Shauna Coxsey retains her place at the top of the IFSC Boulder World Cup leaderboard with a 5th place in Vail, Colorado (6-7 June) and just two more events left to go. Mina Leslie-Wujastyk reports.

With the Toronto World Cup behind them, the bouldering teams all headed to Vail for the next round; only a matter of days to recover and reset for another test of strength, power and tenacity with 9000 feet of altitude thrown into the mix.

This competition had a higher number of athletes entered than Toronto with 42 women and 48 men. Among these athletes were some big names that we don’t see competing much such as Daniel Woods, Tyler Landman, Carlo Traversi and Alex Johnson. In the Biritish contingent we had Shauna Coxsey, Diane Merrick, Nathan Phillips and, as mentioned above, Tyler Landman.

The qualification round took place on Friday and there were some big surprises! From the list of really strong outdoor climbers above Daniel, Tyler and Alex didn’t make semi-finals, as well as James Kassy who has made two finals this year! Shauna wasn’t on her usual form but still qualified easily in 9th place. Tyler Landman placed 28th, Diane Merrick 31st and Nathan Phillips 36th

On to the semi-finals, which, as those who watched will know, were stressful indeed! It was close for Shauna Coxsey and it was looking unlikely that she would make finals. She climbed well but didn’t do bloc two and took five attempts to top the remaining three. It looked like Alex Puccio, Angie Payne or Miho Nonoka were going to knock her out of the sixth spot but mistakes were made and she made it through to a huge sigh of relief from the British audience!

The line up for finals was a bit unusual for the ladies: Akiyo Nogichi, Megan Mascarenas, Anna Stohr, Fanny Gilbert, Marine Thevenet and Shauna Coxsey. In the men’s it was more of the usual suspects with Sean McColl, Jeremy Bonder, Dmitrii Sharafutdinov, GiGi Glarion-Mondet, Killian Fischhuber and Fujii Kokoro.

Finals time and the big crowd looked psyched for a good show in the sunshine. In Europe, committed fans were putting the kettle on and curling up for a late night of cheering!

The finals seemed to have a good selection of technical blocs, steep climbing and dynamic moves. The most impressive performances were from Akiyo (who did all the boulders in the finals (others maxed out at 2) and in the semis!) and Dmitrii who was also the only male finalist to complete all four blocs.  Also well worth a mention is Megan Mascarenas who, at a mere 16 years old, made her first final and pushed hard to complete the last bloc! Very impressive trying!! Another athlete in their first final was Fanny Gilbert who came a stunning 2nd in a hard field!

We saw Shauna have a bit of a struggle in this final but 5th is by no means a bad day and she still leads the overall rankings for 2014, so push on Shauna, you are doing great!

Finals Results:

1st – Akiyo Noguchi and Dmitrii Sharafutdinov
2nd  - Fanny Gilbert and GiGi Glarion-Mondet
3rd  - Anna Stohr and Sean McColl
4th  - Megan Mascarenas and Jeremy Bonder
5th  - Shauna Coxsey and Killian Fischhuber
6th  - Marine Thevenet and Fujii Kokoro

GB Results:

5th  – Shauna Coxsey
28th – Tyler Landman
36th  - Nathan Phillips
31st – Diane Merrick

Don’t miss
The seventh round of this year’s IFSC Boulder World Cup takes place in Haiyang, China, 20-22 June.

Did you see?
British team members, including Shauna Coxsey and Fran Brown on the BBC? - Huge thanks to the team at Outdoor Buzz for the support in making this happen.

Did you know?
Shauna is a BMC ambassador.

WATCH: The IFSC Boulder World Cup Vail finals

WATCH: Shauna's revealing behind-the-scenes World Cup Diary

Shauna Coxsey's World Cup Video Diary: Part 1 from team_BMC on Vimeo.

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