Anna Stoehr and Kilian Fischuber Win Overall World Cup Titles

The final round of the bouldering world cup was held last weekend in Munich, Germany. The world cup, a series of six events, has included competitions as far afield as Canada and as close to home as Sheffield.

The 2011 world cup champions are the Austrian competition stars Anna Stoehr and Kilian Fishcuber. Both of these athletes are well known on the international competition circuit and have been hot favourites to take the crowns. Winners of the individual Munich round were Mina Markovic of Slovenia and Dmitry Sharafutdinov from Russia.

• Full competition results here: IFSC Website

From a British point of view one of the best results of the year has been a fantastic 4th place in this weekend's Munich round of the world cup from 18 year old Shauna Coxsey, who has just this year made her début in senior competitions.

Commenting to UKC, Shauna said:

"It was quite a surprise. I haven't had chance to train much this year and when I finally had the time to put in a few weeks training after Arco I got my first ever pulley after 14 years of climbing so I didn't climb for 3 weeks before Munich, I just went to the comp for fun really but I definitely tried as hard as I could the whole way through the competition! I'm psyched to get on some real rock for a few months now, before training hard for next season."

Shauna is the current British Bouldering Champion and has recently climbed Pilgrim (V12) in the Welsh limestone bouldering venue of Parisella's Cave (UKC News), which is the hardest boulder problem climbed by a woman in Britain.

Nick Clement, British Bouldering Team manager, gives us a run-down of the competition in Munich:

"Shauna and six other members of the GB Bouldering travelled to the Munich event which took place on the 19th and 20th of August and was attended by over 100 athletes.

The qualification round took place on Friday and in the men's event both Ned Feehally and Stewart Watson climbed exceptionally well and made it through to Saturday's semi-final where they finished 11th and 17th respectively. Also competing in the men's event were James Garden and Jon Partridge who both missed qualifying for the semi-final by the narrowest of margins by placing 22nd and 23rd respectively. These are all world class performances especially when you take into account that any of the top 30 ranked men are capable of getting into a final.

In the women's event a minimum of 3 tops in 3 attempts was required to qualify for Saturday's semi-final. Shauna qualified in 7th place having topped all of the blocs in 6 attempts. Gill Peet and Diane Merrick were both very unlucky not to qualify due to taking slightly more attempts on 3 of the blocs. They finished in 26th and 27th place respectively.

The difficulty of the problems in the women's semi final was significantly harder than the qualification round where all 5 blocs got topped. In the semi-final only 2 blocs were topped and two of the competitors made it into the final despite failing to top any of the problems and it coming down to the number of attempts on the bonus holds. Shauna qualified for the final in 2nd place having made the first problem look like a warm up whereas the majority of the other competitors struggled.

In her first world cup final Shauna flashed the first bloc with comparative ease and by the end of the round was very close to getting a place on the podium. With Anna Stohr and Shauna both on 1 top each, third place came down to the number of attempts to get the bonus holds. Unfortunately for Shauna, Anna took fewer attempts which meant Shauna finished in 4th place. This was an inspirational performance by the youngest member of the GB Bouldering Team and is a fitting finale to a season which has seen numerous impressive performances from members of the GB Team."

Nick outlined the current lack of funding for the GB Bouldering Team:

"Currently the Team has four members Stewart Watson, Dave Barrans, Ned Fehally and Shauna Coxsey who have all qualified for a World Cup final in the last two years. Diane Merrick and Jon Partridge have also placed in the top ten this year and eight other team members have now qualified for a world cup semi-final. The future definitely looks promising for the Team.

At present none of the members of the GB Bouldering Team are fully paid sponsored climbers. Although the Team receives some funding and support from the BMC and clothing from Five Finger Thing (for which they are very grateful) this does not cover all of the Team's transport and accommodation costs at World Cup events. So all of the achievements outlined above have been accomplished by individuals who for the majority of competitions have had to self fund.

In order for the GB Bouldering Team to maximise its full potential in future International Bouldering competitions we need to be able to send as many members of the Team to as many competitions. If we can't enter Team members into events in China or USA next year due to budget restrictions or Team members not being able to self finance then we will be severely restricting the potential of the Team.

If there are any individuals or companies who would like to support the GB Bouldering Team financially (no matter how big or small) please contact the Team Manager Nick Clement via Rob Adie at the BMC."

Nick Clement would like to thank the BMC and the Team's clothing sponsor, Five Finger Thing, for continuing to support the Team. He would also like to thank all of the members of the Management Team and Coaching staff for all of their hard work. Thanks also go to all of the Bouldering/Climbing Wall Managers who have allowed the Team to use their facilities for training purposes, your support is greatly appreciated.

Shauna Coxsey is sponsored by Five Ten