The North Face Kalymnos Climbing Festival 2013, everyone wins

Although the festival began officially last Thursday, a totally unexpected turn of events kicked the meeting off in style: just a few hours before the start of the British climber James Pearson seized the moment and proposed to Caroline Ciavaldini. This stunned and surprised all, including the bride... who promptly married Pearson with Riky Federer doing the honors beneath the Kalymnos crags that then hosted the three "competitions": the two climbing marathons, open to all, and the PROject competition reserved for 16 talented pros.

The PROject competition was won, in a brace of shakes on Thursday, by Germany's Alexander Megos who sent all four routes in a mere five attempts. Only one route, Klesa, required a second attempt. But seeing that this 8c+ had never been freed before, maybe it deserved that second go, no? Proof that Megos was "really impressive, absolutely crazy" comes from Jacopo Larcher , one of the route setters along with Hansjörg Auer, Eneko Pou and Siebe Van Hee and the fact of the matter is that Megos was truly magical on Thursday morning. Almost as magical as the atmosphere itself that was felt, palpable, amongst these top climbers. As Auer told planetmountain: "The feeling among the climbers was really relaxed, if possible even more than last year, truly beautiful!"

Evidently the Kalymnos air was beneficial to everyone, in particular to the newly wed Ciavaldini who celebrated a clean sweep on Saturday by winning the women's competition thanks to her three routes sent in 4 attempts. It's also worth noting the outstanding climbs on Saturday by Kilian Fischhuber (second with 4 routes in 6 attempts) and Daniel Woods (third with 4 routes in 7 attempts), and those of Nina Caprez (second with 3 routes in 6 attempts) and Barbara Zangerl (third with 3 routes in 6 attempts).

While it is true that the media attention and the live streaming concentrated on the PROject competition climbing action at the beautiful new crag located between Ghost Kitchen and Skalia Pillar, it would be fair to say that the 540 participants of the two climbing marathons certainly had their fair share of climbing fun. Hervé Barmasse perfectly described these passionate climbers as follows " The most interesting part of the event organized by The North Face. Ordinary people, who have come from all over the world to share the pleasure and the passion for sport climbing. It's them, the normal folk, who are the heart of this big event... to them my greatest my respect..."

THE NORTH FACE KALYMNOS CLIMBING FESTIVAL 2013
PROject COMPETITION – MEN
1. Alexander Megos (GER) 4T:5
2. Kilian Fischhuber (AUT) 4T:6
3. Daniel Woods (USA) 4T:7

PROject COMPETITION – WOMEN
1. Caroline Ciavaldini (FRA) 3T:4
2. Nina Caprez (SWI) 3T:6
3. Barbara Zangerl (AUT) 3T:6

OPEN MARATHON – MEN
1. Rainer Schunder & Thomas Kruschat
2. Thomas Voigtmann & Johannes Erb
3. Jonas Sigurasson & Otto insi Parisson

OPEN MARATHON – WOMEN
1.Rosa Vergara & Natalia mari Wells
2. Fatma Basogly & Ayca Algun
3. Anna Kieseleva & Klavdiya Ilyushchenko

OPEN MARATHON- MIX
1. Ekaterina Klimenko & Konstantin Cklimenko
2. Matia Mallia & Pawel Gregolciyl
3. Glenn Smith & Mareike Kesselheim

BIG MARATHON – MEN
1. Fabio Capurro & Alberto Cavalleri
2. Michael Allday & Bruce Houston
3. Stefan Edl & Christian Schaner

BIG MARATHON – WOMEN
1. Angelika Rainer & Barbara Zwerger

BIG MARATHON – MIX
1. Roberta Longo & Albertini Eric
2. Wiz Fineron & Alice Thompson
3. Sergey Tarason & Maiia Piratinskaia

PROject competition 2013 athletes
Men: Klemen Becan, Kilian Fischhuber, Daniel Jung, Alexander Megos, Gabriele Moroni, James Pearson, Silvio Reffo, Piotr Schab, Daniel Woods
Women: Sabine Bacher, Nina Caprez, Caroline Ciavaldini, Sasha DiGiulian, Johanna Ernst, Melissa Le Nevé, Anna Stöhr, Barbara Zangerl

To find out more, check out www.thenorthfacejournal.com/category/kalymnos