From 27 to 29 September Perm hosted the Russian stage of the World Cup. The Lead event was won by Spain’s Ramón Julian Puigblanque and Korea’s Jain Kim. These are the two winners of the fourth stage of the Lead World Cup that took place in Perm in Russia last weekend. And the names of the two provisional ranking leaders of the Lead World Cup that reached its halfway point in Perm… only another four competitions remain this season and everything is still up for grabs.

While the routes in the Male qualification rounds were surprisingly easy – an unprecedented number of tops in the first two Qualification routes and a staggering 9 tops in the Semi-finals – the Final route was calibrated perfectly and managed to split all finalists at different points. In fact, all 9 finalists fell from different holds and while Puigblanque cofortably reached the 45th hold before his foot slipped off the slabby section, Jakob Schubert from Austria fell two holds lower to take silver while Korea’s Hyunbin Min took bronze.

In the women’s competition it was the usual Jain Kim who imposed herself without any problems whatsoever thanks to her lone, phenomenal top which she clinched just 10 seconds before time ran out! Behind her, at almost half height and and as proof of Kim’s current supremacy, were Austria’s Magdalena Röck and Japan’s Momoka Oda, while Mina Markovic – the last to leave the isolation area – failed to withstand the pressure and finished her run fourth.

The World Cup circuit moves on to Mokpo in Korea for the fifth stage of the Lead World Cup.

IFSC Climbing Worldcup (L) – Perm (RUS) 27-29/09/2013
Results Men

1 Ramón Julian Puigblanque ESP
2 Jakob Schubert AUT
3 Hyunbin Min KOR
4 Dmitry Fakiryanov RUS
5 Romain Desgranges FRA
6 Gautier Supper FRA
7 Manuel Romain FRA
8 Stefano Ghisolfi ITA
9 Domen Skofic SLO

Results Women
1 Jain Kim KOR
2 Magdalena Röck AUT
3 Momoka ODA JPN
4 Mina Markovic SLO
5 Hélène Janicot FRA
6 Dinara Fakhritdinova
7 Katharina Posch AUT
8 Yana Chereshneva RUS