Boulder competitions in sport climbing started at the Zagreb Fair. The qualification round for women was held throughout the morning, and the French and Russian representatives were the most numerous. Two Croatian representatives were also present, Barbara Gilić from the University of Split and Ivana Staraj from the University of Rijeka.
‘We came to Zagreb yesterday afternoon, and we like it. The organisation is perfect. I’m the only girl in my team; five more climbers came with me from Split. I’m used to so many guys because I’ve been in the same team for a long time. I’ve been climbing for eight year now, and the team has stayed the same this whole time’, said the 21-year old climber from Split, Barbara Gilić.
The qualification round for men was held in the afternoon, and the finals were full of Russians and Slovenians.
While the contestants could watch each other in the qualification rounds, that wasn’t possible in the finals. First, they could observe in teams the given routes, but later they had to take turns for the final route.
In the women’s competition, Evegeniya Lapshina from the Ural Federal University was the most successful, winning first place. Fanny Gibert from the National Institute of Applied Sciences Lyon was second, and Jennifer Wood from the University of Sheffield came third.
In the men’s competition, Izidor Zupan from the University of Ljubljana won the gold medal, the silver went to Dmitrii Sharafutdinov from the Ural Federal University, while Borna Čujić from the Unviersity of Zagreb took the bronze.
‘I’m thrilled that it ended like this. Some of the guys here are at the top among seniors so the competition was tougher than at junior tournaments, tougher than I expected’, said Borna Čujić.
