News

05 Jan 2009

THE ICE STRUCTURE IS FROZEN

  The new ice structure is now reality: a few days before the start of the Ice Master the volunteers, who are the real champions of the competition, have given the finishing touch to the preparation of the ice for the competition.

The highest Ice Climbing Stadium ever built is ready. After building the structure, which is a record for its dimensions (30 metres wide and 25 metres high for the ‘difficulty’ competition, with a 35 meters development of “pulling rope” in overhang), the Ice Master World Cup volunteers finished the task of “icing” during the last hours. 

«Everything is ready – proudly underlines the President of the organizing committee Romolo Ghezzi – an event that is the symbol of the entire Daone and Chiese valleys is going to take place, an occurrence which makes us well known all over the World. This year the weather, and above all the harsh temperatures, have helped us and we are ready for the opening of the 8th edition of the World Cup.

A big thank obviously goes to the volunteers».  They are our champions and I want to thank them in behalf of the entire Committee for their availability and for their hard work, despite the very cold weather which these days has been a real challenge for their hands and bodies, due to the fact that the average temperature was 10 degrees below zero.

The “icemen”, as they are called in the Daone Valley, have worked every evening and night for over a month. Firstly they created the artificial snow, then they put the ice and shaped the structure, and finally they retouched it with the so called handmade "enamelling" of every frozen passage except for the dry tooling ones). But who are the “icemen”, and where are they from? Not only from the Daone Valley, but also from the entire Chiese Valley, from Caffaro and other neighbouring villages. 

In the meantime we have also received the first subscriptions of important athletes.

The first ones who have confirmed their participation are renowned, since they are the winners of last year’s edition, Jenny Lavarda from Bassano (Vicenza) and Markus Bendler from Austria. Among the Italians there will also be the histrionic Mauro “Bubu” Bole from Trieste and Mario Prinoth from the Fassa Valley; in addition we will have Simon Wandeler and Petra Müller from Switzerland, Alerei Tomilow from Russia and Stephanie Mureau from France. Among the various countries we have registered up to now there are: Russia, Croatia, Belgium, Scotland, Ukraine, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France and Korea.