1, 2, 3, 4 for Team GB in Bolzano!
The 'Salewa Cube'.
British Mountain Guides Steve Monks and Libby Peter are just back from the IFMGA International Climbing Championship, which took place in Bolzano on the 28th and 29th October. Over 80 guides from 8 countries gathered for this annual two-day event, which combines pulling hard and socialising in equal measure.
Full guides and aspirants plus their partners and children (with an age spread of 8 to 80yrs), lined up side-by-side to attempt 14 routes from 4c to 7c+, with points accumulating for every hold slapped. The top 20 then took part in an on-sight final on a route that looked to be at least 8a!
This year the event was hosted by the South Tyrolean Mountain Guides and was held in the ultra-modern eco-friendly Salewa Cube. The state of the art indoor/outdoor climbing wall is just a small part of this brand new 40million euro Salewa HQ and is well worth a visit if you’re passing through.
Team GB dug deep to represent BMG, with Libby’s daughters claiming first and third in the younger children’s category, Steve’s taking 4th in the highly competitive 50+ category and Libby coming 2nd behind Slovenia’s Tina Di Batista in the women’s.
Thanks to the hard work of Flavio Moroder (chief organiser and president of the South Tyrolean Mountain Guides) and his team this was a superb event; friendly, inspiring, good fun and an excellent opportunity to foster international comradeship.
BMG are honoured to be hosting the next IFMGA International Climbing Championship, which will take place 23rd -24th November 2012 at EICA (Ratho), Edinburgh, where we hope to impress our international visitors with a Scottish flavoured event; a ‘whisky bonus’ dry-tooling route has been suggested!.
