News

19 Jan 2008

THE FIRST DAY OF THE COMPETITION

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The temperature is dropping, ice is keeping perfectly and the climbers have already began doing their best on the fantastic artificial structure built for Ice Master World Cup. Everything suggest that an extraordinary edition of this competition, unique in Italy, will take place this year, too.
Only 18 of the 67 climbers registered for the "Difficulty" competition remained. Today, they will compete in the semifinals.
The preliminary heat yesterday °opened hostilities and took to a graduated selection of athletes, necessary to choose the best climbers in the world that will compete during the two culminating days of the event, when thousands of spectators will come

and visit the Daone Valley, a small but suggestive valley close to Adamello Brenta Nature Park.

 The athletes that competed today could neither spare themselves nor divert their minds because the two routes mapped out by the staff, lead by Attilio Munari, were really demanding.
They were so demanding that even the outgoing World Champion , the Ukrainian Evgeny Kryvosheytsev "kicked the bucket", qualifying only in the 10th position in the second group. The same happened to other important climbers, such as the Austrian Falbesoner and Hainz from Alto Adige; they both reached the top in the first round, but not in the second one. A good proof by the Italian athletes, three of them qualify for the tomorrow competition, Mauro Bole from Trieste, Mario Prinoth from Fassa Valley and Herbert Klammer (3rd in the past edition) from Alto Adige. Russia and Switzerland are the most hardened nations with five climbers: Maxim Tomilov, Alexey Dengin, Sergey Tarasov, Alexey Tomilov and Mikhail Melnikov on one side, Simon Anthamatten, Jack Muller, Cedric Lachat, Andreas Steindl and Patrick Aufdenblatten on the other one. Also the Spanish Cordova, the Bulgarian Borisov, the Slovenian Krajnc and the Korean Park may have an important role. Austria counts one sole climber among the semi-finalists, but we are speaking of a bigwig, considering that Markus Bendler won past edition.

During the qualification heat the climbers, divided into two groups ( created taking into consideration the score of each athlete), had to compete in two different routs, with many "dry-tooling" areas, as it will be tomorrow, too. The organizing committee decided, in fact, to preserve as more as possible the most spectacular area of the structure, that is the best prepared ice area, for the finals. The first nine climbers of each group will compete in the semi-finals. All the other athletes will go back home, only after having praised the other athletes. When the competition is over, in fact, any rivalry among the climbers disappear.

The evening will be liven up with the opening ceremony and with the "Fanfara della Brigata Alpina Julia", which music entertained athletes and spectators during the lightning of the torch and the blessing of the ice axes.
Today, the female competition will start, too. Only eight men and four women will compete in the finals "Difficulty" on Sunday, the other climbers will be only spectators! Moreover, tomorrow the athletes will also fight in the "Speed" competition whit the immediate election of the winners: 20 men registered (9 of which Russian, there is any Italian climber) and 8 women (5 of them are Russian, Anna Torretta represents Italy).

Here is the detailed program of the competition: at 9 o'clock semi-finals "Difficulty" men, at 10.15 qualifications "Speed" women. At 14.30 qualifications "Speed" men and at 3 p.m. qualifications "Difficulty" women. At 6 p.m. parallel finals "Speed".
At 6 p.m., as already mentioned, night tour with snow shoes with starting and arrival point at Ice Master outdoor village. Later, there will be the evening meal with mountain songs with Daone "Ana Re di Castello" Chorus.
At 9 p.m. there is a conference evening with Manuela Di Centa. Closing with Storo "Valchiese" Chorus
.

Classifica STARTING LIST dopo le qualificazioni uomini:

MEN STARTING LIST FOR THE QUALIFICATION (GROUP A)-"DIFFICULTY"

MEN STARTING LIST FOR THE QUALIFICATION (GROUP B)-"DIFFICULTY"

MEN SEMIFINAL STARTING LIST "DIFFICULTY"

WOMEN STARTING LIST FOR THE QUALIFICATION/SEMIFINAL "DIFFICULTY"

MEN STARTING LIST FOR SPEED

WOMEN  STARTING LIST SPEED

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