In the rustic and ancient village of Hall, in the Austrian Tyrol, sits the Salzlager warehouse. This impressive building, once used to store salt mined from the near by hills, is held up by twelve massive salt pillars.

But this past weekend it was the Worlds best boulderers and 1000 spectators that raised the roof at the season opener of the IFSC bouldering World Cup.

The Austrians are known for their top level climbing and they showed it by taking the top podium spots. Killian Fishubber, the raining World bouldering champion and 19 year-old Anna Stohr came away with wins.

But nipping at the heals of the Austrians were the Russians, Yulia Abramchuk & Dmitry Sharafutdinov both coming in at 2nd place. Sharafutdinov was the only climber to dispatch all problems in the men’s qualification round.

Daniel Woods (US), came in 3rd and looks to be making a comeback after his dismal performance at last years World Championships in Spain. Jerome Meyer (FRA) toped out all four in semifinals but it was not enough for a podium and instead came in 5th.

The Setters

But the Austrians aren’t just good climbers they are also known for their solid routesetting. German, Maxi Klaus was Chief Setter for this event and was assisted by Austrians Reini Fichtinger and Martin Hammerer with help from American setter Kynan Waggoner.

These setters had plenty of experience to draw on to separate the 82 men and 53 women who showed up in Hall to compete. And with three rounds of competition and a total of 13 problems per category the setters had plenty of moves to get that perfect separation.

Even though Japanese climber, Akiyo Noguchi (who toped all 5 qualifiers) slapped the finish hold on women’s final #4 it went unsent by all of the girls. The same goes with the men’s final problem which shut down all comers leaving the finish jug chalk free.

Kynan Waggoner said after the event, “That is about as close as you can get to a great result for Finals without actually having anybody finish the problem.”

So what were the grades of the problems? Hard to say since the setters know the World Cup field so well that most problems are never given a grade and are instead set purely by feel.

However, the problems probably ranged from 7b+ to 8b for the men and 7a to 7c+ for the women.

You can find the complete results and enough pictures and video of the event to waste your entire day on, by going to the official Hall website, www.salzlager.at.

Future Events

Next up on the World Cup circuit is the first speed comp of the year which will be held in Trento, Italy April 27.

Here’s a sneak peak at the Trento speed comp.

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And the next chance to see World Cup bouldering is the always interesting show in Reunion, France which will be held May 2nd & 3rd. Peep this cool video of the problems at last years Reunion WC.

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