Piolet D´Or Nominees Announced

The nominations for the 16th annual Piolet D´Or have been announced today. The famous, and sometimes controversial, award is bestowed to the most ´significant´ mountaineering ascent of the year.Historically, the award has been presented to large teams who have used siege tactics to conquer the higher mountains of the world. In recent years the most controversial award was to the 50 strong Russian team that sieged the previously unclimbed North Face of Jannu in Nepal. This year´s award is significant in that for the first time it fully comprises ´light and fast´ small teams that made daring and rapid ascents of big routes. Full list: > Kedarnath Dome, SE Pillar – Ian Parnell & Tim Emmett (GB) (read news report here) > Chomo Lhari, NW Pillar – Marko Prezelj & Boris Lorencic (Slovenia) > Co Oyu, SE Face – Solo new route from Pavle Kozjek (Slovenia) > Manaslu, NE Face – Denis Urbuko & Sergey Samoilov (Kazakhstan) > Shinga Charpa, N Ridge – Igor Chaplinsky, Andrey Rodiontsev, and Orest Verbitsky (Ukraine) The award has only twice been awarded to British Teams since its inception in 1991 (Mick Fowler & Paul Ramsden, Siguniang, China in 2002, and Andy Parkin & Francoise Marsigny, Cerro Torre, Patagonia in 1994). British nominations are pretty rare and so Tim Emmett´s and Ian Parnell´s nomination is a significant recognition of the difficulties and impressiveness of their route. The award will be announced in late January in Grenoble, France. source: climbing.com

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