Anna Stöhr and Dimitry Sharafutdinov win third round of the Bouldering World Cup 2008 in Grindelwald

Anna Stöhr is on a roll in 2008. After the disappointment of the last-minute Belgrade competition cancellation, the young Austrian beat a field of 37 athletes in Switerland's Grindelwald to win her third straight victory this season, ahead of Charlotte Durif from France and Akiyo Noguchi from Japan.

Stöhr completed her hat trick by sending three problems in the extremely stiff final in 11 attempts, leaving the remaining five finalists to pick up the pieces on just one single problem. Reigning European Lead Champion Durif made a fantastic boulder debut to finish second by topping out on one problem first attempt, while Noguchi needed two to finish third overall. Fourth place went to Swiss hope Alexandra Eyer (another athlete more at home in lead competitions than bouldering), ahead of Angelica Lind from Sweden and World Cup 2007 winner Juliette Danion from France.

In the men's event Dimitry Sharafutdinov from Russia won his first event this season, ahead of Kilian Fischhuber from Austria and teammate David Lama. The reigning World Bouldering Champion topped out on two problems in the Final in 5 attempts, needing just one less than Fischhuber to secure victory. Lama topped out on just one problem and the bonus zones split him from Gabriele Moroni from Italy and Mykhaylo Shalagin from the Ukraine, while Akito Matsushima failed to top out on a single final problem, proving just how difficult the Final problems in the lay of the Eiger really were.

The World Cup ranking 2008 is unsurprisingly being led by Fischhuber and Stöhr who, together with all the other athletes, are currently making their way to Vail for America's first ever international World Cup Bouldering competition. The last time the States hosted an international event was when many of the current athletes were born... way back in 1989, with the likes of Ron Kauk, Lynn Hill, Jean Baptiste Tribout, Dale Goddard, Didier Raboutou, Catherine Destivelle and Robyn Erbesfield to name but a few.


Grindelwald Bouldering World Cup 2008

Rank	Lastname	Firstname	Birth	Nat.	Final	Semi Final	Qual
1	Sharafutdinov	Dmitry	1986	RUS	2t5 4b9	3t6 4b6	4t8 5b8
2	Fischhuber	Kilian	1983	AUT	2t6 3b6	3t6 3b6	4t8 5b10
3	Lama	David	1990	AUT	1t1 3b3	3t5 4b6	4t5 4b4
4	Moroni	Gabriele	1987	ITA	1t1 3b4	4t11 4b11	4t12 5b6
5	Shalagin	Mykhaylo	1982	UKR	1t4 3b6	2t7 4b11	3t3 4b4
6	Matsushima	Akito	1982	JPN	0t 3b4	2t3 3b3	4t13 5b14
7	Müller	Matthias	1979	SUI		2t7 4b14	3t3 5b7
Rank	Lastname	Firstname	Birth	Nat.	Final	Semi Final	Qual
1	Stöhr	Anna	1988	AUT	3t11 4b8	3t5 4b4	4t7 5b6
2	Durif	Charlotte	1990	FRA	1t1 4b8	3t3 4b4	3t8 5b6
3	Noguchi	Akiyo	1989	JPN	1t2 4b14	4t6 4b5	4t5 5b6
4	Eyer	Alexandra	1981	SUI	1t2 3b3	3t3 4b4	5t8 5b5
5	Lind	Angelica	1978	SWE	1t3 2b2	3t5 4b5	3t9 5b13
6	Danion	Juliette	1981	FRA	0t 2b3	3t3 4b4	3t4 4b5