At the German Lead Championships in Augsburg, spectators see a climbing spectacle. In the end, favorite Yannick Flohé and local hero Martina Demmel won in exciting duels.
Yannick Flohé and Martina Demmel won the German lead championships. In the spectacular final on Sunday afternoon, top favorite Flohé prevailed in the men’s competition. In the women’s race, local hero Demmel won in a thrilling duel, one step ahead of Lucia Dörffel. In the absence of defending champion Hannah Meul, the 21-year-old from Allgäu was able to win her second championship title after 2021.
“I’m really relieved that it all worked out. “The time is pretty short at the top,” said Demmel in an interview with BR24Sport about her triumph: “Today you had to be a complete climber to get to the top.”
Demmel impressed in the final
The Augsburg climbing center was already the venue for the best climbers when they won the title in 2021. As the currently strongest climber, Demmel was the favorite to climb the 18-meter-high wall. In mid-August she was the only German to reach the semi-finals of the Leading World Championships in Bern and had confidently completed both the qualification and the semi-finals in Augsburg.
In the final, Demmel, who had been out for months with a scaphoid injury at the beginning of the year, showed an impressive performance and was the only athlete to make it to the penultimate 55th hold, where she ran out of time. Lucia Dörffel (Chemnitz) and Emma Bernhard (Frankfurt/Main) completed the podium.
16-year-old Kaderabek surprises the competition
Demmel’s club colleague Paulina Kaderabek from the DAV Allgäu-Kempten section surprisingly made it to fourth place at her premiere. “I didn’t expect to even get to the final,” said the 16-year-old on BR24Sport. In fact, none of the eight finalists were older than 23 years.
Flohé narrowly wins the “Yannick duel”
For the men, the focus was on the “Yannick duel” between Yannick Flohé and Yannick Nagel. Both were able to successfully “top” the route (climb to the end) in the semi-finals and also showed in the final that they were climbing in a different league.
While most of the eight finalists had to leave early on the demanding course, the 17-year-old defending champion Yannick Nagel (Mannheim) was the first to make it almost to the top. It was over on the 48th handle, just like it was for Flohé (Aachen) a few minutes later. However, the 24-year-old, who was German champion in the related discipline of bouldering in the summer, benefited from his better performance in the semi-finals, which is why the 2021 combined world champion celebrated winning the title in the end.
Climbing has been Olympic since the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In Paris 2024, a total of 40 sport climbers – 20 women and 20 men – will qualify for the combination competition of bouldering and lead. There is also a special speed competition in Paris. Finn Altemöller from Frechen came third as “Best of the Rest”. The best Bavarian in the final was Max Dinger from Krumbach.
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Source: Blickpunkt Sport October 15, 2023 – 2:00 p.m
