The season of the international competitions 2004 reported by Marco Scolaris, President of the ICC

ICC is an acronym that means International Council for Competition Climbing, the international body responsible for the organization of climbing competitions. Marco Scolaris has been its President for a few years now and recently he has also been elected in the Board of the UIAA (Union International des Associationes d’Alpinisme - International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation) with delegation for climbing. Thus who, better than he, could tell us about the just finished competition season?
Oscar Durbiano

A never ending season
In Mexico City, with the North American Championship (at the same time of the final of the European Youth Cup in Kranj),
the spotlights on the very long competition season 2004 have been switched off. A season that has seen the athletes engaged from the beginning of April until the end of November. In total 18 World Cups have taken place (9 Difficulty, 6 Bouldering, 3 Speed), 4 Continental Championship (Europe in Lecco, Central and South America in Venezuela, North America in Mexico City, Asia in Korea), the Youth World Championship in Edinburgh (341 participants, 31 countries), 4 legs of the European Youth Cup, 4 Masters (among which the Rock Master of Arco, that has reached its 18th edition…) and several other international appointments, from the so called “International Events” like the spectacular and very successful Melloblocco in Valtellina), to the competitions and meeting for very young athletes (one of the classical ones remains that of Marina di Ravenna, in June, but other organizators are copying the group of Romagna, led by Ariano Amici, particularly in the Eastern countries.

The French dominate in bouldering
In Bouldering the results reflect another time the values on the field of the past years; in the men’s category the French dominate, with not less than four athletes among the first five. Daniel Dulac (26 years old), downright reaches the “en plein”: after becoming European Champion in the usual, awesome stage of Lecco, he manages to win also the World Cup, with two strong victories (Birmingham and Bardonecchia) and a series of brilliant placements. The French “guide” has also taken advantage of the accident occurred to Kilian Fishhuber, the nice young Austrian who had sampled two gold and one silver medals in the first three legs, but then had been obliged to interrupt for more than three months, due to a finger injury, nevertheless taking silver in the end. Third in the Cup, the idol of the teenagers Jerome Meyer (23), who, winning the final leg in Huzhou, in China, takes the final bronze, a result that could give him hope in a good start in 2005, after a season with ups and downs.
Just behind the French ace are placed his fellow-countrymen Stephane Julien and Ludovic Laurence, while the sixth place has gone to the powerful Swiss Matthias Müller (25), ex-equo with the legendary Salavat Rakhmetov, still able at the age of 37 to get a second place in China. 8° Gareth Parry, (31), first of the English school. The Brits had a good team on the field, obtaining also the European silver in Lecco with Andrew Earl (in front of the Italian hope Gabriele Moroni (17), he too victim of an injury in Argentiere).
In the women’s field usual predominance of Sandrine Levet (23). The blonde French girl has won five out of six World Cups, getting the highest possible score (her worst result was the third place in Argentiere!!), but she didn’t succeed in taking the European title. In Lecco she had such a bad day that she didn’t even manage to go to the final, letting the way open to Russian Olga Bibik (28), whose mother’s role doesn’t seem to weight much on her performance, she got a sure gold in front of surprise Anna Stohr (16), Austrian teenager, and French veteran Corinne Theroux. In the World Cup, good third place for Ioulia Abramtchouk (22), who is said to never smile….

News in the Difficulty
Among the girls Belgian Muriel Sarkany, thirty years old, seems a little slowing down, particularly with her motivation. On the other side she is chased by Austrian Angela Eiter (18), who emerged in 2003 at the Rock Master, and this year was winner of four World Cups (and again the Rock Master). Angela is small like Muriel, but is twelve years younger! Behind them a group of young and strong athletes is emerging: Swiss Alexandra Eyer (23) and Slovenian Natalija Gros (20), bronze ex-equo in the World Cup. Fifth the first of the French Caroline Ciavaldini (19), Junior World Champion, born in Reunion, stopped in the middle of the season by a finger problem, then the other Austrian girl Bettina Schöpf (25, European Champion in Lecco) and Italian Jenny Lavarda (20) best in the combined ranking difficulty-bouldering, a little better of Levet, who has missed four difficulty competitions, ending thirteenth in the specialty.
Among the guys the true dominator has been Czech Thomas Mrazek (22). When he doesn’t play around and doesn’t make stupid mistakes he is the strongest of all: we have just to remind that in nine World Cups he never stepped down from the podium and won four legs and the World Cup 2004. The other phenomen, French Alexandre Chabot, was able to lead the ranking until the last competition just thanks to the system of taking into account only the best six results out of nine. Third in the World Cup was Flavio Crespi (24), Fiamme Gialle, capable of winning exactly in Thomasz’s country, in Brno, letting him the second place. Not very brilliant the Spanish athletes, who had brought home the European title with Ramon Julian (Mrazek had been disqualified in the final because of a foot hook): the first Spaniard, Patxi Usobiaga (24) is fifth, preceded by Ukrainian Maxim Petrenko (26).
To notice, a little behind (ninth), the Netherlander Jorg Verhoeven (19), third in Kranj, Junior World Champion: a guy who trains in Imst, to look at in the future. At the end, even if the French haven’t dominated, they have still managed to put several names in the first positions, confirming another time to be the strongest and most compact team: guys like Pouvreau (21), Millet (26), Fuselier, Auclair are always there, to chase the first positions, so that we find them on the podium now and then.

The landscape outside Europe
Also if the World Cup continues to be mostly euro centered, with a few exotic escapes in Far East, strong signals of growth are registered in all continents, with the only exception of Africa. The number of climbing wall grows in Central and South America: to the continental Championship have participated athletes coming from 12 countries, while ten other nations are approaching the competition world.
In North America, the new US federation is pulling Canadians and Mexicans towards a true new birth: to the Championship that took place in Mexico City at the end of November, 150 athletes came, including the younger categories. It is interesting to notice that a good part of the US team comes from towns in states without mountains, like Texas or Florida, to demonstrate the diffusion of the sport and its metropolitan vocation. Today it exists a concrete possibility for a leg of the bouldering circuit to take place soon in the States.
Fresh air also in Oceania, where they are studying one circuit for both Australia and New Zealand, where things are going pretty well.
The expansion in China proceeds too: among other, in Beijing the Youth Championship 2005 will take place, an event that, after the usual boom of participation in the 2004 edition (that took place in Edinburgh, 31 countries and 350 athletes, is expected to be one of the most exciting moments of the calendar. New impulses are registered also in Korea, Thailand, Philippines and the Arabian countries, Iran at the lead.

The next year
2005 announces to be extraordinarily rich. As it looks now, the provisional calendar 2005 (http://www.uiaaclimbing.com/?page_name=calendar2005) will engage the athletes from the end of March to the end of November, and the scheduled events are more numerous than in 2004. There are then two very important events: the first one will be the World Championship in Munich, in Germany, at the beginning of July. The international federation is working hard to favor the participation of the highest possible number of athletes and the ambitious goal of 50 nations has been set. The direct report on the Internet will be guaranteed and they expect it to be the greatest event ever organized until now.
Only three weeks later it will be the turn of the World games in Duisburg, always in Germany. This multisport event, supported by the International Olympic Committee, takes place every four years and climbing participates – also if only with speed and difficulty and a limited number of athletes – officially for the first time. It will be the occasion to introduce our sport in the international sports world, with the presence of the media and the highest profile insiders.

The politics and the future
To conclude, a consideration about the just finished season and the future perspectives: “The ICC is very satisfied with how things are going, but we can’t certainly stop and rest under the laurels. We must work hard, always more, looking at the future. It has been hard in 2004 to follow the Olympic Games on television. I happened to look at our athletes in front of the screen: I saw them full of desire…. They would have deserved to be there, also. That is the direction to aim at, to continue to follow with passion and determination, also if it is a road always more uphill. May be, if things work well in July in Germany, we will start to harvest the fruits of the work made in these last years, in which we improved the political-sportive contacts at all levels.
Climbing presents itself today with a valid and credible circuit, like a healthy and clean competitive discipline, in the most genuine Olympic spirit. Further it proposes itself as an alternative sport, of high social content (the mayor of Shanghai told me that he wants to push it because climbing can take the youngsters out of the road), that can be proposed to everybody at every age (the concept of the sport for everybody). The establishment of a School Commission inside the international federation says a lot about our trends.
At last, it seems to me that the divisions among “resin, artificial, crag, and competition” are quickly vanishing. We are one big community and the sport is only one: climbing, and it is one of the most exciting sport of the world!”.
Marco Scolaris