorado Springs.

Yesterday (the day before qualifiers) Alex was ill and in hospital. Apparently she recovered well enough to rally and compete in the Slovenia qualifiers where she managed to tie for 17th and make semifinals with 4 flashes and 5 bonus holds. She was in Qualification Group B.

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Ethan Pringle!

For American men Ethan Pringle showed up as the sole representative. Ethan is an accomplished boulderer but even more accomplished as a sport climber. He took 2nd at a UIAA Youth World Cup in Amsterdam in 2000 and 2nd at the North American Championship in Mexico in 2004. In February he competed in ABS Nationals and took 2nd place to Daniel Woods.

In Slovenia Ethan got 2 tops in 3 tries (1 flash, 1 2nd go) and 4 bonus holds in 6 tries putting him in a 3 way tie for 31st with French climber Francois Kaiser (who you may remember from the World Cup in Vail) and Urban Primozic of Slovenia. He will not advance to Semi-finals. He was in Qualification Group A.

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For everyone who doesn’t remember or who hasn’t watched World Cups before, they run two groups of boulder problems for qualifiers. Half the competitors of each gender climb on that gender’s group A, the other half climb that gender’s group B. In general the problems are similar in style but different for each group. Often one problem set turns out to be harder, but it is inconsequential as the top 10 competitors of each qualification group will go on to semifinals, regardless of overall score (i.e. if the 10th seeded competitor in Quali group A has 2 flashes and 4 bonus holds and the 11th seeded competitor in Quali group B has 3 flashes and 4 bonus holds, the group A competitor advances and the group B competitor does not). To see how Slovenia’s qualifiers shook out see the overall quali scores:

IFSC – Slovenia Qualifiers Result 2012 M E N

IFSC – Slovenia Qualifiers Result 2012 W O M E N

Again, it was unusual to have 2 very similar problems for the 5th problem in both women’s qualification groups.

The Vidmar sisters, Katja and Maja, who have competed at the Vail World Cup and are very strong on routes and boulders, both managed to complete problem 5 though most competitors seemed to have major difficulty with it. Shauna Coxsey (GBR, who you may remember for her spectacular performance at ABS Nationals in February), Akiyo Noguchi, and Mina Markovic flashed all of their boulders. Anna Stohr did all her problems in 6 tries (4 flash, 1 2nd go) but was the top finisher in Qualification Group A so she is tied for 1st overall going into semis. 8 other competitors also topped all their boulders.

Here are a couple more screen shots from women’s qualifiers:

Stay tuned and I’ll try to cover semis and finals tomorrow as well as future World Cups. You can also watch ’em live at IFSC.tv