2012 IFSC World Championships - Blind Climbing B1

Preview

After the Men’s Bouldering final they moved right into the Paraclimbing B1 (Blind category 1) climbing final. 3 climbers and their helpers came out to preview the route. Since the climbers are all blind this means the helpers previewed the route and also told the climbers what the moves were, often manipulating their arms to give them an idea of the upcoming moves.

Preview

 

You can see the two top ropes here.

The climbers were tied in with 2 ropes, one toprope and a 2nd mini-toprope that was clipped in maybe 1/3 of the way up the wall. The wall was overhanging, and the idea of the mini-toprope was to keep the climbers off the ground if they fell early, sort of how gritstone climbers use multiple ropes sometimes.

The route is on the leftmost wall.

Kenji’s helper yelling to him.

Kenji doing well. He fell right here after not figuring out to match and move left. He scored 14.

Blind climbing seems to take a ton of endurance, as you have to hold holds and body positions for as long as it takes to find the next hold. Not sure? Get a blindfold and try it yourself! It’s definitely safest on toprope though, so you don’t have to worry about landing.

The French finalist Nicolas Moineau climbed 2nd.

Nicolas sets off. He went blind at age 3 and started climbing at 17 (I think the announcer said 17) so he learned to climb blind.

These guys used the headset/walkie talkie method.

Nicolas set a new high point, and he made it all the way to the roof before falling. He scored 23+.

Nicolas coming down.

Finally the 1st seeded Italina climber Matteo came out.

You can see his headset.

Matteo got higher than Kenji, but for some reason ended up in 3rd. He scored 10. There must have been a technical of some sort that I didn’t hear about.

The Champion and his helper.

The Podium. Matteo (3rd place, on the right) pretty much sobbed his way through the ceremony. You could see it meant a lot to him to be able to be here.

Men’s Podium

All in all it was a very interesting event. See full results here - IFSC – International Federation of Sport Climbing: General result MEN visual impairment B1

 

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