I got up in time to watch part of Women’s Qualifiers. There were 48 competitors registered, and 47 climbed (which I think is a lot for the women) and on first glance some of the problems seemed to be having the same problems as those in Vienna two weeks ago, that is, the problems were set on volumes and seemed slippery. There were definitely successes but just as many girls were slipping suddenly when their balance got a bit out of alignment. Kinda like climbing at Smith Rocks – a hand or foot slips and even though the rest of your body is a fairly good position once your weight is away from the wall nothing you are holding onto is positive enough to save you. On F1 and F4 at least.

F5 was more powerful and clever with a few holds blocking climbers from putting a heel up, effectively forcing a campus/jump move.

Interesting note, there do not seem to be two qualification groups like there have been at the rest of the Bouldering World Cups so far this season. That means every competitor is trying the same 5 quail problems.

The typically dominant competitors did fine, with Anna Stöhr, Jain Kim, and Melissa Le Neve flashing 4/4 and flashing to the bonus on 5/5 (Anna) and 5/6 (Jain and Melissa). Shauna Coxsey and Alex Puccio were just behind them with 4 tops in 5 tries and the 5th bonus hold flashed (5/5 Shauna) and after a bit of effort (5/10 Alex). In fact, all the way down to 10th place Akiyo Noguchi 4 of the 5 qualis got sent and all 5 bonus holds were controlled in varying amounts of tries.

The problem…problem, was FQ4, which is in the left side of the bottom left quadrant in the pic above. It began with a mantel of the yellow blob, stood up to the red volume and bonus hold, and then everyone fell off. The idea seemed to be to jump to the green volume but nobody could get there. It remained unsent.

Results show that the problems did a fine job separating the climbers into semifinalists without many ties, so hopefully tomorrow’s round does as well. Here are the semifinalists. F2 is described below them.

Women’s Quali Results Innsbruck, Austria

1. Anna Stohr (AUT)

2. Jain Kim (KOR)

2. Melissa Le Neve (FRA)

4. Shauna Coxsey (GBR)

5. Alex Puccio (USA) <——–yay!

6. Anna Gallyamova (RUS)

6. Katharina Saurwein (AUT)

8. Olga Iakovleva (RUS)

9. Juliane Wurm (GER)

10. Akiyo Noguchi (JPN)

11. Sabine Bacher (AUT)

12. Tatiana Shemulinkina (RUS)

13. Melanie Sandoz (FRA)

14. Katharina Posch (AUT)

15. Mina Markovic (SLO)

16. Momoka Oda (JPN)

17. Nelly Kudrova (CZE)

18. Cecile Avezou (FRA) <–born 1971!

19. Anne-Laure Chevrier (FRA)

20. Manon Chapet (FRA)

See climbers 21 – 47 with Full Women’s Qualis Results

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The Men’s round was divided into two quali groups with 73 total climbers. Because of the two groups the combined result always results in multiple ties but even of those there were ties, so now 4 men are going into semifinals tied for 1st. Besides that all the multi-ties took place after 20th, i.e. for those not in semis. Several notable competitors as usual didn’t make semis, with Jernej Kruder and Jorg Verhoeven tied for 21st and Dave Barrans and Stefan Danker tied for 23rd. Russian Alexey Rubtsov, who has been in finals multiple times this season, ended up tied for 25th. Here are the semifinalists.

Men’s Quali Results Innsbruck, Austria

1. Guillaume Glairon-Mondet (FRA)

1. James Kassay (AUS)

1. Jakob Schubert (AUT)

1. Dmitrii Sharafutdinov (RUS)

5. Lukas Ennemoser (AUT)

5. Sean McColl (CAN)

7. Kilian Fischhuber (AUT) <—has been all over the place in quails but keeps ending up on the podium

7. Tsukuru Hori (JPN) <—a good competitor who has been having a rough season

9. Jonas Baumann (GER) <—-won Vail in 2009, 3rd in 2011

9. Loic Gaidioz (FRA)

11. Jeremy Bonder (FRA) <—–surprised everyone by doing really well last comp

11. Rei Sugimoto (JPN)

13. Nicky De Leeuw (NED)

13. Anthony Gullsten (FIN)

15. Mario Lechner (AUT)

15. Lucas Preti (ITA)

17. Christian Core (ITA) <–born 1974!

17. Edward Feehally (aka Ned. From GBR)

19. Rustam Gelmanov (RUS) <——–won last 2 comps!

19. Stewart Watson (GBR)

For full men’s quali results click here

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Will report on semis and finals tomorrow and will add more photos of qualis once I’m home. UPDATE – Photos up.

Stay tuned!