France, Ukraine take the combined Sport Climbing titles in Bratislava

Ukraine’s Fedir Samoilov took the Men’s Lead and Combined titles on the final day in Bratislava. Mei Kotake of Japan won the Women’s Lead competition on Saturday while France’s Julia Chanourdie comes home with the Women’s Combined victory.

BRATISLAVA, June 23, 2018 – The World University Sport Climbing Championship finished in Bratislava with the finals in men´s and women´s Lead categories. On the K2 climbing wall, only Fedir Samoilov of Ukraine managed to reach the top. Among women, Mei Kotake of Japan got the closest and took the victory.

The precious victory among women went to Japan thanks to Mei Kotake. The silver goes to the French Maelys Agrapart and bronze to Salome Romain also from France.

“It was pretty difficult but now I feel relieved and happy. I wanted to get the top but I am happy for this result. Yesterday, I focused on my climbing in Boulder but my body condition was not very good because of cold weather. Now we stay in Austria before another World Cup. I already graduated last March. I studied nutrition in Tokyo. Now, I will only focus on climbing thanks to the support of one of the company,” said Kotake.

The overall victory in combination of all three events went to the French Julia Chanourdie among women and Fedir Samoilov of Ukraine among men.

“To me, the Lead title would be more precious than the combined victory because I focus on the Lead. But I know I must work on the Speed to even improve my overall result towards Tokyo 2020. We will see. It is still far from the Olympics. I practice Speed only once a month so it is not enough. This is a title so I am very happy. In Shanghai, two years ago, I won the combined competition as well as the Lead so I am glad to defend one gold medal. But I already felt too tired today so I am not very happy about the Lead result,” said Julia Chanourdie who is looking forward to have a lot of sleep after the difficult program. The second best climber in combined event was Mei Kotake, followed by Fanny Gibert of France.

Fedir Samoilov took the victory also in the Lead in Bratislava in men´s category. He was the only one to reach the top.

“I think the route was really perfect. It was quite hard but I like it like this. Everything was perfect. I really like the routes of the rout-setter Martin Zbranek. I am mostly a Lead climber so I enjoyed it the most of all three events,” said Samoilov, who studies at the National University of Sports in Kiev, Ukraine.

In Lead category, silver went to Thomas Joannes of France. Ruben Firnenburg of Germany took the bronze.

In combined event, Samoilov was joined by silver Elias weiler of Austria and Yuji Fujiwaki of Japan.

All Photo Credits © Roman Benický/SAUS