Climbing community celebrates The North Face Kalymnos Climbing Festival 2014
- Sunday 9th August 2020 at 3.11pm
The North Face closed a successful series of events with the 3rd edition of The North Face Kalymnos Climbing Festival bringing together the island and climbing communities. To help preserve the 2500 routes on the island The North Face gave a bolt for every registration, so future generations of climbers can keep on exploring the walls of this Greek climbing hotspot.
The Open Marathon, containing routes with difficulties ranging from F3c to F7a, was won in the male category by Thomas Kruschat & Rainer Schunder and Olga Vershinina & Oksana Kazansa brought home the prize for best female couple. The duo Matia Mallia & Pawel Gregorcyk claimed the mixed category.
The routes of the Big Marathon varied between F7a+ to F8a and was won by Sindre Seather & Henning Wang and the mix couple Pietro Bagnara & Roberta Longo. There were over 500 routes climbed across all competitions with climbers from 30 different nations competing.
The Legends - Francisco Arocena, Yuji Hirayama, Jean Baptiste Tribout, Gherard Horager, Ben Moon and Boone Speed. Photo: ©David Simmonite
New this year was the Pro Legends Invitational. Six athletes that made history in the 80s and 90s climbed newly bolted routes on the island of Telendos. Yuji Hirayama (JPN), Jean Baptiste Tribout (FRA), Francisco Arocena (SPA), Gherard Horager (AUT), Ben Moon (GBR) and Boone Speed (USA) are athletes who claimed history in the eighties. The North Face athletes Caroline Ciavaldini (FRA), James Pearson (GBR) and Jacopo Larcher (ITA) set the routes which were between F7a and F8b+ and now open to everyone. A total of 13 of the 15 routes available were climbed with Yuji successful on the hardest route of the day. The climbing veterans donated their prize money to two local charities.
After a party on the beach that lasted well into the night, the event was brought to a close on the Sunday with deep water soloing down at the small port of Vathi with the legends taking to the walls and the water to round off a fantastic time in Kalymnos.
The DWS scene at Vathi. Photo: ©David Simmonite
RESULTS
OPEN MARATHON – MEN
1. Thomas Kruschat & Rainer Schunder
2. Claude Idoux & Aris Theodoropoulos
3. Tomazs Rataczk & Stefan Madjar
OPEN MARATHON – WOMEN
1.Olga Vershinina & Oksana Kazansa
2. Sieradz Katarzyna & Ania Grabinska
3.Olga Drozdova & Jelena Vavilova
OPEN MARATHON – MIX
1. Matia Mallia & Pawel Gregorcyk
2. Olena Shurubor & Oleksandr Sotnichenko
3. Ksenia Ovechrina & Zigelin Euris
BIG MARATHON – MEN
1. Sindre Seather & Henning Wang
2. Dmitrijs Ogureors & Juriys Krasanous
3. Yiftach Kushnit & Dovi Zilber
BIG MARATHON – MIX
1. Pietro Bagnara & Roberta Longo
2. Ry Morrison & Daniela Ebler
3. Emil Westman & Hanna Backfurs
Francisco Arocena tries one of the routes on Telendos. Photo: ©David Simmonite
Jean Baptiste Tribout and Ben Moon try two of the routes on Telendos with Boone Speed belaying. Photo: ©David Simmonite
More information: www.kalymnos.thenorthfacejournal.com
There will be a full report in the December issue of Climber.