Last round of the Ice Climbing World Cup took place in Hemsedal, Norway. The finale hosted not only competitors but also organizers of all parts in order to analyze this year World Cup and to establish rules for the future.

To represent the Czech Republic Tendon Icebreaker organizers from Sundisk agency travelled to the Hemsedal to advocate their competition in front of other organizers and to prepare ground for Tendon Icebreaker in the next year World Cup.



The race and before

Regular visits to the race website (www.worldcupnorway.com) indicated that something is not quite as it should be. Organizers did not communicate with UIAA representatives after they indicated interest in the race and the website updates stopped coming. This gave way to many discussions about the race quality and the organizers readyness before it all even began. The final straw came one week before the actual race wheen the organizers announced that it will take place two days later than previously planned... The situation did not please us since it meant the organizers meeting will be two days later too and on the top of it - the organizers were not able to arrange any accommodation for us except in the most expensive hotels in Hemsedal.



We set off for Norway with mixed feelings and some doubts. After 18 hours of driving me and Radek Senk arrived around 9 am into the ski resort with the ice climbing wall. The ski resort was twice as big as Spindleruv Mlyn (Czech ski resort) and we could not find any signs of the ice climbing world cup taking place. Fortunately, the information office was able to give us some directions.



Race organization and the climbing construction

The construction size used during the Tendon Icebreaker was critisized by some climbers for being too small. The construction in Norway was about 14 metres tall and its width was about one third of the Tendon Icebreaker one. The ice cover was rare with almost the complete lower part using artificial holds. Higher part consisted of ice barrels with pre-drilled holds creating relatively interesting finale of all routes. The wall would make an interesting ice climbing training wall, not so much for the World Cup.





Another interesting finding were the missing barriers around the wall in order to protect the spectators. The number of spectators was not very high, at most thirty, and they had no reason to wander into potentially dangerous places under the wall. The isolation was in form of a dome with 4 meters diameter and there were three challets with a barbeque to seat the spectators. There was no music but the commentator was quite good in informing the spectators about the race. One challet was used to publish the race results that were being pinned on its walls. The big picture of the wall construction and the race organization left us with mixed feelings. And to our surprise the men finale was to take place in a completely different location on Sunday, on natural ice.



Fortunately, signs for the place that was, according to the schedule, going to host the afternoon finale in difficulty for men, were easy to follow and after 30 minutes we changed the main road for an uneven icy forestry track that lead us past the local scrapyard into the gorge of a local river. After 10 minutes of driving prolonged by another 30 minutes of waiting for local woodcutters to clear the track of fallen trees we saw the World Cup parking sign.




Downclimbing the gorge opened up some beautiful waterfalls where two climbers, with one being Jirka Slaby, were just competing. There were no spectators, no music, no commentator, no refreshment and no facilities except one tent for competitors. Nevertheless, the race itself was fine and coming to an end according to the schedule despite small discrepancies (like referees letting competitors to carry on climbing after a fall).


Evening afterparty

We met the UIAA representative Carlos Teixeira, organizers from Italy and Romania a others that have something to do with ice climbing. Start of the Sunday meeting was aggreed as well as that it would also be attended by competitors or coaches of national teams in order to gather as many ideas for the World Cup improvement as possible. Winners of speed climbing event, difficulty event and the World Cup were announced after two hours long waiting. Since the advertised afterparty has not started till 1 am we went to sleep.

Conference

The UIAA shielded conference took place in a local restaurant. Organizers from Romania and Norway were there unlike Italiens (had to leave the day before thanks to the change of dates) and Swiss who sent his appologies. Also present were competitors Innes Papert and Anna Torretta, Swiss Urs Andermatt with the Swiss national coach and Slovenian Pecjak. The agenda sent by Carlos Teixeira was rejected at the beginning, or more precisely postponed till the view of all sides is known. Two hours long discussion about the quality of the Norwegian race followed - problems with organization, size of the wall, ice, quality of service etc. The organizers based their "defence" on the low popularity of ice climbing in Norway resulting in difficulties to find sponsors, media and to attract spectators. The change of dates was caused by the weather since it was 6 degrees above zero in Norway the week before the World Cup. The discussion then slid to the problem of the UIAA cooperation with organizers of different ice climbing venues. The Norwegians blamed UIAA for not getting involved in the race. Carlos Teixeira and mainly much more communicative Romanian Michael Pupeza, the member of the UIAA IWC committee, said that the role of UIAA is different. The UIAA presents race proposals and IWC regulations while everything else is at the organisers discretion. The discussion was very spontaneous, nobody was taking notes and all different sides defended their views while the discussion goal, some kind of an agreement was out of reach. In the end, it was agreed to discuss all points and leave conclusion for the next meeting in Italy in May.



Conclusion

Our presence was not a waste of time, we defended organization of "our" race and were praised for our remarks to the IWC organization. We also presented the idea to increase the size of the ice construction and started discussion about how to classify walls and also initiated the idea of a set of requirements that any World Cup race must adhere to (media presentation, etc.). Urs Andermatt (speed ice climbing cup winner) publicly appraised our commitment to quality ice climbing races and, among other things, also said that he is looking forward to another ice climbing race in the Czech Republic. He suggested that, according to his sources, the ice climbing is on the rise there which creates good background for quality races such as in Switzerland. It was also decided to create a promotional DVD with images and movies from different races and about the creation of the IWC movie. We also distributed our promotional materials and were among the first to have our part of the promotional DVD available.

Martin Bauer and Radek Šenk
(On behalf of the ICEBREAKER team - Tanvaldsky Spicak)

SUNDISK team

[translated by lezec.cz]