Climbing World Cup Perm: Puigblanque and Kim win Lead, Shevchenko and Gaidamakina Speed

While the routes in the Male qualification rounds were surprisingly easy - an unprecedented number of tops in the first two Qualification routes and a staggering 9 tops in the Semi-finals - the Final route was calibrated perfectly and managed to split all finalists at different points. In fact, all 9 finalists fell from different holds and while Puigblanque cofortably reached the 45th hold before his foot slipped off the slabby section, Jakob Schubert from Austria fell two holds lower to take silver while Korea's Hyunbin Min took bronze. Stefano Ghisolfi from Italy climbed superbly to qualify for the final once again but unfortunately he didn't climb as well as he hoped to finish 8th, ahead of his teammate Francesco Vettorata (18th).

In the women's competition it was the usual Jain Kim who imposed herself without any problems whatsoever thanks to her lone, phenomenal top which she clinched just 10 seconds before time ran out! Behind her, at almost half height and and as proof of Kim's current supremacy, were Austria's Magdalena Röck and Japan's Momoka Oda, while Mina Markovic - the last to leave the isolation area - failed to withstand the pressure and finished her run fourth. As usual Italian colours were defended by Jenny Lavarda who finished 10th.

Perm has hosted a leg of the Speed​World Cup and, as expected, the Russian "platoon" dictated play with a double victory by Arseniy Shevchenko and Alina Gaidamakina. Shevchenko beat Czech Libor Hroza and Chinese Qixin Zhong, while Gaidamakina raced faster than her teammates Yuliya Levochkina and Mariia Krasavina. The only Italian in the competition, Leonardo Gontero, finished an excellent 5th.

The World Cup circuit moves on to Mokpo in Korea for the fifth stage of the Lead World Cup, scheduled to take place from 11 - 12 October.

IFSC Climbing Worldcup (L) - Perm (RUS) 27-29/09/2013
Results Men
1 Ramón Julian Puigblanque ESP 45
2 Jakob Schubert AUT 43+
3 Hyunbin Min KOR 37+
4 Dmitry Fakiryanov RUS 35+
5 Romain Desgranges FRA 31
6 Gautier Supper FRA 30+
7 Manuel Romain FRA 27
8 Stefano Ghisolfi ITA 23+
9 Domen Skofic SLO 22

Results Women
1 Jain Kim KOR Top
2 Magdalena Röck AUT 32+
3 Momoka ODA JPN 32+
4 Mina Markovic SLO 32+
5 Hélène Janicot FRA 32+
6 Dinara Fakhritdinova RUS 31
7 Katharina Posch AUT 27+
8 Yana Chereshneva RUS 27