Indoor Weekly: Watch 2018 IFSC Moscow World Cup
The second IFSC Boulder and first Speed World Cup will be taking place in Moscow this weekend and Canada is ready.
Despite not having their best performances, many of Team Canada have shaken the cob webs from off season and are ready for Russia.
Sean McColl, Seb Lazure, Will Johnson and Nathan Smith will be competing in Boulder and McColl in Speed.
IFSC Report
After celebrating 70 years of Sport Climbing events last year, Moscow welcomes the best Bouldering and Speed athletes next weekend to Russia, where the earliest Speed climbing competitions were organised.
The first climbing competitions were organised in the former USSR in the late 1940s. These events focused on Speed climbing and were mostly dedicated to Soviet climbers until the 1980s. The first Climbing World Cup in Moscow took place in 1994, with the most recent edition occurring in 2010.
Russian athletes have continued to excel on the world stage, in Bouldering and especially Speed. Since the inception of the IFSC in 2007, Russia has topped the national team ranking every year. Iuliia Kaplina currently holds the women’s world record (7.32 seconds), and Vladislav Deulin secured the season title in the final races last year. Anna Tsyganova is the reigning world champion and the women’s Combined winner of the 70th Anniversary event, and Speed legends Stanislav Kokorin and Mariia Krasavina have both won multiple season titles.
Star Speed athletes from around the world will challenge the Russian team in Moscow on Sunday. Reza Alipourshenazandifar (IRI) set the men’s world record last season (5.48 seconds), and Anouck Jaubert (FRA) returns after winning the season title last year. Also keep an eye on Indonesia’s Aspar Jaelolo and Aries Susanti Rahayu, who climbed fast at the final IFSC Speed World Cups of 2017 in Wujiang and Xiamen.
Moscow also hosts the second stage of the Bouldering season on Saturday and Sunday. The Japanese team, first in the national team Bouldering ranking last year, continued to perform well in Meiringen. Miho Nonaka won gold in the 2018 debut, and her teammates Tomoa Narasaki and Akiyo Noguchi joined her on the podium. Slovenia also excelled in the Bouldering opener, with Jernej Kruder winning his first IFSC World Cup and Combined season champion Janja Garnbret beginning the season with a silver medal.
In the spotlight in Moscow will be Aleksei Rubtsov. The men’s Combined winner of the 70th Anniversary event finished 3rd in the Bouldering season the past two years and already won a bronze medal in Meiringen. For the full list of starting athletes and photos of the 70th Anniversary event last year, visit the official Moscow event page on the IFSC website.
12 qualified athletes for the Youth Olympic Games Buenos Aires 2018 will compete at IFSC World Cup Moscow, including youth Speed world champion (Youth A) Aleksandra Kalucka (POL) and youth Bouldering world champion (Youth A) Filip Schenk (ITA).
Three athletes from China will join them, Asian youth Combined champion YuFei Pan among them. From Russia, Luiza Emeleva and Elena Krasovskaia will climb in both disciplines in front of their home crowd. Also keep an eye on Mao Nakamura (JPN), who climbed in Meiringen semi-finals last weekend. Sandra Lettner (AUT), 4th in Meiringen, is not on the start list.
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