Congratulations to Alex Puccio & Daniel Woods on their latest win! PrAna was fortunate to sponsor 4 of the top 8 finishers for the day. We are all looking forward to the next stop on the tour and wish all the athletes the best.

ClimbingNarc has a nice review Here

For More Videos Check Out http://www.vimeo.com/prAna

Alex Puccio and Daniel Woods walked away with top honors at last weekends Battle In The Bubble and a $1,000 each in prize money. With Paul Robinson injured and Chris Sharma at the New River Rendezvous, no prAna athletes figured in the mens finals but the women came through like champs! Alex Puccio remains undefeated since she joined the prAna team this year. Angie Payne (2nd), Tiffany Hensley (7th) and Tyler Youngwerth (9th) all looked strong with Angie pushing Puccio the entire way. Congratulations to all the participants as we look forward to another great year of events.

Check out the Highlight Reel from The Spot Gym  HERE

Photos Courtesy of Ben Fullerton

UPDATE: The event will be broadcast live from http://www.thespotgym.com

This May 14th and 15th The Spot Gym will be hosting Boulder‘s biggest and MOST FUN bouldering comp “Battle in the Bubble“. This comp will be unique and exciting in several ways. The finals will be held outdoors at the Boulder Reservoir on a giant new wall designed by Walltopia. Because this comp is not affiliated with any governing organizations of competitive climbing, the Spot has put together a Fresh and more Audience Friendly format that will culminate with a “First Ascent” battle between the two top climbers. Best of all this will be more than a comp with a very Festival Like atmosphere that is ABSOLUTELY FREE for all spectators!!! Some of the best competitive climbers in the U.S. live in Boulder and will be at the comp, including Alex Puccio and Daniel Woods, so you should definitely try to catch what will be the most original and fun comp of the year. The Spot has a reputation for putting on some of the coolest comps in the country, and this is their magnum opus!

Click HERE to Register!

It was an event that came down to the very last problem to determine the champions. A full house watched some of the best climbers in the world duel it out for top honors at the RocComp in Baltimore, Maryland. It was a great opportunity for a global audience to watch the live webcast by UBC. We are sure more live climbing action will open up the sport to a much greater audience.

Chris Sarma Flashing Finals via YouTube

Earth Treks Roc Comp: Presented by Mountain Hardwear and the UBC pro tour

By Charlotte Jouett-Bosley

This wasn’t your average climbing competition. The Earth Treks Roc Comp, quickly named the biggest comp ever held on the east coast, started the UBC Pro Tour off with a bang this past weekend. On Friday, Earth Treks’ Columbia gym hosted a dual pro-qualifying round and citizens’ competition with over 300 competitors. A vendor village filled the parking lot swarmed with people trying out climbing gear, playing on the slackline demo and filling their bellies with amazing food. The following day, the top 20 men and women pro athletes from Friday’s qualifying red-point round took to the walls at Earth Treks’ Timonium for semi-finals. Top athletes battled it out in the semi-final and finals rounds that were broadcast live online around the world. With over 500 spectators, the crowd went wild when Chris Sharma made the impossible possible, being the only person to send two of the three finals problems and executed moves that left even the pro climbers’ jaws dropped and the crowd in awe. Comparable to a rock concert of epic proportions, some of the most amazing climbers were showcased by lighting, music and energy like you’ve never encountered before. Congratulations to prAna athletes Chris Sharma, Paul Robinson and Alex Puccio for their top place finishes.

Chris called us Sunday morning and he was still buzzing from the energy at the Earth Treks comp. Being the old guy out there, who doesn’t climb on plastic and rarely boulders anymore, he had no expectations for his performance. In the end, he said it was one of his most memorable competitions thanks to the vibe of the crowd, his competitors and his good friend Obe Carrion, the MC for the event, going crazy on the mike. Chris is off to Spain now to get some burns in on his latest project “First Round First Minute” and he’ll be back for the New River Rendezvous in Fayetteville, WV in May.

On the women’s side, the “Alex’s” continued their domination with another 1-2 finish with Puccio taking top honors.  Puccio said that she was in a lot of pain with a nagging finger tendon injury but she pushed past the pain because of the importance of the event.  She is giving it a solid week of rest with abundant icing and no climbing.  Her comments, “The comp was so awesome. The lights, the music, the people… what a show”!

It is great to see such a high level of climbing and we thank all the competitors, organizers and the crowd for making it such a superb event.

Men 1. Chris Sharma, 2. Paul Robinson 3. Daniel Woods 4. Vasya Vorotnikov 5. Rob D’Anastasio 6. Magnus Midtboe

Women 1. Alex Puccio 2. Alex Johnson 3. Lisa Rands 4. Francesca Metcalf 5. Isabelle Faus 6. Kasia Pietras

Crowd Videos From Sharma’s Flash

RocComp Images from Charlotte Jouett-Bosley,  Alex Kahn and Chris Hamars

You can check it out right HERE with the rest of us as we wish the best to all the participants including prAna athletes Chris Sharma, Paul Robinson & Alex Puccio.

Legends do make a comeback. Back in 2003 and 2004, the Roc Comp attracted the nation’s top competitors and over a thousand screaming spectators. DJs and professional video and lighting crews made the facility pulsate with an unparalleled energy that became legendary in the circles of pro-athletes and the attending audience. Years passed and other comps came and went, but in the trenches of the climbing community, the Roc Comp reigned supreme.

This year, we’re one-upping ourselves. Earth Treks Climbing Centers, Mountain Hardwear and the Unified Bouldering Championships are proud to announce the first event on the 2010 UBC Pro Tour, The Earth Treks Roc Comp, April 23 & 24, 2010. The 2010 Roc Comp will span two days of climbing and will host climbers ranging from the top pros in the world to beginners psyched to check out their first comp. The Citizens Comp and a hands-on Vendor Village will be held in conjunction with the qualifying red-point round on Friday, April 23rd in our Columbia climbing facility.

On Saturday, April 24th in our Timonium climbing facility, top climbers worldwide including Chris Sharma, Lisa Rands and Paul Robinson will compete for an $11,000 cash purse (courtesy of Russel Automotive) as well as cumulative individual point rankings towards the overall UBC Pro Tour Championship.

Come rub shoulders with your climbing idols, snort chalk and celebrate the power of this sport!

Cross Posted from 8a.nu

Alex Puccio has done her second 8A+ in Hueco Tanks during the last week, Diaphanous sea which with 2.2 stars and 101 ascents has the highest index score for all 8A+’ (although 10 % list it as an 8A). Last year she won the World Cup in Vail. Interview is coming up. Video interview while doing Trice, 8A+.

Alex leads the ranking game at 9 959 points and she only needs another 8A, making it 15 in total, to be the first women to reach 10 000, averaging 8A the last 12 months of her Top-10.

(Picture by Gustavo E Moser: gas-photo.com)

Cross Posted & Edited from B3Bouldering

In 1994 Lynn Hill free climbed The Nose on El Capitan in a day, a stunning feat that is clearly one of the greatest achievements in rock climbing history. Not only did she climb the first ascent of one of the hardest routes in America at the time, (it went unrepeated for 10 years and that was only after a 261 day seige!), it was arguably the best route, on the most prominent rock climbing feature in the world. On top of that, she did this in a completely male dominated sport and built the road for the future of free climbing big walls, one day ascents of such walls, and women climbing hard around the world. Few ascents could claim to have such an impact.

But where has that left women’s climbing today?

In America, 2008 was a pretty good year for women’s bouldering, in terms of difficulty.

Lisa Rands made an awesome ascent of the Mandala V12 in Bishop.

Angie Payne climbed European Human Being V12, in RMNP, Alex Johnson climbed Clear Blue Skies V11/12 at Mt. Evans, and Alex Puccio did CBS, The Marble V11 or V12, and most impressively Trice V12 on Flagstaff Mtn.

This year Puccio added The Gentleman’s Project V11, The Maze of Death V12, and several other V11s to her ticklist.

During the same two years the top men flashed several V13s (including a V14) and established problems up to V15, one of which is 25ft tall. It would be hard to argue that the gap hasn’t grown. Have women fallen behind, or is this gap appropriate? Should there be any gap?

While Ms. Hill’s ascent was not a bouldering ascent, it was a significant advancement in climbing, and in some way addresses two key issues. First, the idea that women can climb at the same level or higher in terms of pure difficulty, and secondly that women can do important and classic first ascents.

Perhaps twenty years ago the top women of today would have been climbing stronger than the strongest men. If one were to look at the total number of hours men have spent climbing, it would far out number the total number of hours that women have spent climbing (simply due to the fact that there are far more men than women in our sport) and is this the gap that is reflected? Often times when such a debate arises, the fact the men and women have different bodies is used as the reason for the difference. There seem to be climbs that favor a smaller climber, like Chablanke in Hueco Tanks and Clear Blue Skies at Mt. Evans, but those are the exception. More often than not climbs established by taller climbers will favor taller climbers, and most of the climbs established are put up by taller climbers. Perhaps The Nose just happen to fit into the exception, an excuse many men used when they failed to repeat Hill’s route. Do men have a psychological advantage simply because as a group they have more practice and have had the opportunity to push the bar farther? Should we even be comparing the differences between men and women? Perhaps it is the lack of an objective standard that blurs this line, unlike swimming, or (more…)