The second “Legends Only” boulder competition, organised by La Sportiva took place in Sweden Stockholm. Those invited to take part are Dmitry Sharafutdinov, Adam Ondra, Sean McColl, Jakob Schubert and Guillaume Glairon Mondet.

Building on last year’s success, La Sportiva has organised another Legends Only bouldering competition in Stockholm. The format involves five of the world’s best boulderers competing on five problems, the particularity being that the problems can be attempted for a couple of hours the day beforehand

The problems are therefore far harder than those in World Cup competitions and this will provide the opportunity to see Adam Ondra, Dmitry Sharafutdinov, Sean McColl, Jakob Schubert and Guillaume Glairon Mondet produce truly stellar performances on problems speculated to be in the region of 8A – 8B instead of 7A-7C+ in traditional bouldering comps. The scoring system is the usual one, with victory going to who sends most problems in the fewest number of attempts.

We witnessed the five problems being worked for two hours by the five competitors under the watchful eye of route setter Shauna Coxsey, the highly talented British boulderer. The competitors shared beta and helped each other, confirming the particular competitive spirit which reigns in climbing competitions.

Adam Ondra told he believed he was on form but realised he’d have to give more than 100% on these difficult problems, especially since he’ll be battling against the likes of Jakob Schubert (winner of the 2012 Combined World Cup ranking) and World Bouldering Champion Dmitry Sharafutdinov.

From what we could see, many crux sections are highly spectacular and will highlight the athletic prowess of these five athletes.

What happens when you take 5 extremely strong climbers, let them work some problems for two hours, give them a true rockstar entrance in an extra-large limousine and then let them loose in front of a crazed crows? The result is a truly masters competition, something which deserves its Legends only title.

This year’s Legends Only turned out even bigger and better than last year’s, with Canadian Sean McColl sealing the deal by doing the fifth and last problem exactly when he had to to beat Dmitry Sharafutdinov into second spot.

In the end Sean McColl ended up first ahead of Dmitry, who blew his chances by making too many tries on the first problem of the night. Both did four out of the five problems.

If Sean hadn’t done the last problem on his second try, Dmitry would have been the Legend of the year, but now, as last year, he ended up in second position.

The climbers were all very happy with the competition and really enjoyed themselves, as did the 700+ spectators.

Again, the route setters succeeded in finding the exact right level of difficulty on the very varied problems which challenged the full spectrum of the athletes’ abilities, from slopey slabs to complex dynos.

Result:
1. Sean McColl
2. Dmitry Sharafutdinov
3. Guillaume Glairon Mondet
4. Jakob Schubert
5. Adam Ondra

Backstage

Watch as well the first appearance of the competition in 2011