Rakhmetov and Shalagina Bouldering World Champions

Salavat Rakhmetov and Olha Shalagina win the Bouldering World Championships 2005 in Munich.

July 2005

Salavat Rakhmetov and Olha Shalagina are the new Bouldering World Champions. The Russian climbing prince and the 22 year-old from the Ukraine won the coveted title with a fantastic clean run, sending all six problems first go. Add to this the fact that both led the field after the Qualification (Shalagina with an unprecedented 6 tops first go) and you get a picture of how much these two dominated the World Championships in Munich. Kilian Fischhuber, GÃ©rome Pouvreau, Ioulia Abramtchouk and Vera Kotasova could do nothing to beat them, settling forrsecond and third place overall.

38 year-old Rakhmetov is a veteran of hundreds of competitions, and the World Championship title is the deserved coronation of his great competition climbing career. He excelled above all in bouldering, winning the World Cup in 2003, but has always fared well in difficulty and speed, too. Salavat has been competing since the end of the '80's and has therefore gone through all the changes in this sport. A great athlete who has always stood out for his perfect, seeming weightless style, and for the fact that he is champion who never smiles. We're sure though that this World Championhsip squeezed one out of him.

Austrian Kilian Fischhuber has plenty of reason to be happy, too. He placed second by sending all 6 problems, but needed two attempts more than Rakhmetov, while third placed GÃ©rome Pouvreau needed 11 attempts. Fischhuber confirms his class at the forefront of world bouldering, while ex difficulty world champion Pouvreau underlines how right his decision was to switch disciplines - see his recent victory in Fiera di Primiero for further confirmation. 35 year-old Serik Kazbekov produced a great result, too, finishing fourth in Germany. This other benchmark climber from the easr placed 7th in the Lead and two days later 4th in the Bouldering with 6 tops but 2 attempts more than the Frenchman. The rest of the field finished as follows: Nalle Hukkataival from Finland 5th, European Champion Daniel Dulac 6th, Dmitry Sharafutd from Russia 7th, CÃ©dric Lachat from Switzerland 8th, all with 5 boulders. Four tops resulted in 9th place for TomÃ¡s Mrazek and 10th for JÃ©rÃ´me Meyer, while both Keita Mogaki and Jorg Verhoeven sent three problems in the final.

What immediately hits the eye in this Bouldering Championship is that 4 athletes who competed in Saturday's Lead Final also qualified for the Bouldering Final. Kazbekov was joined by Mrazek (World Lead Champion) Lachat and Verhoeven (4th and 5th in the Lead). What does this mean? Perhaps that a new generation of climbers is in the making, capable of everything, and that the era of specialists has come to an end. Or that the boulder problems, instead of being "impossible" (as bouldering should be) were too climbable and didn't require the explosive power that only the best boulderers have? Probably the answer lies midway. On the one hand the standard of Lead climbers has risen dramatically, in particular the speed and intensity of the moves. On the other, the boulders in Munich really did seem possible. The top should never be an easy top, but at Munich there was a great number of problems sent first and second go, in much less time that the 6 minutes available. And this contributed in rendering the competition less dynamic and frenetic than usual.

In the women's event Olha Shalagina set the pace with her awesome 12 problems sent first go. Ioulia Abramtchouk placed second, while Vera Kotasova produced her best international performance and placed third. Both sent 5 problems in 9 attempts, but were separated by the number of attempts needed to reach the zones. Similar story for 35 year old Renata Piszczek from Poland who placed an unexpected 4th ahead of Anna StÃ¶hr. European Champion Olga Bibik placed only 6th, heading the long list of athletes who sent 4 problems: Tatiana Tarassova (7th), Venera Chereshne (8th), Esther Cruz (9th), Corinne Theroux (10th) and Elizabeth Asher (11th). Ja-In Kimand Yana Chereshne placed 12th and 13th respectively with 3 tops. As you see the women's result is compressed, too, with many fresh faces and, above all, an unexpected podium without Sandrine Levet (who failed to qualify) and Olga Bibik. But this is how things turned out, as we said, the Bouldering in Munich was particular in many respects... What remains is the very best. the victory of great Salavat.

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World Championships Bouldering Munich 2005
1 Salavat Rakhmetov RUS 6t6 6z6
2 Kilian Fischhuber AUT 6t8 6z8
3 GÃ©rome Pouvreau FRA 6t136z11
4 Serik Kazbekov UKR 6t136z13
5 Nalle Hukkataival FIN 5t5 5z5
6 Daniel Dulac FRA 5t7 5z6
7 Dmitry Sharafutd. RUS 5t7 5z7
8 CÃ©dric Lachat SUI 5t8 6z12
9 TomÃ¡s Mrazek CZE 4t6 4z6
10 JÃ©rÃ´me Meyer FRA 4t7 5z9
11 Keita Mogaki JPN 3t3 5z10
12 Jorg Verhoeven NED 3t3 4z5

World Championships Bouldering Munich 2005
1 Olha Shalagina UKR 6t6 6z6
2 Ioulia Abramtcho. RUS 5t5 6z6
3 Vera Kotasova CZE 5t9 6z9
4 Renata Piszczek POL 5t9 5z8
5 Anna StÃ¶hr AUT 5t106z9
6 Olga Bibik RUS 4t4 6z6
7 Tatiana Tarassova RUS 4t6 6z7
8 Venera Chereshne. RUS 4t6 5z10
9 Esther Cruz ESP 4t8 6z18
10 Corinne Theroux FRA 4t8 4z7
11 Elizabeth Asher USA 4t8 4z8
12 Ja-In Kim KOR 3t3 6z9
13 Yana Chereshne. RUS 3t4 5z