Speed Ice Climbing World Cup Speed, Tolokonina and Batushev win in Mojstrana

The third stage of the Ice Climbing World Cup was dedicated entirely to the Speed event in Mojstrana, Slovenia last weekend. This stage ratified the triumphal march of 22 year old Maria Tolokonina from Russia who, after Daone and Saas Fee, won her third competition in a row. Tolokonina is without a doubt this year's major force: in the Difficulty event in Daone she struck gold, while in Saas Fee she won bronze. Which means that she is one of the pretenders to the throne, together with neo world champion Angelika Rainer and Petra Müller from Switzerland.

The young Russian was joined on the podium by two teammates, Viktoria Shabalina and Julia Oleynikova, second and third respectively. Without wishing to take anything away from these athletes, it must be said that only 4 athletes took part in the women's competition, and that the 4th place went to Russia too. This is a reflection of the current state of female speed climbing, which is a shame since it certainly isn't the fault of neither the athletes nor the competition organisers. Rather, a finger must be pointed at the movement in general which still needs to grow and mature...

The men's event was far more numerous and as usual the competition held some surprises in store. Once again Russia dominated convincingly, but this time Pavel Gulyaev, winner in both Daone and Saas Fee, had to make do with third place, as he was beaten by teammate Pavel Batushev and also by Matevz Vukotic from Slovenia.

Ice World Cup Speed - Mojstrana
Results men
1 Pavel Batushev - Russian Mountaineering Federation
2 Matevz Vukotic - Alpine Association of Slovenia
3 Pavel Gulyaev - Russian Mountaineering Federation
4 Maxim Vlasov - Russian Mountaineering Federation
5 Nikolay Shved - Russian Mountaineering Federation
6 Jerney Vukotic - Alpine Association of Slovenia
7 Igor Fayzullin - Russian Mountaineering Federation
8 Alexey Dengin - Russian Mountaineering Federation
9 Vasily Terekhin - Russian Mountaineering Federation
10 Alexey Tomilov - Russian Mountaineering Federation
11 Reinhard Graf - Italy
12 Yevgeny Kryvosheytsev - Ukraine
13 Urs Odermatt - Schweizer Alpen-Club
14 Maxim Tomilov - Russian Mountaineering Federation
15 Florian Lanthaner - Italy
16 Dennis Van Hoek - Netherland
17 Mikhail Melnikov - Russian Mountaineering Federation
18 Stanislav Lobzov - Russian Mountaineering Federation
19 Andres Marin - American Alpine Club

Results women
1 Maria Tolokonina - Russian Mountaineering Federation
2 Viktoria Shabalina -Russian Mountaineering Federation
3 Julia Oleynikova - Russian Mountaineering Federation
4 Maryam Filippova - Russian Mountaineering Federation