Bouldering World Cup 2010, Anna Stöhr and Dmitry Sharafutdinov win in Eindhoven

This year the Bouldering World Cup is a real tour de Force, a sprint almost which leaves no time for the athletes to stop and catch their breath. Indeed, after the first stage in Switzerland's Greifensee in mid-June the world cup circuit is already nearing its end, with the fifth stage taking place at Eindhoven, Holland, last weekend. The competition was won by the 2007 World Bouldering Champions Anna Stöhr from Austria and Dmitry Sharafutdinov from Russia.

In the interval, or rather, in the six weeks that separate these two events, there were the competitions in Vienna, Vail and Moscow with some of the strongest in the world taking it in turns to win a stage of the World Cup, proving that in these individual comps the list of possible winners is long and unpredictable...

Vienna was won by 2009 World Cup dominators Kilian Fischhuber and Akiyo Noguchi, while a week later in Vail Daniel Woods and Chloé Graftiaux stepped onto the highest podium position - for both of them this confirmation of their great talent also marked their first-ever WC victory. A fortnight later Moscow was the scene of Adam Ondra's first bouldering win, while Anna Stöhr took the limelight to reveal her true intentions for 2010: to reclaim the title she'd first won in 2008.

Infact after Moscow and her win in Eindhoven, it is Stöhr who now leads the provisional 2010 ranking with 368 points, 35 points ahead of closest rival Akiyo Noguchi and 44 points ahead of Chloé Graftiaux. The series comes to an end at the end of July after the competitions in Sheffield, England, and Munich, Germany, scheduled for the start and end of July. The race to clench overall victory is still wide open therefore.

The same holds true for the men's event, with Kilian Fischhuber currently in pole position with 395 points, steadfast and exactly for this reason more impressive than ever before. The Austrian is separated by 80 points from Adam Ondra and 116 from this season's revelation, Tsukuru Hori from Japan.

The next time the athletes compete will be in Sheffield this weekend. No doubt they'll all be there, and perhaps if Ondra hadn't missed out on the competition in Vail then the gap between him and Fischhuber might have been narrower. Fischhuber has been nursing a finger injury though... Regardless of how things evolve, two things are certain: the World Cup will go right down to the wire. And there'll be no time for the athletes to catch their breath.


IFSC Climbing Worldcup (B) - Eindhoven (NED) 2010
Results women
1. Anna Stöhr AUT
2. Juliane Wurm GER
3. Melissa Le Neve FRA
4. Akiyo Noguchi JPN
5. Natalija Gros SLO
6. Jenny Lavarda ITA

Results men
1. Dmitry Sharafutdinov RUS
2. Sean McColl CAN
3. Kilian Fischhuber AUT
4. Adam Ondra CZE
5. David Barrans GBR
6. Rustam Gelmanov RUS