Ice World Cup 2009 won by Bendler and Tolokonina

No suprises in Busteni: Markus Bendler and maria Tolokonina are the winners of the Ice Climbing World Cup Lead 2009. In the third and final stage the Austrian and Russian athletes left no room for their adversaries, topping out in Busteni and legitimising a full-marks victory. Tolokonina's domination stretched to the Speed event too, thanks to which she doubled her 2009 takings. World Champion Angelika Rainer proved that her title was legitimate: the climber competing for the South Tyrolean Alpine Club (AVS) was the only athlete capable of questioning Tolokonina's leadership. In the end she place 2nd, confirming her strength after victory in Saas Fee which gave her the Lead title. Had in not been for her 7th place start in Daone, the battle with Tolokonina would really have gone down to the last hold... or rather, final second.

Yes, because after having digested the new no-spur rule (without any problems, it has be said), another rule which has existed for a number of years proved to be a determining factor: the timing which, when two athletes are joint equal, hands victory to the fastest. During the third stage in Romania the finals were marked by a mass of tops: 4 in the men's event and 5 in the women. Tolokonina won thanks to her 36 second margin ahead of Rainer, who in turn beat Lucie Hrozova from the Czech Republic by a further 29 seconds. Bendler climbed to victory 32 seconds faster that Alexey Dengin from Russia, 55 seconds faster than Hee Yong Park from Korea. As is clear the margins are important, all the more so if you bear in mind that 4th placed Stéphanie Maureau from France and 5th placed Chloe Graftiaux from Belgium reached the top almost a minute after Tolokonina, while 4th placed Alexei Tomilov from Russia checked in one minute and 10 seconds behind Bendler.

These margins clearly show not only the strength of the winners but also how success in ice climbing competitions (for the record, ice was almost completely missing from the structure in Busteni) is connected to swift move execution. This is certainly something that climbers need to focus on and metabolise - the routes in Busteni should perhaps have been slightly harder - but this is probably the way forward to make this discipline even more spectacular. There can be no doubt of one thing: Bendler (and his hattrick of victories in 3 competitions) and Maria Tolokinina (2 victories and one 3rd place) seem to have no rivals at the moment, even if the Russian need to watch out for Angelika Rainer, the one athlete who beat her in Saas Fee which netted her the Championship title.

Where Maria Tolokonina is seemingly in a league of her own is in the Speed. The Russian athlete won her third comp in a row, taking both the Lead and Speed title. Similar Russian story for Pavel Gulyaev who won the Speed Cup 2009 thanks to victory in Saas Fee, 3rd place in Mojstrana and 5th in Busteni. For the record, this final stage was won by Nikolay Shved, another Russian athlete, of course.

Historic silver in the Men's World Cup Lead went to Park Hee Yong from Korea (7th in Daone, 9th in Saas Fee and 3rd in Busteni), just ahead of Alexy Tomilov (3rd overall) and veteran Evgeny Kryvosheytsev (4th). In the women's Lead Stéphanie Maureau from France won bronze.

In some respects 2009 was perhaps a year that bridged a gap. The rule changes and some settling down of the movement in general lead to believe that much still needs to be done, in particular with regards to the number of actual competitions... Tribute should probably be made to the organisers in Daone, Saas Fee and Busteni for what they have given to this sport, but it is clear that they alone cannot suffice. What is positive is that there is a core of athletes (a real hardcore group) who really want to compete. One needs to work from this, certainly there is space for improvement.