Lead World Cup 2013: Schubert and Kim win in Puurs

Canada's Sean McColl was the first to really leave a mark by cruising through the first filter (a two-handed dyno) and continuing to the 39th hold to take provisional lead, but a superlative Schubert wasn't to be intimidated and he immediately climbed another 5 holds higher. The Austrian's impressive performance couldn't be outdone by anyone else, including the winners of the first two stages at Briançon and Imst, Japan's Sachi Amma and Spain's Ramon Julien Puigblanque. With this victory Schubert now moves into third place in the provisional World Cup ranking with 188 points, behind Puigblanque (208 points) and Amma who leads comfortably thanks to his 260 points. From an Italian point of view, Francesco Vettorata finished 14th, ahead of Stefano Ghisolfi 16th, Marcello Bombardi 21st and Nicola De Mattia 37th.

In the women's competition, after a difficult Simalfinal in which 4 athletes qualified for the final by all falling off the same hold, it was Jain Kim from Korea who called the competition her own by climbing with astounding power and grace to the top. In truth Mina Markovic reached the top, too, but unfortunately she wasted precious time on the middle section and topped out after the alloted 6 minutes had run out. Japan's 19-year-old Momoka Oda placed third. With this victory Kim now leads the overall World Cup ranking with 265 points, just 5 points ahead of Markovic and 102 points ahead of young Frenchwoman Hélène Janicot who finished 7th in Puurs. Italy's Jenny Lavarda palced ninth and was the first to be excluded from the final, while her teammate Claudia Ghisolfi placed 18th.

The World Cup circuit now moves to Russia, more precisely to Perm circa 1000km northwest of Moscow, for the fourth stage which takes place from 27 - 29 September.

IFSC Climbing Worldcup (L) - Puurs (BEL) 20-21/09/2013
Results men
1 Jakob Schubert AUT 44
2 Sachi Amma JPN 39+
3 Sean McColl CAN 39+
4 Romain Desgranges FRA 38
5 Manuel Romain FRA 33+
6 Magnus Midtboe NOR 30+
7 Ramón Julian Puigblanque ESP 30+
8 Hyunbin Min KOR 30+
9 Domen Skofic SLO 30+

Results women
1 Jain Kim KOR Top
2 Mina Markovic SLO 50
3 Momoka Oda JPN 43+
4 Dinara Fakhritdinova RUS 43+
5 Akiyo Noguchi JPN 43+
6 Anak Verhoeven BEL 38+
7 Hélène Janicot FRA 36+
8 Magdalena Röck AUT 30+