mountain range

Description

A final hard to beat in terms of tension terminated the IFSC Bouldering World Cup at Innsbruck, Austria, Saturday night: Only a single attempt decided about the premiere victories for German climbers Juliane Wurm and Jan Hojer in the heart of Innsbruck! An amazing crowd of 4000 people celebrated climbing at its best and cheered the two Austrian climbing heros Anna Stöhr and Kilian Fischhuber onto the podium. Innsbruck stood up to its image as the epicentre of climbing between May 16th to 18th, hosting the IFSC Bouldering World Cup for the second consecutive time. The setting on the market place with the stunning mountain range in the background couldn't have been any better, as climbers from Germany, Austria, France, Russia, Japan, Canada and the Netherlands were presented for the finals. With the home crowd of four thousand people stacked on the competition venue behind them, the local bouldering heros Kilian Fischhuber and his girlfriend Anna Stöhr were eager to repeat their victory from last year. Already from the first boulder problem on it was clear that it would be a close fight. Anna Stöhr made a mistake on the second final boulder, allowing Juliane Wurm from Germany to take over the lead. The young German saw her chance in turning around the result from the European Championships in Innsbruck back in 2010, were she ended up in 2nd place behind Anna. This time she climbed with nerves of steel and secured her first ever World Cup win! "Juliane simply climbed better than me today. Her victory is totally deserved!" Stöhr commented. In the men's competition Austria's Kilian Fischhuber was the only athlete to climb three of the four final problems on his first try, but his problems on the third boulder enabled the young German Jan Hojer and the reigning world champion Dmitry Sharafutdinov from Russia to step ahead. As Dmitry needed an attempt more to top out all the boulders, Jan Hojer was the man of the day. Just as Juliane, the win in Innsbruck is his first ever World Cup victory. While place two was already the fourth podium for Dmitry this season, also 5-time overall world cup winner Kilian Fischhuber was very happy with his result. "My goal was to make the finals and to give my best. Thanks to an amazing crowd that literally pushed us up!" After popping the corks on the podium, both Juliane Wurm and Jan Hojer said that it will take a while for them to realize what had just happened. After this great competition weekend in Austria the IFSC Bouldering World Cup is moving overseas: Toronto will be the venue of the next World Cup stop on May 26-27! All results and further information on http://www.ifsc-climbing.org.