The climbing World Champion Tomas Mrazek will not in the end attend this year's Winter Olympic Games where the climbing was in the last moment contributed as additional program.

His partner Helena Lipenska told that commission of sport climbing has got quite limited amount of the money and that they decided not to spent them on just presentation on the Olympic Games but rather to use them to cover some cost on World Cup competitons participation. According to her info also other originaly invited top world climbers will not attend the Games e.g. Patxi Usobiaga (ESP) or Flavio Crespi (ITA). But the top girls as Angela Eiter (AUT) or Maja Vidmar (SLO) there should be present as the official schedule shows.

Sport climbing was chosen as additional program of alpinist disciplines (like snowboard, skiing...). It happens in the location of Bardonecchia, about 80 km away from Torino.

Look at the actual program and list of partipcipation:

The Climbing Challenge - Bardonecchia 2006

4 S
5 D 12:00 The Flame 18:00
6 L
7 M
8 M
9 G
10 V
11 S 10:30 open training 13:00 16:00 Climbing Rings 18:00
12 D HM 10:30 Visitors 13:00 16:00 Visitors (Mountain Guides) 17:00 Climbing Rings 18:30
13 L HF 15:00 Kids climbing 17:00 Climbing Rings 18:30
14 M 10:30 open training 13:00 17:00 Visitors 18:30
15 M 10:30 open training 13:00 17:00 Visitors 18:30
16 G CM 17:00 Climbing Rings 18:30
17 V CF 15:00 Kids climbing 17:00 Climbing Rings 18:30
18 S 10:00 Uget contest 17:00 Climbing Rings 18:30
19 D 10:30 open training 13:00 15:00 Visitors 17:00 Visitors 18:30
20 L 15:00 Kids climbing
21 M 15:30 Visitors 18:30
22 M GM 10:30 Visitors 12:30 16:00 Visitors (Mountain Guides) 17:00 Climbing Rings 18:30
23 G GF 17:00 Climbing Rings 18:30
24 V 10:30 open training 13:00 15:00 Kids climbing 17:00 Visitors 18:30
25 S 10:30 open training 13:00 15:00 Climbing Rings 17:00 Climbing Rings 18:30
26 D 10:30 Visitors 12:30 15:00 Visitors 17:00

CLIMBING RINGS
events where the world
best climbers present
the sport - open to the
Olympic Family and friends
to enjoy climbing together.

KIDS CLIMBING
kids from region schools
will be able to climb,
and meet the world best
climbers.

VISITORS
the fun of climbing, for all!

OPEN TRAINING
training sessions,
open to friends and public,
views on the climbing
sport background.

Climbers:

climbing rings

DOYLE Mike CAN
PRYCE Alan AUS
VINOKUR Vadim USA
MIDTBOE Magnus NOR
FISCHHUBER Killian AUT
VERHOEVEN Jorg NED
ZHAO Lei CHN
HARRINGTON Emily USA
CHENG Lai Sho, Lisa HKG
EITER Angela AUT
MEYER Jerome FRA
ESCOBAR Manuel VEN
CORE Christian ITA
PRETI Lucas ITA
CIAVALDINI Caroline FRA
DE GRANDI Stefania ITA
POZZOLI Giovanna ITA
RODRIGUEZ Francis VEN
LAVARDA Jenny ITA
AGUIRRE Leire ESP
MARCHISIO Stella ITA
LACHAT Cedric SUI
OLEKSY Tomasz POL
RAKHMETOV Salavat RUS
SINITSYN Sergey RUS
SAULEVICH Anna RUS
VIDMAR Maja SLO
RYEPKO Olena UKR
SHALAGINA Olga UKR

More info from The Climbing Challenge, BARDONECCHIA, PALAZZETTO DELLO SPORT, at
www.uiaaclimbing.com