Saas Fee World Cup

Russian domination continued in Saas Fee, even more so now that Markus Bendler has decided to call it quits. The top 8 consisted of 6 Russians, 1 Ukranian and 1 Korean! Maybe its time to place a cap on the number of representatives each country can have? Otherwise each round will just be the Russian national championships.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, Simon Chevis, Andy Turner, Stevie Johnstone and Scott Grosdanoff were in there for the UK. The boys were climbing strong after plenty of prep at The Works and Masson so despite the talk of "i'll enjoy it once i've fallen off" they were keen to climb well and show the pesky Russians whos boss, not to mention the Frenchies.

All climbed well but unfortunately Simons axe popped when he looked to be cruising and Andy got knocked back two clips by the judges after he had apparently used an illegal heel hook (never spotted it when I was watching), he would have made the semi finals were it not for this. Scott Grosdanoff struggled with one particularly big move and eventually popped off whilst taking the axe placement/angle a little too far.

You can watch all the action from the mens and womens semi finals and finals here on the Swiss Sport website. Full results for the comp are here on the Saas Fee site.

Some screen shots of the action......

Park Heeyong in qualifying. The one bloke not from a former communist state who made it into the top 8.

Andy, just before his axe popped from the stein he is moving into.

Simon, seconds before his placement blew out. No chalk bag Si?

I'm sure Andy will be giving all the details regarding the big sends that occured at Ueschinen the week before the comp sometime soon on his blog.

Rabenstein this coming weekend is the next comp, you can check out the enormity of the climbing structure in this rather cool video the organisers have put together......