Swiss Championships: Bärtschi and Clémence defend Boulder titles

In the L’Entrepôt climbing hall in Bulle, the new Swiss bouldering champions were crowned on Saturday, 1 April – and both the men’s and women’s titles were successfully defended, with Julien Clémence and Natalie Bärtschi atop the podium.

After the qualification, Natalie Bärtschi was already leading the intermediate ranking thanks to five tops ahead of the two sisters Zoé and Liv Egli. In the final, in which the best six athletes competed, Natalie Bärtschi was the only one to crack two boulder problems and thus secured back-to-back titles at the Swiss Championship. With one top and four zones, Andrea Kümin finished in second place and Liv Egli came in third.

Julien Clémence also ranked first after the qualification and he did everything to keep this position and remain Swiss champion. He topped three of the four final boulders and thus achieved the best result. With two tops and three zones, Sascha Lehmann placed second, while Louis Guignard completed the podium in third place.

Jil Couture and Romain Sabatier won the titles in the U18 category.

Boulder Swiss Climbing Cups

The Swiss Climbing Cups were the qualification events for the Swiss Championships. There were two opportunities for the discipline Boulder: in the Spinnerei Indoor Ibach on 4 March 2023 and in the Minimum Leutsch climbing hall in Oerlikon on 18 March.

In Ibach, Nils Favre secured the top spot on the men’s podium ahead of Nino Grünenfelder and Julien Clémence – all three recorded a top and three zones in the final. In the women’s competition, Sofya Yokoyama was the only one to crack two boulders and finished in first place ahead of Marilu Sommer and Natalie Bärtschi.

In Oerlikon, familiar faces were again on the podium in the men’s competition with Nils Favre in second place and Nino Grünenfelder in third place with three tops each – first place, however, went to Jonas Utelli, who managed four tops.

In the women’s competition, all the boulders were solved by the climbers who finished on the podium, but none came close to Petra Klingler, who flashed all four boulders. Andrea Kümin followed in second place, while Liv Egli secured third place.

The IFSC Climbing World Championships Bern 2023 were also promoted at all the competitions and attention was also drawn to the top event in August via livestream. At the next Swiss Climbing Cup (Speed) at the BEA Bern on 29 April, we will be live on site and have a lot of activities to offer in the BEActive Zone “Climbing”.

All streams of the Swiss Climbing Cups as well as the Boulder Swiss Championships can be accessed here. Click here for the complete results.

Photo: pinkmilanimaging.ch/Fritz Moser