Olympic starter Jessica Pilz and Franziska Sterrer made it into the semifinals of the top 20 in the bouldering competition at the home World Cup in Innsbruck on Friday. From Thursday onwards, all competitions in Innsbruck can be seen live on ORF Sport +.
“I was a little nervous, the home World Cup is always special and a lot can happen in bouldering. The goal in bouldering was the semifinals, I can now tick that off my list,” said Pilz, relieved, for whom this is the last Bouldering World Cup before the games in Paris.
Negative surprise from Schubert
The men’s competition was delayed until late in the evening due to a long rain break and there was a negative surprise from the ÖKV perspective in the boulder qualification. Six-time world champion Jakob Schubert made it to the zone in the fifth and final boulder but not to the top, and then the competition had to be interrupted for two hours. In much more pleasant temperatures, many athletes managed tops and Schubert was just eliminated in 21st place.
“It’s very disappointing,” said Schubert afterwards. A promotion would also have been important for the Olympic preparation. “You never want to fail in the qualification, and certainly not at home. With the Olympic Games in mind, I wanted to climb as many bouldering rounds as possible, regardless of the result, just to get into the mode and gain more experience. There are no more bouldering competitions before Paris,” said the 32-year-old. All the other Austrian climbers also failed before the semi-finals.
Paraclimbing becomes Olympic
Meanwhile, it was announced that paraclimbing will be included in the Paralympic program in 2028. This means that there will now be 23 sports in Los Angeles. “We are extremely happy, this will definitely give our sport another huge boost,” says 27-year-old Styrian Angelino Zeller, who could be chasing Paralympic medals after winning three World Championship golds in Los Angeles.
