Arco Rock Master 2006 report

Arco Rock Masters 2006: The Arco Rock Masters was held on the 1st weekend in September and brought together some of the world´s leading climbers for both a competition and awards ceremony. Every year Arco in Italy hosts a prestigious invitation-only climbing competition (routes, bouldering and speed) but this year the organizers decided to introduce a new awards night to recognize the best indoor and outdoor rock climber of the year.The Piolet D´or (see news here) is a similar award given to the most significant ascent of the year, but is largely dominated by mountaineering achievements. The new award was voted for by magazines from around the world (well mostly Italian – see here for full list) with no British representation in this inaugural year. The winners of this year´s award were very interesting with women taking both awards, beating off nominees such as Dani Andrana, Chris Sharma and Thomas Mrazek: Outdoor Salewa Rock Award – Josune Bereziartu(34). Josune has been the women who has not only helped push female climbing to a new high standard but to THE highest standard in rock climbing, having reached the dizzy heights of 9a and onsighting 8b+. La Sportiva Competition Award – Angela Eiter(20). Angela has practically dominated the competition scene in the last few years, winning almost everything there is to win. Arco Rock Competition: This year saw the 20th Arco rock competition (oldest, continuous, climbing competition in the world) and many of the world´s top competition climbers were invited. Winners of the various disciplines were: Leading: Womens – Sandrine Levet (France) Mens – Ramon Julian (Spain) Bouldering:Womens – Anna Stohr (Austria)Mens – Nalle Hukkataival (Finland) To read more about this event and to read some fantastic Italian prose describing the day of competition itself, go to www.rockmaster.com

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