This past weekend on the mountain plateau of Qinghai, China the 2008 Lead World Cup kicked off in spectacular and surprising style.

It was an event that could be a harbinger of the season ahead. 16-year-old Austrian Johanna Ernst, in her first adult lead comp, toped every route from quals to the finish jug of the finals; besting the experience of Natalija Gros and the skill of Angela Eiter.

Ernst is the youngest person to ever finish 1st place in a Lead World Cup. As of last year Ernst was still competing and dominating in the European youth series and of Saturday was world ranked at 21st.

“At the beginning I was a bit nervous, but then suddenly everything went super.” Ernst said after the event while picking up her $5000 first place check.

Japanese Chief Setter Sinshuki Kimura and his crew did an excellent job of separating the women’s field from the very beginning. Qualifiers saw 4 tops out of 23; the semi route had two girls on the top and a slight sticky point with four ties at the 44-; finals had an absolutely perfect breakdown between the eight women with only Ernst waving from the top.

“The route wasn’t very easy. Sometimes it was very hard. I can’t believe it yet that I won,” she reported to China Daily News. “It’s amazing.”

Time Out

To make route comps more exciting for spectators and to speed up the competition IFSC officials have instituted a new 6-minute time limit for climbers to complete the route.

This new rule bit Austrian powerhouse Angela Eiter as she attempted to study the route while on the route. She timed-out, was called off and never made it to finals.

This could have been cause for concern among the setters as they might have set a too long or too complicated a route for the new time limit. But seeing as Eiter was the only climber to time-out, the fault lies with her.

8264.com has this video of Eiter climbing her quali route.

Man Size Mistakes

On the men’s side of things there were more surprises as Ramon Puigblanque (ESP) and Jorg Verhoeven (NED) missed a clip on the finals route and barely got off the ground. This left two of the Worlds strongest and favorites to win at the bottom of the pack.

This mishap could have been due to the abnormal three-foot long draws at every clip. But again only two of the eight climbers missed the clip. Even though it’s quite unusual for climbers at this level to foul up the simple task of clipping a bolt it should give the setters something to think about next time.

The relatively easy qualy route had six tops; semi’s was a bit stiffer with only Puigblanque clipping the anchors (the last he would clip all weekend) with all others falling near the top within 2.5 points of each other.

Another Spanish climber of interest was Patxi Usobiaga who arguably is the strongest competitive climber in the World. However, he came to China with a pot of weak sauce and only made it about half way up the quali route and fell with the rest of the crowd on the semi.

Coming into finals the setters had a tie between Austrian Jacob Schubert and Japanese climber Sachi Anma to break. When the chalk settled the tie was broke, clips were missed, Usobiaga was in fourth place and Czech hero Tomas Mrazek was swinging from the highest point.

The typically cynical Mrazek said of the routes, “Good, plus hard. It’s more interesting for the public and for the TV to see”. That’s as much praise as any setter is ever going to get from the Czech giant.

On the other hand Sachi Anma thought of the finals route, “…the routes in games held in Asian countries are not very good. But this route is very good and this wall is also very nice,” said Anma, “I was surprised when I saw this wall.”

Watch Mr. Mrazek hike his quali route in this video from the good folks at 8264.com

Speedy Zhong

A new World record for 15 meter speed was set by Chinese climber Qixin Zhong with a stunning time of 7.35 seconds. That time beat the old World record, set also by Zhong, by 1.41.

Watch this crazy video from 8264.com of Zhong beating the World record. It looks as if Zhong has a jet pack on!

But not to be outdone by her compatriot, Chun-Hua Li flew up the wall with a time of 10.58 killing the previous women’s record by more than two seconds!

Even though the Chinese team didn’t place climbers higher than 17th in the Lead portion, they did crush the speed wall. China swept the podium placing 1,2,3 in the men and women’s events.

Even a speed hater can’t deny that sending 5.11c in just over seven seconds is pretty amazing.

Made for TV

But it wasn’t just the local spectator that stood beneath the mammoth wall to watch the show. The comp was broadcast live on China Central Television (cctv.com) to a much broader audience.

Lead podium results:
Men:
1. Tomas Mrazek (CZE)
2. Jakob Schubert (AUT)
3. Jorg Verhoeven (NED) Sachi Anma (JPN)
Women:
1. Johanna Ernst (AUT)
2. Natalija Gros (SLO)
3. Charlotte Durif (FRA)

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