Papert and Berger provisional leaders in Daone

Ines Papert and Harald Berger are the provisional leaders of the Ice World Cup second stage in Valle Daone 2003

January 2003

A spectacular Semi-Final! Valle di Daone showed its true colours today with a series of desperate routes and exciting moves - such as the full-on dyno to a hanging ice cylinder in the men's second route! Harry Berger, Stephane Husson, Jack Muller and Dimitri Bychkov all reached this dyno but, unsurprisingly, no athlete managed to match the top.

To everyone's surprise though Dimitri did not make it through to tomorrrow's final; last week's winner in Pitztal failed to make significant headway on the second route and, despite a top, was the first to be excluded from the final. Harry Berger, impeccable as usual with two tops and a final zone, was followed closely by reigning World Champion Evgeny Kryvosheytsev, while Alexei Tomilov impressed all with his determination to place provisional third, ahead of Samuel Anthamatten.

If the men's competition was hard, the women's was even harder! But, to quote Ines Papert, they were all do-able. And she was the first to demonstrate this, getting stylishly close to topping out on all three. Petra Muller pulled off a fine performance to place provisional second, while Abby Watkins' fought over top on the third route secured her provisional third. Ksenia Sdobnikova, Kirsten Buchmann and Maria Shabalina all followed close behind, with at least one top each. Tomorrow's starting list is completed by Natalia Koulikova and Go Misun - the latter climbed somewhat underpar but nevertheless pulled out all the stops.

What impressed most was how all athletes fought right to the bitter end. Sunday's Final will no doubt be quite some battle...

Portfolio Semifinal

Finalists Men
1	"Harry" Berger	Austria
2	Evgeny Kryvosheytsev	Ukraine
4	Alexei Tomilov	Slovenia
5	Samuel Anthamatten	Switzerland
5	Stephane Husson	France
6	Kurt Astner	Italy
7	Aliaz Anderle	Slovenia
8	Markus Bendler	Austria

Finalists Women
1	Papert Ines	Germany
2	Muller Petra	Switzerland
3	Watkins Abby	Canada
4	Sdobnikova Ksenia	Russia
5	Buchmann Kirsten	Switzerland
6	Shabalina Maria	Russia
7	Koulikova Natalia	Russia
8	Go Misun	Korea
9	Torretta Anna	Italy
10	Petenko Elizaveta	Russia
11	Maureau Stephanie	Francia
12	Filippova Maryam	Russia
13	Iakimova Nadejda	Russia
14	Kraft Gundy	Switzerland
15	Gemelli Monica	Italy
16	Bonaldo Orietta	Italy
17	Petenko Ekaterina	Russia
19	Oleinikova Joulia	Russia


16-19 JANUARY 2003

Stephane Husson and the dyno (ph Planetmountain.com)

Abby Watkins (foto arch. Planetmountain.com)
	Portfolio Semifinal
	IWC Valle Daone 2003
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