Patxi Usobiaga (Spain) and Johanna Ernst (Austria) win the "climbing Wimbledon".

Patxi Usobiaga (Spain) and Johanna Ernst (Austria) came away with gold at the 22nd Arco Rock Master competition in Italy this weekend.

Paxti Usobiaga is clearly a man on form. In the last 12 months he has climbed 20 routes of F8c+ or harder including two F8c+ onsights and two F9a+ redpoints. He almost completed the onsight route on the Saturday in Arco, and smoothly completed the redpoint route on Sunday to inch ahead of his closest rival, Ramon Julian Puigblanque. Tomas "the machine" Mrazek came third - despite a disasterous back-clipping mistake on the Saturday.

The womens event fell to Johanna Ernst (Austria). At just 15-years old she is continuing the strong tradition set by previous Austrian winner Angela Eiter, and is surely a name to watch for the future.

Alongside the Rock Master is the Sint Rock Bouldering Competiition, won by Killian Fischuber (Austria) and
Katharina Saurwein (also Austria). 

The competition opened on friday night with Arco Rock Legends Award - the "climbing Oscars". Adam Ondra (Czech) won the Salewa Rock Award and Maja Vidmar (Slovenia) the La Sportiva Competition Award.

Look out for a full report in Summit 53.

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