Farewell to 2012 Lead World Cup series

On November 17-18, in Slovenian Kranj, the final edition of 2012 Lead World Cup took place. The location is already a kind of tradition for this event since last year’s attempt to move the final comp to Barcelona did not end up very well. On the last weekend, thanks to the experience of Kranj crew, everything went rather smooth and the rivalry itself was quite exciting. During this season, rope climbing experts could fight for their ranking in nine World Cup editions. There were also World Championships in Paris in the middle of September and the prestigious Arco RockMaster event.

 

The impressive climbing arena in Kranj (photo: Stanko Gruden/worldcupkranj.com)
 

Before the competition in Kranj, the podium of the general ranking was still a matter of speculation since the differences in the numbers of points  were rather slight and even after the semi-finals that took place on Saturday afternoon one couldn’t be 100% sure who would win the whole WC series. In the women’s category, only two athletes managed to clip the rope into the semifinal anchor and they were Jain Kim and - surprise, surprise – Dinara Fakhritdinova. Unfortunately, neither of them will classify their final performance as successful: Dinara fell off already in the lowest part of the route and Jain Kim got one hold lower than her most significant rivals.

 

Unbeatable Mina Markovic in the final
(photo: Stanko Gruden/worldcupkranj.com)

The fact that she got the best result from the whole comp means that if she had made two moves more, she would have won not only the WC edition but maybe also the general ranking. This way she ended her performance ranked #4 in Kranj and #2 overall. Despite the mid season injury, Mina Markovic had no match second year in a row, winning both the final comp and the entire WC series. In Kranj silver went to a promising young athlete Momoka Oda of Japan and bronze to slowly recovering and getting back to the game, once unbeatable Slovenian Maja Vidmar. On the lowest overall podium standing we could see Austrian Johanna Ernst.

 

Maja Vidmar in the final (photo: Stanko Gruden/worldcupkranj.com)

Among men, the one who was supposed to receive the trophy for the whole season made a nervous performance in the final and instead of enjoying the experience of his second victory in the general classification, Ramón Julian Puigblanque was forced to watch both current World Champion, Jakob Schubert winning the WC edition in Kranj (surprisingly, for the first time in the whole season) as well as Sachi Amma getting 2nd and this way snatching the overall 2012 victory from under the Spaniard’s nose. In Slovenia, bronze went to Magnus Mitdboe of Norway.

 

Jakob Schubert in the final
(photo: Stanko Gruden/worldcupkranj.com)

If Ramón and Jain Kim do their best to repay Sachi and Mina for their titles of this season’s losers we’ll see in 2013 lead comps which according to the IFSC provisional calendar are going to start with European Championship in Chamonix followed by eight WC editions with the last one, obviously in Kranj, on November 16-17.

 

The women's podium of the final WC edition: 1. Mina Markovic, 2. Momoka Oda, 3. Maja Vidmar
(photo: Stanko Gruden/worldcupkranj.com)




The men's podium of the final WC edition: 1. Jakob Schubert, 2. Sachi Amma, 3. Magnus Mitdboe
(photo: Stanko Gruden/worldcupkranj.com)




The general ranking podium: 1. Mina Markovic, 2. Jain Kim, 3. Johanna Ernst
(photo: Stanko Gruden/worldcupkranj.com)




The general ranking podium: 1. Sachi Amma, 2. Ramón Julian Puigblanque, 3. Jakob Schubert
(photo: Stanko Gruden/worldcupkranj.com)

Source: ifsc-climbing.org, worldcupkranj.com