The victory of Tomas Mrazek in the Duel was the nice fullstop after the overall Rock Masters. I felt it as the superb representation of the Czech climbing and the Czech Republic at all, when Tomas Mrazek in the last finals beat with a nice advantage the winner of the Rock Masters Ramon Julian. Let´s look at the small video.

Video from finals of the Duelu - Ramon Julian Puigblanque on the left, Tomáš Mrázek right:

Download video (9,2 MB, 2,35 min)

Notice the song on the video. Organisators played it always when the finish culminated. Even on Sunday evening I whisteled the melody in Massone similar as majority the others climbers to help me to better performance.


Rock Masters - Duel - finals - Ramon Julian Puigblanque (ESP) on the left, Tomáš Mrázek right
Photo by Standa Holec


The competition wall in Arco, Saturday - the on sight route of women is on
Photo by Standa Holec

Tomáš Mrázek considered the competition as a show.  When I appreciated his waving to the audience and his nohands which caused the largest aplaus of public, he only smilled a bit and said: "Well, this competition is about the show, therefor they invited us to make here the first of all the show."


2 x from the one place: Tomáš Mrázek causes aplaus, when he releases his both hands in the RP route
Photo by Standa Holec

When we discussed the on sight and RP routes,  Tomáš, who ended the 3rd in summary of these disciplines, explained me, that the routes were made for Ramon, who is able to climb ubelievable long metres only with open grip. There were no extra havier move any boulder, where Ramon could have problems and the power better equiped climbers as Tomas Mrazek could send it better.

The second Jörg Verhoeven (NED) looked very relaxed and sure. When I compared him with Tomas Mrazek, it seemed Jörg is beeter with endurance. Tomáš´s partner girl Helena Lipenská explained me that Tomáš has not good endurance now, he has some troubles with a finger. There for he has not been climbing long time in rocks also.


Jörg Verhoeven - RP route, he is relatively relaxed, he detoxes hands in the "chimney" , Tomáš Mrázek looked here a little bit pumped already.
Photo by Standa Holec


The young Nepal-Austrian David Lama (16) uses cleverly hold in the roof to take a rest. David climbed further in RP route then Tomáš Mrázek. David was in the route 3rd the best behind  1st Ramon and 2nd Jörg, Tomáš was 5th.
Photo by Standa Holec

Helena Lipenská herself had a little bit bad luck. Not only I seemed in bouldering that she was after the first boulderproblem get off unfair. Because in minumum the domestic Italian Elena Chiappa appearently climbed lower. Similarly Frenchman Ludovic Laurenc did not sucseed in the first boulder but he continued, ... and in the end he beat the 3rd place.


Bouldering competition - women, the 2nd boulderproblem
Photo by Standa Holec


Bouldering competition - men, Daniel Andrada (ESP) - the start was by the back to the wall; the play off system of boulder competition seemed me as the most atractive of the all disciplines on Rock Masters. The audience and the moderator could concentrate always on the only one climber and the individual performances were quite easy comparable. May be a tip for a change of the traditional boulder competiton system?
Photo by Standa Holec

Interesting was to watch interentional climbing elite in relation with Czechs. Legendary Yuji Hirayama friendly greets to Tomas Mrazek, the dad of David Lama make a free place in public for Helena Lipenska she could sit down, she in other situation works as the contact person for the other Slavonic girls from Russia and Ukraina on technical meetings for bouldering, when Helena interprets from English to CzechxRussion. Here I would like to emphasize the work of Helena for Czech climbing. Mostly it is she who informs Czech readers about international competitions via sms and emails. And she promote Czech climbing abroad e.g. she remarks on the site of CzechClimbing.com the major source of Czech climbing info in English.


Father of David Lama (AUT) watchs the performance of his son. Nextby Helena Lipenská sits.
Photo by Standa Holec


Flavio Crespi, a hero of Italian audience and in the moment the number one in world lead climbing rankings, gives the autograms to Italian children; there is Tomáš Mrázek just behind Flavio as the 2nd in the World Cup 2006.
Photo by Standa Holec

And I cant forget to another Czech representation, the 4th place in speed by Libor Hroza was very important. Libor is appearently rooted among the world speed elite. In the battle of the 3rd place in first Libor overclimb the legendary Pole Tomasz Oleksy, who here also performed the role of the showman (Italian speeker announced him once as "Spielmann Tomasz Oleksy"). Libor alarmed the Polish climber so, that he started for the 2nd route to concentrate maximaly and looked for some possibilities to increased the rest (to tape the finger etc.). Libor could win even the 2nd atempt when he did not make a mistake. But the mistakes decided in the most of the speed duels.


Libor Hroza trains the speed route; notice the special speed harness.
Photo by Standa Holec


The competition wall in the night, when the speed was climbed
Photo by Standa Holec


The competittion was for these medals
Photo by Standa Holec


The medals in detail
Photo by Standa Holec

So those are a couple of my immpressions from the jubilee Rock Masters 2006. It was fine, and what then ...? Then the thing, for that we came to Arco, fully started; it was rock climbing, and it was there realy super... 

PS: I try to prepare other videos in the next days. Hopefully I find a bit spare time to do it.


Arco a day after Rock Masters, the view from Mescalito route at the town Arco, the climbing wall is among the trees on the left
Photo by Standa Holec


And when I delt with the Czech representation, on the way from the wall I have first time noticed the memorial, that is under the rock wall and to it a lane Via Legionari Cecoslovacchi aims. It is the memorial of the four Czechoslovak legionares, who were under the Colodri wall executed on the end of the World war 1, September 22nd 1918. There is written in Czech language on the memorial desk: On these olive trees the Czechoslovak legionares were executed, they were captured by Austrian-hungarian soldiers at Doss Alto, because they fought in the Italian army for the freedom of their home country.
Photo by Standa Holec