After 2 days of excellent climbing in the qualifiers the comp climaxed with the last four in the mens final. The first of the four was Markus Bendler who got some air time when the corner of one of the drilled ice blocks broke off so 8th place for Markus! Then came Evgeny Kryvosheytsev who fought his way to the penultimate ice bollard before being timed out, on the way he held a one handed fall on to a stein pull during a tricky section high up on the route. I didn't know much (anything!) about climbing in Korea but they entered a quality team in the comp and it was Park Hee-Yong who climbed fastest in the final and who knows where he would have finished if it wasn't for the tricky stein pull. As it was Park spent a long time getting past this sequence and didn't quite get as high as Evgeny before his 12 minutes was up. With only Simon Anthamatten left to climb Evgeny was in the lead. Simon tore up the route using his hands on some of the real rock holds (learn this trick, they were all at it). His instinctive climbing style was enerjetic and dynamic and he stuck moves that looked like they were about to go badly wrong. He was blasting up the route finding extra in every move. Simon got an axe in the same bollard that Evgeny reached and, suddenly, everything cut loose leaving him hanging one handed, he rolled his shoulder and hooked the other axe in. At this point the crowd went loopy, it was saturday night, a home comp for Simon and the climbing was spectacular. As the clock counted the last seconds Simon had got in to the same position on the bollard as Evgeny but he had found a bit more strength and height to get a winning extra clip.
Simon Anthamatten on the last bollard of the board
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