Jain Kim and Domen Skofic win in Puurs

"To win," he told planetmountain.com a few weeks ago "I need to feel no pressure at all. And I need to have fun.” As early as the Semifinal Škofic demonstrated just how much fun he could actually have by reaching the top of the difficult qualifying route. The only other athlete to achieve such as result was Italy’s Stefano Ghisolfi who, for his first time, managed to make it to the last round in Belgium.

In the final, despite shouldering the "burden" of being favorite, Škofic managed to play his game to perfection, topping out on a route that no other athlete managed to complete. Austria’s Jakob Schubert finished second, having climbed one hold higher than Spain’s Ramón Julian Puigblanque and two holds higher than provisional World Cup leader Gautier Supper from France. After his great climb in Semis Stefano Ghisolfi had to settle for fifth place, ahead of Frenchman Romain Desgranges, Japan’s Masahiro Higuchi and Austria’s Max Rudigier.

The women's competition was marked by the return to form of Jain Kim. After her somewhat stormy start to the 2015 season, which translates into one 12th and one 4th place, on Sunday the South Korean athlete managed to control the competition flawlessly, reaching the top in the final and, just a few hours earlier, in the Semifinal. This is an important detail, since Slovenia’s Mina Markovic managed to reach the top in the final, too, meaning that the two were separated on countback. Competing in front of her home crowd, Belgian’s Anak Verhoeven secured third place, ousting Austria’s Jessica Pilz off the podium for the first time this season. Fifth place went to France’s Julia Chanourdie, who beat her teammates Salomé Romain and Hélène Janicot, while the top eight rankings were completed by Japan’s Yuka Kabayashi.

RESULTS PUURS
Women
1 Jain Kim KOR Top
2 Mina Markovic SLO Top
3 Anak Verhoeven BEL 48
4 Jessica Pilz AUT 48
5 Julia Chanourdie FRA 44
6 Salomé Romain FRA 36
7 Hélène Janicot FRA 36
8 Yuka Kobayashi JPN 35

Men
1 Domen Skofic SLO Top
2 Jakob Schubert AUT 50+
3 Ramón Julian Puigblanque ESP 49+
4 Gautier Supper FRA 48+
5 Stefano Ghisolfi ITA 42
6 Romain Desgranges FRA 41
7 Masahiro Higuchi JPN 37+
8 Max Rudigier AUT 29+