IFSC Climbing World Cup Baku 2014: 2013 Champions back in top podium spot

This weekend, May 3-4, Baku, the lowest lying national capitol in the world, hosted the second World Cup of the 2014 IFSC season. With Speed and Boulder on the docket, our climbers were given the chance for a rematch of the previous week's line-up in Chongqing, China.

Jan Hojer: Auch in Baku auf dem Podium (c) Heiko WilhelmThis weekend at National Flag Square in Baku (AZE), IFSC sport climbers gave us a glimpse of what the human body can do, scrambling up 15 meters in under 10 seconds in Speed and contorting their bodies with both grace and explosive power in Boulder.

A close rivalry ending on a judge's call

In the women's field, everything came down the final boulder problem, as Anna Stöhr and Shauna Coxsey both flashed the first three of the final problems. After Stöhr flashed the final women's problem, Coxsey was called down from the wall due to her foot touching the mat during her first movement on the wall. Coxsey topped the problem on her first attempt after the call, but her appeal was denied, bumping her to third instead of first.

Anna Stöhr took gold and Akiyo Noguchi silver

The men's problems featured lots of large volumes, some big reaches that favored the taller climbers, and tough compressions where the shorter climbers excelled. Our 2013 overall champion, Russia's Dmitrii Sharafutdinov, took gold, followed by Germany's Jan Hojer in second and Russia's Rustam Gelmanov in third.

Speed demons put to the test

In Speed, the men's podiums were hugely different from last week in Chongqing, due to a few false starts and falls. Danyl Boldyrev of Ukraine took gold, with Russia's Evgenii Vaitcekhovskii in second and China's Qixin Zhong in third.

On the women's side, last week's Russia's gold and silver medalists from Chongqing switched spots, with Mariia Krasavina in first and Iuliia Kaplina in second. Anouck Jaubert of France took third again for her second podium spot of the season.

More information on the event, as well as replays and photos, at: www.ifsc-climbing.org

As always, we are present on Twitter during competitions, so reach out with the hashtag #IFSCwc.

The next IFSC World Cup will be held in Grindelwald (SUI) and will feature the first solo Bouldering competition of the season. For 2014 rankings and a detailed schedule, head to: www.ifsc-climbing.org.

Women Boulder
1 Stöhr Anna AUT 4t4
2 Noguchi Akiyo JPN 4t5
3 Coxsey Shauna GBR 4t5
4 Wurm Juliane GER 4t7
5 Markovic Mina SLO 2t4
6 Puccio Alex USA 1t2

Men Boulder
1 Sharafutdinov Dmitrii RUS 3t3
2 Hojer Jan GER 2t2
3 Gelmanov Rustam RUS 2t2
4 Fischhuber Kilian AUT 2T5
5 Bonder Jeremy FRA 1t4
6 Fujii Kokoro JPN 1t8

überwww.wettklettern.at
QuelleMeriwether Burruss (IFSC), Foto: Heiko Wilhelm