"It is our ice, and everything that is on it is ours too!"
Mikhail Yarin

Ice Climbing World Cup Final of 2001,
March 7 - 10. Kirov, Russia.

 

Some results of the 5th Final Ice-climbing World Cup. The place: .Kirov city, stadium "Lokomotiv", 5 minutes from the railway station. Time: 07-10.03.2001 Responsible organizations: Ice-climbing Committee of the Russian Climbing Federation. Type: difficulty, speed (not included in ranking). Participants: 24 women and 59 men. Countries: Austria, the U.K., Germany, Italy, Russia, Slovenia, the Ukraine, France, Switzerland. Head Judge: Max Berger. Secretary: Kavunenko Rimma Vladimirovna. Head routes-prepare expert: Konstantin Zhdanov. Information: Ivan Yakimov. The winners. Difficulty. Women: 1.Liv Sansoz (France) 2.Ines Pappert (Germany) 3.Ksenia Sdobnikova (Russia) Men: 1.Daniel Dulac (France) 2.Dmitry Bychkov (Russia) 3.Anthony Lamiche (France). Speed. Women: 1.Yakimova Nadezhda (Kirov)Киров) 2.Kolodkina Margarita (Kirov) (г. Киров) 3.Polina Pakhomova (Magnitogorsk) Men: 1.Nikolai Shved (Magnitogorsk) 2.Vlasov Maxim (Magnitogorsk) 3.Alexandrov Alexei (Beloretsk)

March, 6th.
It was snowing and drizzling in the evening in Kirov, the streets were dirty and muddy. The weather was definitely not for sports competitions. The icicle stood wet and dirty without banners and barriers. At least it looked like this to me when I got off near "Lokomotiv" stadium from a half-broken bus which brought us from a remote Petropavlovsk to Kirov. My acquaintance with Kirov began with "The bomb" - Kirov ice-climbers Mecca. "The bomb" - is a bomb-proof shelter, where people rest and actually live while preparing the icicle for the competitions, besides it is the place where the ice-climbers society gathers. It's only 30 meters away from the icicle, people work in shifts: one works on the ice, the other one sleeps. If you haven't been to "The bomb", it's difficult to understand the reverse side of the beautiful show called World Cup - hard night toil (during the day there are the competitions), sleeping all together on the wooden benches, eating only from time to time. Devotion to their ice on the brink of fanaticism. The technology of preparing ice and routes for the competitions - is a large topic requiring a separate article, but the technologies won't work without people who are doing all this.

March, 7th.
The morning of the 7th of March was completely opposite to the previous day - frost, sun, bright-blue March sky. The day of hustle, bustle, and making acquaintances. The anticipation of the festival. Slowly and reluctantly the sportsmen drag to the registration deliberately trying to postpone it till the last moment. The judges are running around and trying to push them into the judges' house. Somebody is exercising on the icicle, but there are no queues. I climbed as well. The ice is very different in structure and color from the one in Petropavlovskoe. May be it's the water that is to blame for it - it's running water here, and in Petropavlovskoe it's from the river. May be the temperature regime and the last thaw can account for the difference. The ice is covered with small icicles. They will clean it during the night taking away the whole fragile upper layer and get it ready for the competitions, but now it looks like a good natural cascade. There was no ice of such structure in Petropavlovskoe.

Pavel Shabalin - one of those who made ice-climbing in Russia

At 17:00 press-conference. Judging by the level of the representatives is obvious that the World Cup in Kirov is being in the center of attention: here present the vice-governor of the region, the head of the railroad department, the chairman of the regional sport committee. In an hour the sortition of the numbers and the briefing will start - instructions about what is allowed, what is prohibited, when to wake up and when to leave the restaurant in the morning. The latter is especially for the foreigners - they are not very easy to deal with. Only Mikhail Yarin is able to cope with them - he uses very simple but expressive army language. Even the French can understand this sort of language.

The planned evening banquet was rather humble but for the Russian folk songs and dances. Everybody's thoughts are occupied with the coming competitions - all are concentrated and dull. Everyone left quickly.

Press-centre

In the evening after the banquet I got acquainted with Vince in the press-center (which was at the same time the headquarters of the competitions in Kirov). Vince is one of the joint owners of Hoehenwerkstatt GmbH company, which owns IWC trade mark and organizes the World Cup. Vince's ability to work is amazing: after the banquet when everybody went to sleep he went to the press-center to report the news for the Western informational agencies, struggle with the Russian Internet and checking if everything was ready for tomorrow's opening ceremony. We left the headquarters only at 1 a.m. The most interesting fact is that being one of the organizers of the Ice-climbing World Cup, Vince doesn't do ice-climbing himself, and half of his life he spends glued to the computer. And still his judgements in ice-climbing are precise and objective.

Opening ceremony

March, 8th.
On this day it is always good weather in Kirov. And it's absolutely fair that the World Cup took place in Kirov and not in Moscow. It becomes clear when you approach the place where the Cup is held. In the nearest future it will be impossible to draw so many spectators and so much attention of the authorities as it was in Kirov. The square near the ice-tower during the three days of the competitions has been the place of the national festivities with shashlyk, hot tea, beer and crowds of the spectators, who have become almost experts in ice-climbing during the two years of the competitions. The opening ceremony took place at 9:30. It included everything that the most important winter championship in Kirov should have: parade of the participants, the line of the beautiful girls with bread-&-salt, the speeches of the officials. But the participants neither listen to them nor looked at them - behind the row of the officials one could see the "Open" route "B" for men where later the most dramatic events of the day took place.

Дм. Бычков стартует по отборочной трассе "А" "Open". "Open" is held without isolation zone and all the sportsmen can look at the performance of their rivals. If because of the large number of participants Open has to include two or more routes, the routes have to be identical, the sportsmen with points should be evenly divided between the routes, all the rest are divided randomly. Usually Open among men is held in two groups "A" and "B", in each of the groups the first 9 qualify for the next stage. It is considered that in case of identity of the routes and even distribution of the sportsmen with the points, this method is objective in choosing the pretenders for the semifinals. With women it is usually enough to have one route and 18 sportsmen qualify for the semifinal. The task of those who prepare the routes, especially for the Open, is, on the one hand, not to make it too difficult - otherwise both, strong and weak, would fall at one and the same point and it would be difficult to objectively judge the participants. On the other hand, the route shouldn't be too easy - otherwise too many participants would reach the top and the places would be distributed according to the time which is against the difficulty climbing ideology (this problem cost Liv Sansoz the first place in the World Cup). Only those participants who qualify for the semifinal get the points in World Cup ranking.

Men started first on routes "A" and "B". When looking with a naked eye it seemed that the routes were not equal in difficulty, route "B" seemed more complicated, but later it became clear that everything was vise versa. Notwithstanding the outward difficulty, the lower part of route "B" was climbed by much more people than the lower part of route "A", where the participants fell down at the very beginning having touched the tricky forbidden zones. The results of the qualification were a bit astonishing. Erik Svab loves Russia very much and he had some grounds to hope for a good performance in Kirov thinking these competitions to be very important for him. In the middle of the route Erik firmly hammered the pick of his ice-axe behind the bend not noticing a hidden red line, and for several minutes he didn't agree to get down not being able to believe that the competitions in difficulty in Kirov were over for him. The Ukrainian Evgeny Krivosheitsev, who was the fourth after four World Cups thus having all the chances to win both in the Final World Cup and in Kirov, finished route "B" with the result 10 1/3 and it looked like he wouldn't have any problems. Yet he became the tenth in his group and dropped from participating in the semifinal. On route "B" the semifinal's line happened to be on mark 9.33, while on route "A" - on mark 3.66! And unexpectedly for everyone - except may be the Kirov team - Maxim Tomilov, 15-year-old sportsman, who was allowed to participate in the competitions by a special decision of the International Committee, qualified for the semifinal in group "B". As it turned out a day later, it wasn't accidentally that he got into semifinal. Everybody counted on his brother - Alexei - who has just won the Russia Championship, but Alexei made a disappointing mistake in the very beginning of notorious route "A".

Тим Емметт после первого карниза отборочной трассы "А" Дуэль. Duel & Progress. Konstantin Zhdanov, one of the leading routes-prepare specialist in Europe, says that modern sport ice-climbing is a duel between the sportsmen and those who prepare the routes. With every competition the route-prepare specialists invent new puzzles, new types of routes. Every year there appear new forms of relief. This year in Kirov it was the flat ice ceilings which decided the fate of the semifinal and final. And each time the sportsmen invented new variants of solving the problems, sometimes passing the route in the manner different to how they were expected to do it. With each competition the equipment is changed, the understanding of the peculiarities of its application grows. Nowadays it seems the main progress is in using the spurs on the crampons. Every one has his own ideas, shapes, techniques of application.

As usual the team maintaining the routes is up to the ears in work. They have to redraw the red lines, clear the routes from the broken ice. This is why from time to time they announce the technical breaks. The men qualification took too much time, so as usual women had to start later in the evening on the simplified men's route "B". The route was made with competence: the starting traverse checking general technique, slant ascent inside a limited area revealing technique and physical endurance, a long simple piece where in fact a sportsman wastes a lot of time realizing this loss only at the end, strength-consuming roof and a series of limited spots near the top. Here everything was calculated right with the difficulty, and the only unexpected surprise was Rita Kolodkina's touching behind the red line. Too low to qualify for the semifinal and very annoying! Rita was in a very good shape, exercised the support of her home-town spectators, stood a good chance of winning the bronze medal in the Final. It was really a pity - for it is the second bad luck within one week (the first one occurred in the Russia championship). As for the rest, all who were expected to qualify for the semifinals lived up to the expectations.

March,9th.
Kirov fans - this is s a separate subject. In the first place, their number is great - I've never seen so many supporters at the ice-climbing competitions. It is especially astonishing for the foreigners - for them 100-200 people from a near-by ski resort is a crowd. In the second place, there are a lot of children, families, almost no drunkards in the evening. And in the third place, what really matters is that they support everybody, not only the Russian sportsmen. Though there are the favorites even among the foreigners - people remember them from the last year and they come especially to watch them climb: Erik Svab, Urs Odermatt, Tim Emmett who bears the title of "Her Majesty servant". When Urs, who was called only "Ursik" by the Kirov fans, used to come closer to the public to give his autographs, the shrieks of the girls were louder than the microphone and far from being quiet voice of the judge informant Mikhail Yarin. As for taking autographs, it seemed to become a separate kind of sport with the Kirov teenagers. They asked for the autographs from everyone with a helmet or a badge, who looks like an ice-climber or a foreigner. The most important was the number of signatures made on the ads booklet which made you a respectful member of the society.

Crux of the men's semifinal. Those who passed it are struggling for the right to start last in the Final

Men's semifinal - pieces performed by Alfred Dvorak (above), Stephane Husson (in the center), and Maxim Tomilov (to the right)

March, 9th was the day of the semifinals and "Open" in speed. Semifinal is something very serious. It's the struggle for the points in IWC ranking, the routes are more difficult than the Final of the Russia championship. The result was unexpected and very pleasant for us. And again there was a surprise from Maxim Tomilov who slowly and surely qualified for the Final (what will be his place in the Final?). Another nice surprise was Alexander Lastochkin getting into the Final. And of course our enthusiasm was increased by Dmitry Bychkov winning the semifinal.

The beginning of the women's route was very difficult and besides they had to unclip the top rope on a very complicated traverse. This helped to select the strongest ones.

From inside out

Modern routes are made very complicated which creates certain problems in organizing the correct belay. Nowadays a sportsman usually starts the route with a top rope and unclips it from the runners on his way up. As soon as he reaches a certain safe zone he switches on to a lead climb.

Only four women were able to overcome the cornice at the beginning. Four more got a little further than half the way. Even Stefanie Maureau , who was third in the total World Cup ranking, didn't get to the Final. As a result four our women qualified for the Final - and it wasn't a surprise. The dominating duet Sansoz - Papert was broken by Ksenia Sdobnikova, getting higher and higher with every competitions. She became second in the semifinal. Ines Papert who became third simply ran out of time given her for the attempt. The semifinals are the best school for the new generation of Russian ice-climbers because they make it possible to compare our level with that of the world - or to be exact - European elite. For many young sportsmen the experience gained in Kirov is highly important, because participating in the World Cup gives a unique chance to examine the technique of the leading ice-climbers, to see the modern level of routes' difficulty.

Misters organizers are working with the press: Vincent (to the left) and Mikhail (to the right)

In the evening of March, 9th, the "Open" in speed took place. All the spectators were very eager to see this event. In spite of the fact that among the best western sportsmen very few take part in speed and this kind of competition is not included into the ranking, competitions in speed are very popular among the fans. And no wonder - the rules are simple, the action takes little time and each performance doesn't bore the spectators, emotions are in abundance, the audience grow excited as well as the competitors themselves. And there were only 18 sportsmen left to think about tomorrow's competitions - all the rest could do whatever they wanted. The western climbers perceived the speed as an exciting show and they were not upset when they fell from the route, and yet in the heart of their hearts, may be, each of them wanted to win in this almost purely Russian kind of sport. But as usual they failed. The Russian school of speed and the advantage of ice-fi-fis over the ice-axes was obvious. Let's see if this state of the matters will last till the next year.

Judge-informant Mikhail Yarin. "There was ice in his eyes".

March, 10th. The Day of the Final.

"Euronova" team

I don't know why, but women's finals always go before the men's, though in the "Open" and semifinals everything is vice versa. The last day of the last 5th stage of the World Cup of 2001 in Kirov was opened with a women's difficulty. Eight beautiful ladies were crashing the ice trying to snatch their ice-axes from the ice and places in the top ten of the World Cup. The basic intrigue is simple. Professional sportsman, twice the world champion in rock-climbing Liv Sansoz secured herself for the second place, but if she wants to be the first she has to win this competitions. But nothing depends on her even in this case. It's the price of her failure in one of the World Cup stages in Saasfi. She has won all the rest competitions! Ines Papert, extremely charming 28-year-old German, mother of a 4-months-old baby and a well-known climber in the West, also provided for the second place. But in order to be the first in the total ranking she has to come fourth in Kirov. And everything depends on her. And as for the third place - there are several sportsmen who can fight for it, and only mutual results will define the bronze winner of the World Cup.

Ines Pappert has won the World Cup. And she knows it already.

Liv Sansoz (to the left) against Ines Pappert (to the right).

A very strength-consuming limited overhang requires the precision of movements. The beginning of the final was discouraging: Olga Shkurenkova - 1.76, Anna Torretta (Italy) - 1.76, Olga Epiphanova - 0.66, Kirsten Buchmann (Germany) - 1.66, Nadezhda Yakimova - again 1,76! There seems to be a spell on the route. And here comes Ines Pappert - third from the end - and everything quickly takes its due place - 5.25, which means at least the third place in Kirov and the golden medal in the World Cup! Alas, Ksenia Sdobnikova finishes the route again at 1,76, but here comes the arithmetic of places' distribution according to the results of the semifinal, and Ksenia wins the first medal among the Russian women in The World Cup of 2001! Everybody starts calculating the rating points - Nadezhda Yakimova becomes the third in the total rating! She left Kirsten Buchmann behind only by 4 points. So Buchmann came fourth. When Liv Sansoz came to the route everything had already been decided. There was only one question left: who was stronger today. When I looked at Liv Sansoz's face through the camera, it seemed that every movement was painful for her. But she is a first class professional and she managed to prove this with her absolute victory in the Final - 6.33! Ksenia Sdobnikova from Moscow came third and it's a great success. It's only her first year in World Cup competitions and in ice-climbing on the whole, she qualified for the finals twice before Kirov: she was the 7th in Pitztal and 5th in Saasfi.

Maxim Tomilov - the opening of the Kirov championship - on the Final route

As for the men, almost everything has already been decided in the previous competitions. On the whole the French took the leading positions (a rear exception - were competitions in Saasfi, where Krivosheitsev won and Bychkov became the second). The following season promises to be more interesting (the competition becomes harder and the number of the sportsmen claiming to win medals is growing). In Kirov after Krivosheitsev's disappointing failure to enter the semifinal, Byshkov was left alone against the excellent team of Petzl Charlet Mozer. A certain intrigue was created by Maxim Tomilov, "Brother-2", who got to the Final, but has never taken part in the competitions of such level. But having calmly and surely passed the lower part of the route, he fell at the beginning of the ice ceiling, thus becoming the sixth. And still it's a wonderful result for the first experience when you are 15! In fact the ice ceiling was the moment of truth and its passing decided the fate of the medals. But to be honest the fate of the Kirov competitions was at stake - as for the total World Cup results - everything was already clear. The French trio would hardly let anyone pass ahead of them.

On the ceiling the difference in the approaches to this kind of relief was obvious, again there started an argument between the supporters of different techniques. All the Western sportsmen decided to pass the ceiling with the help of the so-called "figures". From beneath it looks very artistically, but in fact it takes much strength and is very risky. Hanging on the ceiling with one tool and intertwined legs and arms - is a very unbalanced position with little freedom of movements. Only Daniel Dulac could pass the ceiling using this technique, with the result 5.50. All three - Alfred Dvorak, Anthony Lamiche, and the Cup leader for that moment - Stephane Husson - fell from the cursed ceiling. Dmitry Bychkov, who had won the semifinal and was the last to start in the Final, demonstrated that everybody should use his wits and imagination. With the help of his spurs he did that what turned to be next to impossible for the others, and he saved much of his strength. But… nobody knows why such things happen: after the roof Dmitry falls exactly where fell Dulac, thus dividing the first and second places. The judges need the time for discussion and they announce 30-minutes break. And after that - Super final! Alas, Daniel Dulac proved his right to be the winner of the World Cup of 2001, having won the Super final with great advantage. The second place in Kirov enabled Bychkov to take the fourth place in the total World Cup. But what really matters is that he proved that it's quite possible to compete with the French.

After men's Super final the square before the icicle roared in anticipation of the Speed Final. It was getting dark but the crowd grew bigger. Imperceptibly the police was substituted by the soldiers and they put more barriers. The preparations were very serious. Last year the excited crowd broke the barriers, so this time the guards were ready for such turn of events. And from behind the ice tower one could hear the sounds of the hammer, where they were preparing - no, not a scaffold - stage for the winners. The men's Super final broke the planned schedule - for there was no time planned for this event. As a result the schedule of the last evening was so overcrowded with different events that it was not clear how it would be possible to finish in time for the train. The darkness fell and than it started. As usual Mikhail Yarin was starring as the judge-informant, the citizens of Kirov as the spectators, the participants - as themselves.

Erik Svab is happy

It's useless to describe the speed in words, it's like a carnival - the action, where you should participate to feel its spirit and sense. The foreigners were gradually giving up - "Her Majesty servant" Tim Emmett climbed the route with ice-fi-fis (frankly speaking, he'd rather climb it with his regular tool for when in the train he took off his clothes his legs were terrible - wound instead of the legs). The results were as usual predictable. Among women the everlasting argument between Nadezhda Yakimova and Margarita Kolodkina ended in favor of the first one this time. At the present moment Kirov duet is considerably stronger than all the rest: 4 seconds divided them from the third place - Polina Pakhomova from Magnitogorsk - and that is really a lot. To compare, the results of the first six men were within the limits of 4.6 seconds, and the struggle for the medals was again between the sportsmen from Magnitogorsk. The best among them was Nikolai Shved this time who came ahead of the Russian champion Maxim Vlasov by one second.

To shoot from above I climbed to the top of the icicle - the men's route was very long and ended just beneath the top. Suddenly everything was changed and acquired an unexpected foreshortening - the well of the light, with the climbing sportsmen, alive and shouting darkness around, the silence of the cold night sky above and the red finish pot on the boundary of light and darkness like the world focus, the sense center of this action. The pot got the worst of it, everybody hit it from above, from beneath, with joy and relief. Some didn't hit it but tenderly patted it on its red beaten sides. Sergey Rashitov wasn't satisfied with the pot - he climbed up and greeted me, but I don't think he recognized me. Then he hung for a long time, with stretched arms posing in front of the camera. Sorry, Sergey, but my batteries discharged in the cold and your happy face wasn't left on my film.

Sergey Rashitov, Yuri Oleinikov, Urs Odermatt and Tim Emmett.

And then everything came in a turmoil. One hour before the train, the stage, ceremonial speeches of the city officials, awarding prizes - fur-coats, strong drinks, World Cups, Marseillaise in honor of the French, who won all the three medals of the World Cup. Ines Pappert, who not only won the World Cup but, with Mountain.Ru assistance, also received the prize from "Vertical" cinema Festival as being the most photogenic ice-climber of the World Cup. She was a bit embarrassed by this choice.

30 minutes before the train departure, closing ceremony, the last views of the darkening icicle, the car of the Kirov photographer Pavel Sherstennikov, a quick run to Fastudio, where they managed to develop and print all the films from the Russia Champiomship and the World Cup in half a day. Thanks to Pavel and the whole team of Fastudio the quality was excellent and the work - professional. 10 minutes before the train - we are rushing to the railway station, where a nice thing is ready for us - a special carriage in the train Kirov - Moscow. We were in time, put all the things inside, said good-bye and started. I won't tell you what happened in the train. It's a separate story with too many heroes with suddenly unbalanced psychic. Moscow met us as usual with cloudy gray morning. The festivity was over. But it will come again next year.

Author: Yuri Leonov, Mountain.RU.