The sixth round of the IFSC Bouldering World Cup took place at Millhouses Park Sheffield, within the Cliffhanger event, over the weekend of 3 & 4 July and attracted the very best boulderers in the world.
The weather for the weekend was perfect. Not too hot, with no rain and even a welcome light breeze on the Sunday.
The qualification rounds took place on Saturday and what a day it was! Three British men qualified for the Semi-finals. Ned Feehally in 13th place and Stew Watson and Gaz Parry both put in outstanding performances to qualify in joint 1st place! In the women's event Shauna Coxsy qualified in 18th place, Diane Merrick in 14th place, Mina Leslie- Wujastyk and Leah Crane qualified in joint 10th place.
However, the standard of the problems went up a notch in the Semi-finals and no British climbers made the cut for the finals.
The finals themselves were awesome and were held on the Sunday
In the men's competition one climber clearly stood out in a class of his own and that was the young climber from the Czech Republic Adam Ondra.
Adam is well known for his rapid repeats of some of the world's most difficult and challenging sport climbs but in the final of the Bouldering World Cup on Sunday he showed everyone that he can also read extremely difficult moves and execute them quickly and efficiently as he flashed the first 3 problems. It wasn't until the final problem that he found a move that baffled him - for a few attempts anyway. But once he'd sorted that out he breezed the remainder of the bloc to take 1st prize. Although Cedric Lachat from Switzerland looked strong and he also topped out on all 4 blocs but had more attempts.
The women's final felt a much closer and tighter competition with 3 women topping out on all 4 blocs. The Belgian woman Chloe Graftiaux took just one fewer attempts to get all the problems than the American Alex Johnson who in turn took one fewer attempt than third place Akyio Noguchi from Japan.
In the team event, to the delight of the home crowd, the British team came an amazing second place just behind first place France.
Results
Men Women 1. GRAFTIAUX Chloé (BEL)
Full results here
Check out a video of the event below.
IFSC Boulder World Cup Sheffield from Lukasz Warzecha - LWimages.co.uk on Vimeo .
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