In
a two-day competition near Salt Lake City, Coloradans Carlo
Traversi and Emily
Harrington won the 2009 Sport Climbing
Series (SCS) Championships held in Salt
Lake City on Jan. 24-25th.
Both the men’s and
women’s fields at the new Momentum gym were stacked
with top (and young) U.S. sport climbers and boulderers, and
the final competition had
Ethan Pringle, Jonathan Siegrist, and Carlos Traversi all tied for
first place.
This was Siegrist's first competition and
he unveiled to the crowd his smooth climbing style and solid power only
to be bumped back to fifth place in the finals routes.
The finals were held on the second day of
the
competition, and a few lesser known names were competing
against
two of the best in the world: Emily Harrington of Boulder,
Colorado and Dave Graham, originally fromMaine.
Both climbers
were last year's champions at this event and despite Dave's lack of
indoor training, he has completed many of the most difficult routes in
the world over the last five years.
On the men’s finals
route, Traversi latched
a 'ring hold' that Graham had only been able to graze but not
hold. Carlo tried another dyno move off this highest hold and
as
a result he had reached the highest point of the route and sealed the
win.
This year's line-up on the
women’s side included last year's champion and runner-up
Harrington and Paige Claassen (of Estes Park), who both tied for first
in
this year's qualifiers. They were closely followed by Alex
Puccio, who was docked a few
points for skipping the last quickdraw on a qualifying route
which resulted in a large fall from the final hold.
In the final climb for the
championshiop Claassen grabbed
a hold just one move from the top, leaving the door open for
Harrington, the
defending national champ, to complete the climb for the win; which she
did by a hair.
This even was generously sponsored by The
North Face and Sterling Ropes.
