In front of the climbing wall above the water
On Saturday the final and super-final of the HardMoves-Boulderleague took place in Wuppertal. The 10 best athletes from 29 different climbing gyms from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands met each other to qualify for the super-final which was located in the Schwimmoper Wuppertal. But first of all they had to climb 36 interesting and challenging problems ranging from technical slabs with tiny holds to powerful and athletic climbs. The 6 best teams with the most boulder problems topped were qualified for the super-final. The best thing at it was that they had to climb above the water like deep water soloing in the super-final.
Because of his current stay in Zurich Ruben and his Swiss climbing friends Franz Krakenberger, Rebecca Stotz and Kevin Huser competed for the Grindelboulder near Zurich. Finally they got 10th place in the team ranking. There were just tiny ranking differences between the 5th and the 10th place so that they closely reached the super-final. Good job!
David and his climbing crew around Felix Leuoth, Lena Herrmann and Lars Hoffmann represented the Escaladrome in Hannover. There was a big fan community of around 70 people supporting them during the competition brushing the holds of the boulders or cheering them up the wall. The result was a really good 6th place in the final which was enough to climb again in the super-final. There they had a brilliant run achieving an amazing 3rd place in front of a fascinating audience of almost 2000 people and many more on the live stream. Besides they won the HardMoves-Movie Award for the best climbing filmlet.
David’s comment: The format of an international climbing league is something really interesting to me and definitely has the potential to evolve into a pulsating event for climbers and laymen. I’ve never seen such a competition before which gets the people excited for more. The deep water soloing in the super-final was spectacular and highly motivating. I guess without our fan community we couldn’t have reached such a good result. Thanks a lot for this! I’m curious how the HardMoves-Boulderleague will develop in the future. I hope that I can be part of it next year again 
Ruben’s comment: For me the HardMoves-Boulderleague was different to last year because I didn’t start for my home gym in Hannover. Anyway I was super excited and motivated to climb with my friends in a great and strong team from Switzerland. The boulder competition was amazing and well organized. I think that I’ve never been climbing in such a great competition before. There were a lot of good varied boulder problems and the show in the swimming hall with the super-final-wall just above the water was incrediblly good. I am really happy to compete with the team from Hannover next year again and I’m curious to observe the progress of the HardMoves-Boulderleague. It was already much bigger than last year and I hope that there will be even more coutries involved in the future!
The super-final in the Schwimmoper Wuppertal – Pic by Nicolas Altmaier (www.nicolasaltmaier.de)
HardMoves-Movie Award: The Escalengers
David in the first boulder problem in the super-final
Official team ranking and statistics
More media to come here! Cheers David & Ruben