Bouldering World Cup 2010 – update

With five out of nine stages completed in this year’s world bouldering champs, the contest remains open after Anna Stöhr and Dmitry Sharafutdinov win the Eindhoven leg. Planetmountain reports that this year the Bouldering World Cup is a "real tour de Force, almost a sprint which leaves no time for the athletes to stop and catch their breath."

It all kicked off in mid June in Switzerland’s Greifensee, before the world’s best boulder climbers battled it out in Vienna, Vail and Moscow

Vienna was won by the 2009 World Cup dominators Kilian Fischhuber and Akiyo Noguchi, while a week later Daniel Woods and Chloé Graftiaux to honours in Vail.

Two weeks later in Moscow it was Adam Ondra and Anna Stöhr’s moment to shine.

Stöhr, who won the title in 2008, then went on to win the Eindhoven leg with Russia’s Dmitry Sharafutdinov.

This puts Stöhr in a strong position going forward into the second half of the series, to be fought out in Sheffield, England, and Munich, Germany, scheduled for the start and end of July.

She presently has 368 points, 35 points ahead of closest rival Akiyo Noguchi and 44 points ahead of Chloé Graftiaux.

In the mens contest Kilian Fischhuber currently holds 1st position with 395 points, despite a finger injury. The Austrian is separated by 80 points from Adam Ondra and 116 from this season’s revelation, Tsukuru Hori from Japan, although Ondra missed the Vail leg, which may have narrowed the gap somewhat.

The athletes compete this weekend in Sheffield.

Sources: planetmountain.com and www.climb.co.za (Bouldering World Cup 2010, Anna Stöhr and Dmitry Sharafutdinov win in Eindhoven)

Image: Anna Stöhr (http://www.mammut.ch)