At the World Sports Climbing Championships in Innsbruck, five Swiss junior athletes made the leap into the final and performed well. The medals were unfortunately out. Nevertheless, the young Swiss delegation returns richly to Switzerland. Overall, over the past two weeks, 1000 has been battling for world championship titles in lead, bouldering and speed, as well as in combination in the new Olympic format.
It shouldn't be the most successful World Cup for the Swiss junior team, at least in terms of medals. Five Swiss athletes made it into a final, but unfortunately it wasn't quite enough for the winners' podium. In view of the outstanding Japanese, the entry into a World Cup final this year was obviously a particularly big hurdle. With 23 podiums and eight titles, Team Japan has a terrific record and every nation is currently asking itself for its further planning how such an impressive performance development is possible in such a short time.
Swiss team without medal win
The SAC Swiss Climbing Team traveled with 17 athletes between 14 and 19 years to the World Cup. In the juniors Michelle Hulliger and Joanne Brinkmann reached the lead final. Hulliger climbed to seventh place and Brinkmann finished on 8. Alina Ring unfortunately missed the final by one place and finished ninth. Also Sascha Lehmann, who played after a shoulder injury his first competition, climbed confidently into the final. Unfortunately, he made a mistake in estimating a grip. The 9. Final rank is still a very good result for the Burgdorf. Tim Bucher also made it to the lead final in the Youth B category. The St.Gallen climbed to 8 in the youngest age category.
Also the boulder-final of the juniors was represented with a Swiss athlete. The Frenchman Baptiste Ometz was still on the podium after a strong start, but in the end it was barely enough and he finished sixth.
In the further balance of the Swiss team, it is important to mention the various pleasing semi-final qualifications of Joëlle Niederberger and Zoé Egli in the category Youth B as well as Hannah Hermann, Annalisa Tognon, Louis Bétrisey and Julien Clémence in the Youth A category.
Choices in combination for the first time about Olympic format
Six junior and junior B athletes each qualified for the final combination competition in the new Olympic format. Sofya Yokoyama narrowly missed this goal with ninth place. In addition to bouldering, she also convinced with a shiny 13. Rank in the discipline Lead.
In the category Youth A the Top 20 from the disciplines Bouldering, Lead and Speed qualified for the additional event, in order to identify the first 13 tickets for the Youth Olympic Games 2018. The five Swiss athletes in this category missed the top 20. Annalisa Tognon took place 29, Hannah Hermann place 31 and Sara Werthmüller place 50. Philipp Geisenhoff ranked 38 in the men's category and Julien Clémence took rank 41.
The World Championships in Innsbruck clearly showed how important a good result is even in the two-strongest discipline of an athlete and how much different nations have already been involved in the discipline of speed. Diverse top athletes from the lead and bouldering disciplines reached speeds that are still a long way off for many Swiss athletes.
Results in the overview
The detailed results can be found on the website of the International sports climbing association.
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Credits: image and text SAC