This year’s global gathering of those who are deemed to have created the most outstanding ascents in the mountains during 2009 will take place from the 7th-10th April in Chamonix and Courmayeur.

As in 2009, this will be more a celebration of ethical mountaineering and the spirit of climbing, with debates, presentations and films all being an integral part of the festivities.

The organizers and their steering committee have produced a list of first ascents that took place during 2009: they will shortly be presenting it to an International jury.

The six-member jury, this year presided over by the well-known Slovenian mountaineer Andrej Stremfelj, will select a series of climbs that best exemplifies the new criteria, which includes spirit of exploration, commitment, technical difficulty and, most of all, good style.

As last year's president, Doug Scott, emphasized, ' there are no winners and no losers at the Piolets d'Or: the honoured are ambassadors of an art, a passion'.

The second award for Lifetime Achievement will also be given at the event. The first, at the 17th Piolets d’Or in 2009, went to the great Italian alpinist Walter Bonatti.

The Piolets d'Or has produced spin-offs in the form of the now annual Russian Piolet d'Or and Piolet d'Or Asia. These celebrations have already taken place and a single climb honoured at each occasion.

Russian climbers made some remarkable ascents last year including new routes on Siguniang, Pik Sabor in the Kokshaal-too, and a particularly bold line on Pobeda.

However, it was the climbers representing the eight nominations that voted for their favourite, and in December 2009 that honour fell to Mikhail Mikhailov and Alexander Ruchkin for their hard new line, climbed alpine-style, on the unnamed and unclimbed Pt 6,134m in Sichuan’s Minya Konka Range, China.

The Piolet d'Or Asia is dedicated to celebrating climbs achieved by Asian mountaineers, such as Koreans, Japanese and Asian CIS states.

In November at a hotel in Seoul, Korea, the event organizers announced that the 4th Piolet d'Or Asia would be awarded to the Kazakhs, Boris Dedeshko and Denis Urubko, for their alpine-style first ascent of a new route on the South East Face of Cho Oyu.

Significantly, both routes were climbed in the purest style, with two-man teams showing great commitment to their objectives. For Urubko it also completed his last 8,000m peak.
 

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