First Paraclimbing World Championship in Arco

Jul 20th 2011

For the first time, paraclimbers competed in both speed and lead climbing events in their own World Championship, alongside the elite of the sport in Arco, Italy. The International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) worked alongside the medical commission of FASI, an Italian climbing federation, to create definitive rules and criteria for the paraclimbers. Six different categories were defined based on level of blindness, a distinction between leg and arm-amputees, and non-amputee physical disabilities.

In a press release from the IFSC, Francesco Coscia was quoted as saying, “Medical examinations for classifying the disability of athletes have been introduced for the first time in this competition and levels of disability were specifically defined according to the basic climbing moves.”

There have been grand-scale paraclimbing events in the past, like the 2008 Paraclimbing Cup in Moscow, and 2009 and 2010 international cup events across Russia, Japan and Italy. Now, in 2011 though, paraclimbing has a World Championship with athletes coming from Russia, Spain, France, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Belarus, China and Italy.

Both the speed and lead climbing events finished up on July 19.

Results:

Female Speed Paraclimbing:

  1. Paula De La Calle Pizarro (ESP), Amputee Arm Pd:1
  2. Silvia Parente (ITA), Visual Impairment B1:1
  3. Tatiana Panova (RUS) Visual Impairment B2:1

Male Speed Paraclimbing

  1. Mikhail Saparov (RUS), Amputee Arm PD:1
  2. Boyu Xia (CHN), Amputee Both Leg Pd: 1
  3. Urko Carmona Barandiaran (ESP), Amputee Leg Pd:1

Female Lead Paraclimbing:

  1. Paula De La Calle Pizarro (ESP), Amputee Arm Pd:1
  2. Rakhmanknlova Dilyara (RUS) Visual Impairment B1:1
  3. Silvia Parente (ITA), Visual Impairment B1:1

Male Lead Paraclimbing:

  1. Mikhail Saparov (RUS), Amputee Arm Pd:1
  2. Boyu Xia (CHN), Amputee Both Leg Pd:1
  3. Mineo Ono (JPN), Amputee Leg Pd:1
Check out a video of the speed paraclimbing event here.