Alex Puccio finished the 2011 Boulder World Cup this week in third place, becoming the first American climber to make the overall podium. Puccio, 22,聽 came in one place higher than the previous best American finisher, Alex Johnson, who finished fourth last year. Anna Stohr took first place for the women, while the 2010 winner, Akiyo Noguchi, slipped to second place after coming in sixth at the season’s final event in Munich, Germany. Missing from the podium was last year’s third-place finisher Chloe Graftiaux, who died last August in a fall while descending the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey in the Italian Alps. On the men’s side, Austrian Killian Fischhuber , while Russian Dimitry Sharafutdinov, who missed two events this year due to visa problems, came in second. The only American man in the top ten was Daniel Woods, who finished in ninth place overall.
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