2013 Portland Boulder Rally Results

The 2013 Portland Boulder Rally went down Saturday at The Circuit Bouldering Gym in Portland, OR, and as expected it was quite a show.

A pretty deep field showed up and competed in a three hour qualifying round to get down to the final six that would compete in finals.  The men’s side was extremely close with last year’s winner Peter Dixon and Michael O’Rourke, who was a finalist himself last year, just missing the cut based on their number of attempts.  The women’s side shaped up more or less as one would have expected with Alex Puccio qualifying in first place.

Going into finals it was clear on the women’s side that Alex Puccio was a favorite despite her demurring at that idea prior to the comp getting under way.  For the men it was a bit less clear who the favorite was with both Jimmy Webb and Carlo Traversi completing the five most difficult problems in qualifying and the rest of the finalists not being all that far behind.

Once finals got underway it became clear early on that Puccio was sandbagging or didn’t know how strong she was, as she easily flashed all four finals problems including a stout second problem that stymied the rest of the women.

Alex Puccio on the move none of the other female finalists could get to on Women’s 2…

Despite Puccio’s dominance, the women’s event was not without its excitement as Puccio could have been at least tied had she failed to send the final problem, and Angie Payne showed her skills by being the only other woman to complete the final problem which put her firmly in second place.

The men’s side was a different story, with all the men failing to send both the opening technical problem and the powerful second problem.  The third problem is when the men’s final really started to take shape as four climbers finished that problem including flashes by Webb & Traversi which set the stage for problem number four.

Problem four was perhaps the most difficult problem on paper, but its powerful style of pinches on an overhang suited most of the competitors just fine, and again the top four finishers were able to finish this problem.  As the top qualifier, Jimmy Webb came out last and surged to victory with a flash of the last problem just as Alex Puccio was doing the same on her last problem.  A fitting way to end an exciting couple of hours of climbing.

Here are the un-official results from the live scoring that was used during the broadcast¹ to give you a breakdown of how each problem went.

Final results are below, and the entire event, including the two hour pre-show, can be re-watched in its entirety here.

Here are some photos I got while walking around during the qualifying round: