Climbing Community Celebrates the Second Edition of The North Face® Kalymnos Climbing Festival
The North Face®, the world’s premier supplier of authentic, innovative and technically advanced outdoor apparel, equipment and footwear declares the second edition of globally acclaimed The North Face® Kalymnos Climbing Festival a runaway success and congratulates the winners of the PROject Competition, Caroline Ciavaldini and Alexander Megos. The climbing community gathered together to share the best on and off rock action as 540 pro and amateur climbers from 24 countries and five continents took to the island’s walls in Kalymnos, Greece, 10th-13th October, 2013 competing for 15.000€ prize money.
With a ‘for climbers, by climbers’ approach to the design and flow of the format, the level certainly stepped up for the second year edition. The festival reputation for never failing to push boundaries whilst seeing everyone having fun in a relaxed atmosphere brought the elite of world climbers to renowned Kalymnos island for unique competition and storytelling. The North Face athlete team, Jacopo Larcher, Hansjörg Auer, Iker Pou and Siebe Van Hee had bolted 18 pitches, 8 of which were allocated to the PROject competition.
Tackling the challenging routes of the PROject contest, 16 of the best rock climbers in the world, 8 men and 8 women, attempted four newly bolted routes each on the virgin crag named “Skalia Cave”. Blessed with superb conditions and a pleasant autumn sun, climbers, crowds of supporters, media and fans gathered at the wall to watch the drama unfold.
The contest had a cracking first day with Alexander Megos leading the classification making short work of the four competition routes on sight in a mere 5 attempts. The 19 year old remarkably completed all the project routes, which the competitors had two days to do, in the first four hours, winning the whole competition and earning €3000. Truly impressive ~8a (onsight), an ~8b/+ (onsight), an ~8c/+ (2nd attempt) and finally an ~8b (flash).
The women’s PROject competition went down to the wire. It wasn’t until sunset on Day 2 of the competition that we had a clear winner. Caroline Ciavaldini and Nina Caprez pushed each other to the very end. The final victor, The North Face athlete Caroline Ciavaldini states: “Any of the four remaining girls could have won, but ultimately when you set off the ground and start climbing it’s all about the movement, the route itself, and you disappear in the climbing. This is the beauty of our sport”
The Seaside Storyteller event, which took place on Friday night was well attended by the local community to watch the premiere of award-winning film “The Waiting Game” – the story about Hansjörg Auer, Ben Lepesant and Iker & Eneko Pou’s (Hermanos Pou) expedition toBaffin Island.
The North Face Kalymnos Climbing Festival was globally broadcast through live streaming. This was true innovation and a world first at an outdoor sport climbing competition.
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