Also on Mountain.RU: Yekaterinburg. Europe championship. Women 1/2 final. Portfolio Yekaterinburg. Europe Championship. Semi-final. Men. Portfolio Yekaterinburg. Europe Championship. Portfolio

The girls in the shoes on the platforms as high as a step, wearing mini-skirts only, white as a sheet (up to blue) strong hips are stretched from under.
Heavy shower, there is the slush filled with occasional raisins of sprawling cardboard underfoot… Everything is well-forgotten and well-known. Except that the trees have become taller.

The Europe Championship. For the first time ever!.. Hurry up!.. Some unintentional analogues with Chamonix: the loud music, the crowded square, fireworks, some hang gliders/BASE jumpers/sky divers flying in the sky, and the expectation of a festival. So the lack of any publicity in the streets is a bit surprising. But never mind.

We are at the sports center on the bank of the river Iset’. The windows are looking out on The Cathedral erected on the very spot where there used to be the infamous so-called Ipatjev’s house (where the Bolsheviks sentenced to be shot the Tsar’ family), then the house was pulled down in the troubled times of Boris Eltsin’s epoch.

The security guards at the entrance are all friendly and loyal, without any desire to look into the backpacks. Gradually the weather is getting better.

***

The first complaints: Simon Vandeler finds the profile of the trainer/simulator wall rather out of date and is unsatisfied with the fact that there are not enough pegs/hooks/snags, particularly for the vertical climbing.

Difficulty.

Maya Vidmar

Some low and melancholic classical music accompanies the performances. It seems that there are just the only two phrases in the announcer’s vocabulary. They are “Now, N. starts his climbing” and “Now, N. has finished his climbing”. Some times the word “attempt” could be heard.

The first losers: The Spaniards Patxi Usobianga and Ramon Hulian Puigblanque fail to qualify.

Semi-final puts out of the competition six more fighters from the leading ten.

Tomaz Mrazek says,"It is boring. Both to take part and look at. The wall does not meet the requirements of the day. That’s why the routes are like that. The music is boring. There are very few spectators. Snacks are either scarce or not available at all in the Isolation Zone. It is a shame to host a Europe Championship like this. Nothing common to the modern style. The competition like this run 20 years ago. I won’t go to Russia next time."

Eugeny Ovchinnikov.- "The movement looks like a bouldering one. There should always be a possibility of a reverse step for each obstacle on the way. All we have here is a classic "boulder jump". What is the reason for that? They made the upper part of the route difficult enough to prove oneself."

***

David Lama

- Who has made the route ready?
- The lower level is Vandeler’s, the upper one – Klenov’s.
- Are there any complaints about the upper part?
- I don’t have any. Ask Lama.

***

Alexandre Chabot - The wall as well as the routes and the very organization of the event are good for nothing. It is the most poorly organized competition I have ever taken part in. And they have the nerve to host the Europe Championship in a way like this.

An unspoken rule: We can call an fortuitousness the situation when one or two habituйs of finals fail to pass a semi-final route. But the failure of the six out of the leading ten can be attributed only to poor setting.

Natali Gross

The German team coach.

- I believe they are not the routes only that matter. They must and can be various in styles. It is the wall that did not allow the hosts to devise something exciting. So they composed their routes to be mostly high-technical ones.
- Technical enough? I would say unexciting and unimpressive.
- Maybe. The problem lies in the field of organization, and in this case- in the lack of it at all. Everything arises a lot of questions, from the hotels, buses, the lack of information (to say only about the regulations, which were not settled until the very starts), of proper music, spectators, publicity, a commentator to kick the watchers etc.

The female semi-finals are being held up to the mark with the exception of a couple of arguable points on overstepping by Angela Eiter and Martina Cufar.

***

David Lama

Get some fun.

In a diner:
- Ask David Lama whether he eats meet.
- What for?
- Just ask. I’m on the brink of a great discovery. You know Lama is a Sherpa. They have not been eating meat for generations. And here David was born. And they feed him on meat. Get it?

***

People in the street are very friendly and asking without ceremony (like if you are one of their friends): if there are any stores down the street Just to have some beer.

Or one of the security staff, - "How well can you run? Do pass by, I will hold the gate open for you".

In the morning at a bus stop. The two suffering from hangover, - ‘Will you lend me 10 rubles, can you?’

And as for the children, they are all amazingly pretty fair-haired ones :)

The finals.

For Russian-Ukranian Teams the good things are that in the final there are two Russians (Sergey Terentyev and Dmitriy Sharafutdinov), an Ukranian (Valeriy Krukov), a Belorussian (Sergey Shaferov), a Slovenian, two Swiss and an Austrian.
For the young climbers it is a unique opportunity to compete in the finals to gain self-confidence.
The bad things are that for everybody but Lama the final route ended as far as at the eighth traverse.

One more disputable point emerged while estimating the results of D. Sharafutdinov and S. Terentyev. Terentyev’s appeal was turned down.

One more unspoken rule reads as follow: Members of the same team arguing with each other are not supposed to their protests.

THE BOULDERING

Sergey Terentiev

The morning. Climbers loaded with their equipment are waiting for a bus to come. At this same time they announce about put-offs of the starts. The men’s starts - for the next day, the women’s- for after the lunchtime.

Everyone won’t believe it.

Everyone is eager to climb.

The lunchtime. The referee’s committee reads out its “verdict”: The competition in bouldering is cancelled. An unprecedented event!

The official version "The Competition Jury has made a decision to cancel of bouldering competition because the safety of the competitors can not be guaranteed with the existing mats."

Raphael Cabanne

Raphael Cabanne refuses to put his signature under the “go- ahead” list. The situation is still can be rescued but the head arbiter won’t take the responsibility upon himself either.

The gym stays open.
The routes are exposed to viewing.
No chances left.

Russian route-setters (A. Klenov, A. Chertov) are trying to sort out the conflict suggesting that the competition should be carried out in two laps (instead of the planned three) on the next day. But Raphael Cabanne is having it his own way.

Meeting.

In disorderly ranks the foreign climbers are coming with a slogan “No more shit competition!”
The mood is like that of a traveler being late for a flight. The situation is heating up. Everyone is in search for someone else to blame.

Cabanne makes the statement, - "As early as this morning I said that the mats did not meet the safety requirements. They promised to fix everything not later than until lunchtime, but failed. There is one more issue. At first I wanted to settle it between us two, myself and Mr. Piratinsky, but now am ready to make it public. Yesterday, through the organizers’ fault, I was able to start making the routes ready not until the evening. The work was in progress through the night, which required extra 270 euros. The answer to this was a refusal".

***

Caroline Siavaldiny

On the unexpectedly given day-off they decide to hold the demo performances in bouldering. All members of the Russian team are told into the participation in the form of an ultimatum. "If anybody does not participate, they could forget about climbing at all"

The advert for "international commercial starts" pinned to the information board reads "DO NOT PARTICIPATE!"

The world champion Salavat Rakhmetov and the Europe champion Olga Bibik don’t turn out to the starts. The Ukrainian team are watching from their seats in the hall.
The start is a joint one. The routes are open.

***

Alexander Pyratinsky

A question to the head of Jury.

- How come that the claims to the mat’s quality arose just now, immediately before the starts? The level of readiness to the competitions of such a rank must be a matter of the highest priority to the ICC members, mustn’t it?
- Here we have made a mistake. Certainly, the ICC members should be in charge of having everything made ready and at the highest level possible. And, as far as Mr. Piratinsky is the Vice-president of the ICC, everything was thought to be under control…

Charlotte Durif

What we have:

Here we have two fundamentally different positions that clashed. The first – to strictly follow the given rules and the second – to keep holding it as it is.

Giulio Malfer, Italy - "We should have two people at the steer: a managing director and a policy-maker. We mustn’t have cancelled the event. Back in Roveretto, we do not have proper matting either, if nagging. But the competition in bouldering is held yearly. So many climbers are sent, so much money is spent. What a pity!"

Alexander Klenov

Alexander Klenov, Russia - "At a certain moment Cabanne turned out to be too consistent. And then it was not the matter of mats any longer".

Nataliya Perlova Ukraine - "I cannot imagine what may be our excuses to our local sports federation. The bouldering is treated as a stepdaughter, as it is. After such a situation with this event, they may stop supporting this sport financially.
I know too well how hard it was for the young climbers to save money for this trip. I can’t understand how they dare to have cancelled sports events. Serik Kazbekov, for example, missed The Cup competition deliberately in order to get ready for this Championship.
I agree that the organization was very poor. By having cancelled the event, Cabanne let down mostly the athletes.
The people were coming excited, getting prepared enthusiastically… One should have compromised and to buy some proper mats. And only after that to make it out in the ICC why the organizational prearrangement did not correspond to the standard".

Instead of a P.S. The ICC has come to a decision to hold the Europe Championship in bouldering during the current year.
It is firmly determined to work out a code of technical requirements for a hosting part.