The Speed Climbing Contest Wall
Waiting for the contest - the Italian team
Ready... set... go! Round of eight, women
Versante Sud @ Outdoor Fair
Slack-line synchronettes...

OUTDOOR MESSE - FRIEDRICHSHAFEN - THE FIRST DAY

First day of exhibition - Speed Climbing Contest

July 16, 2010

It’s undoubtedly a positive moment for outdoor sports, and specifically for climbing, in spite of the crisis. The Outdoor Fair in Friedrichshafen, Germany, has opened registering an increase in number of direct exhibitors (+ 7%, for an overall figure of 868) coming from 39 different countries, further consolidating its leadership in outdoor and mountain activities.

 

OUTDOOR is not only a fair, but also a chance to meet for anyone who’s fond of sport, a place where companies, testimonial, sportspeople gather in a great number of events, business meetings and parties.

 

What’s being proposed? Climbing, orienteering, slack-line and many others. As for climbing, yesterday have been held by DAV an international speed contest, sponsored by Vaude, several boulders like the one at Salewa stand, a huge boulder (more than 10 metres!) in the FairGround, by Mammut, with an humongous inflatable mattress for dives worth of a deep water play, and a wall which will host the usual international jump contest. Gibbon has set up a slack-line area, in which will be held a Slackline Worldwide Competition.

 

But the most important event has been undoubtedly the European Cup Youth Speed contest: although Eastern countries athletes have prevailed (as usual, we could add) other emerging climbers, such as the Italian Alessandro Santoni, Alexandra Elmer from Austria and the French team, have been in the limelight,

 

Let’s try to deepen our insight of this competition and of speed climbing asking some persons who have seen it from inside.

 

Massimo Bassoli created several years ago Equilibrium, a climbing gym in Modena. He has been collaborating for several years with FASI, the Italian climbing federation. We have met him here, in Friedrichshafen, where he has attended the speed competitions as responsible for the speed juniors national team, asking him some questions about the competition.

 

Hi Massimo. Tell us about speed competitions. This kind of contest is gaining an ever-growing popularity. It seems that Eastern Europe countries guessed right…

 

Definitely. They’ve been the first to hold these competitions, but now it’s become a worldwide fondness, especially when the international federation has esablished a standard route for 10 and 15 mt. This has led to a strong development, and many countries have begun to set up specific teams and training schedules aimingat succeeding as well in this discipline.

 

So you must follow a very specific training schedule?

 

Sure, it’s obvious. That’s plain, all you have to do to realize it is watching a contest. In the early years they thought that spreading a random set of holds on a wall and trying to climb them as fast as they could was enough, now they’ve understood that without a specific training you won’t have good scores at all.

 

What about the young athletes? What’s their opinion? Are there a handful of climbers specializing in this discipline?

 

The young like it, but they’ve immediately understood that it’s not an easy task. First of all, they have to commit and focus on that, after having done their choice. Ghisolfi, who excels at all the different disciplines (i.e., bouldering, lead and speed climbing), is quite an exception.

 

Is there any significant relationship with the other disciplines? When they were first held, lead climbing competitions stirred up a scandal. What’s the general opinion on speed climbing?

 

Speed climbing is quite separated both from rock climbing and from the other disciplines. There’s no such a similar sport practice in natural environment. We could say that it’s a close relative of other sports, most of all athletics.

 

It’s true, indeed, you can say that just looking at the athletes in the minutes before the competition: they hop, warming up, they gaze at the wall summoning their powers of concentration…

 

Yes, this kind of ritual resembles the hundred-meter sprinters routine. The climbers involved in lead competitions often perform a poor warm-up; here, everyone is fully aware of the need of a very thorough warm-up – it’s the basic pre-requisite of any good achievement.

I think that this discipline will help climbing to conquer a noteworthy, and enduring place in sport world.

 

What about the training? It seems that the relationship with rock is downright severed.

Yes, it’s actually like this. As I told before, there’s not any similarity with rock climbing. If you want to win, you have to focus on indoor training: increasing muscular power, gaining explosive strength, coordination and nimbleness.

 

Tell us something about the contest. What about the Italian team? Which are the strongest teams?

 

Our team was promising: all the athletes qualified to the round-of-sixteen, then, in head-to-head races, only Alessandro did it.

The strongest teams? Today I would say the Poles, the Russians, as usual, and then Austria and France. French team is showing a fantastic and constant improving, but generally speaking I’d say that the performances are becoming more and more similar. Italian athletes should believe more in their means: they have good characteristics and assets, but if they don’t train according to a specific schedule, they won’t exploit them at their best.

 

Let’s ask a very young athlete who has just won the contest in his category: Alessandro Santoni, under-16, 14 years old. He’s from Arco Climbing team, and he has just finished junior high school.

 

What are you going to do in September?

 

I’ll go to school, that’s obvious! I’ll attend a technical high school, since I do lave maths and sciences.

 

And your performance? It couldn’t be better.

 

Yes, it’s been extraordinary. I’m very satisfied with my performance, also because it has been my first European contest.

 

A wonderful debut, you couldn’t do better. Have you trained a lot for this?

 

Actually I’m training for all the three disciplines, and not specifically for speed.

 

Also in the crags? Living in Arco it’s easy to go climbing…

 

I’ll avow, I prefer artificial structures. First of all, if I would climb only on the crags my trainer could monitor me in a less effective way, and most of all his way the training is way much more specific.

 

Were you impressed by the Poles?

 

Not too much; I was really impressed, actually, by a guy from Kazakhstan, short but extremely quick. In the semi-final, luckily, he suffered a lot the nervous stress and I won.

 

Are you training with the aim to improve specifically in some particular feature?

 

I’d like to be stronger in lead climbing, I have to spend more time on that.

 

And in the future, you’ll continue to practice speed climbing?

 

Actually I still don’t know!

 

A brief comment on OUTDOOR Fair: did you like the contest being held in such a context?

 

Yes, definitely. It’s a nice environment, there’s a lot of audience. The organization has been flawless, and that has been a plus.

 

What are you going to do this afternoon? Will you just roam around in the Fair? Will you play with the slackline, or visit the booths?

 

I’m going to have some fun with my friends in the few hours we’ll remain here – since this afternoon we’ll leave for Arco! I’ll check for sure the slack-line area, and maybe a dive from the huge boulder with the air-mattress!

 

EUROPEAN SPEED CLIMBING – RESULTS

 

YOUNG B – MEN

1 Alessandro Santoni ITA

2 Gian- Luca Grichting SUI

3 Amir Maimuratov KAZ

 

YOUNG B – WOMEN

1 Alexandra Elmer AUT

2 Anja Shreiber GER

3 Hanne Schachtele GER

 

YOUNG A – MEN

1 Rafal Halasa POL

2 Guillaume Moro FRA

3 Jan Modrzejewski POL

 

YOUNG A – WOMEN

1 Karina Miroslav POL

2 Natalie Bartschi SUI

3 Esther Brukner FRA

 

JUNIORES – MEN

1 Arman Ter-Minasyan RUS

2 Yoann Le Couster FRA

3 Thomas Dupin FRA

 

JUNIORES – WOMEN

1Klaudia Buczek POL

2 Julie Michelard FRA

3 Malgorzata Rudzinska POL

Condividi

Commenti

Insert a new comment

Massimo Bassoli, responsible for the Italian team
The contest becomes more and more disputed
The podium - youth B category, men, won by Alessandro Santoni (ITA)
Gibbon slack-line World Cup - the warm up