Rätikon Boulder Master & Munich World Cup

Coming back from the South African winter was quite a shock to me. Temperatures in Switzerland were in the thirties range and even the nights were ruthlessly hot and humid. After sleeping in my own bed again for just one night I was already on my way to Klosters for the Rätikon Boulder Master. This was the competition’s inaugural event and the athletes as well as the spectators were thrilled to find a world class event, flawlessly organized with great setting and a fantastic venue. The Swiss Championships for the youth were carried out the same weekend and it was great to see so many talented young kids, some of them already moving as if they’d been climbing for ages. Our qualifier format was a boulderjam, meaning 1.5h for 8 problems set by Manuel Hassler and his team. The sun was burning down hot and merciless but conditions were the same for everyone. I did 5 problems in 12 tries which unfortunately wasn’t good enough to make finals and I finished in 8th place. I was very happy though to see my good friend Alannah from Canada make it to the next round, she got in really good shape during our trip to Rocklands and she sure deserved that spot in finals! Overall I’m not unhappy with my climbing, I just wasn’t climbing efficiently enough and I needed a few tries too many but it was a good preparation for the upcoming World Cup in Munich. So when it was time for finals, I found myself in the unfamiliar position of commenting the live stream, a new experience for me which didn’t go as badly as I thought it might. The finalists put on a great show, with the men’s problems being slightly too hard but exciting too watch all the same. In the end, there was no big surprise in the women’s field with Jule Wurm taking the victory, followed by Rebekka Stotz who put on a great performance after just squeezing into finals in 6th place, congratulations! The winner for the men was GuiGui, followed by Jernej Kruder and Jan Hojer. Again a huge thanks to Marino Bucher and his team for hosting such an awesome event and thank you Nina for the invitation, we are all looking forward to next year!

Photo: Eddie Fowke


Remo’s younger sister Marilu on her way to the podium in the U12 category

Photos: David Schweizer

My skin was not getting along very well with the heat and the sudden change back to plastic and my fingertips just started to shed layers of skin. Nevertheless, I decided to join Remo to go rope climbing the next day. We went to a newer area which is not very well known but offers a few really nice and hard routes. After all the dyno practice in Rocklands I was especially psyched on „Doppel D“, a route with a big jump in the end followed by a fairly scary slab. To everyone’s surprise (including my own), I stuck the dyno third try and worked out all the other moves as well. The only thing missing now is a little bit of endurance but I’ll be back!

Not even a week later, it was time for the last bouldering World Cup of the season in Munich. It was one of the biggest events in history with 210 athletes registered in total, out of which 86 were female. After watching the men’s qualifiers in the morning, I was incredibly psyched to climb, the problems looked amazing and there was a pretty big crowd supporting the athletes already. I grinned when I walked up to the first problem and saw that it was a dyno. It gave me confidence to start the competition with a flash and after not getting to the bonus on number two, I was very pleased to be one out of only five girls who topped the tricky slab on number three. The fourth problem was all about crimps and I was happy to get to the bonus hold despite my finger injury. My foot slipped on the balancy mantle finish of the last problem but I got straight back on and finished it second try. This was good enough to qualify in 11th place for semi finals the next day alongside my teammates Petra and Jara! I climbed okay in semi finals but unfortunately I didn’t get a top and ended up in 19th place. Congratulations to Jara for placing 15th in her first semi finals, what a great effort! Looking back I’m very satisfied with making semis in such a big event and I’m already looking forward to next season, there’s still plenty of time to improve and work on my weaknesses until then. For now I have decided to do a bit more roped climbing. We have even planned a short trip to Rodellar in September – can’t wait!

Photos: Eddie Fowke


Photo: www.siked.nl