Climbing World Cup: Great Schubert Festival in Bern

Jakob Schubert was crowned double world champion at the Climbing World Championships in Bern’s atmospheric ice hockey arena: the 32-year-old Tyrolean won after the lead title in a superior manner also in the combination and thus secured the ticket for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Jessica Pilz had already achieved this on Friday with the silver medal in the women’s competition.

“Of course I’m proud of the World Cup medals I’ve accumulated,” said the now six-time world champion. Postscript: “It only makes me hungrier for more.”

In bouldering, he shone with four tops and 99.6 points, just 0.1 points behind Narasaki in second place at halftime. In his favorite discipline, lead climbing, the red-white-red hopeful was unbeatable with 84 points. “It was mentally difficult. I knew that I wasn’t going to attack, I was defending,” explained Schubert. He still tried to hide the starting position, still go “all in” and climb “full risk”. “In the end, I not only wanted the Olympic ticket, but also the title. I’m glad that I had my nerves under control throughout the competition,” said Schubert. The Japanese super talent Sorato Anraku (149.1) had to settle for the thankless fourth place, the 16-year-old also missed the Olympic qualification of the top three, while the American Colin Duffy (160.7) and the Japanese Tomoa Narasaki (156.7) took the other medals.

“It’s still surreal”

In the Olympic combination, Pilz from Lower Austria was only beaten by superstar Janja Garnbret (Slo). For the 26-year-old from Haag, who lives in Innsbruck like the Vöcklabruck bouldering specialist Franziska Sterrer, it was the fourth World Cup medal.

During the competition, Pilz didn’t immediately notice that the dream of the Olympics in Paris would become a reality. “The trainers have always shown me the circles. Normally I wasn’t that bad at math in school, but I couldn’t do math anymore. It’s still kind of surreal.”