The IFSC World Cup Series 2024 moved onto Wujiang, China, just a short hop from Keqiao, and with the change of venue there was also a change of discipline with Lead and Speed taking the spotlight.
First up, the Lead qualification.
In the men’s competition, a host of climbers registered tops with four sharing first place in the overall rankings. Great Britain’s Toby Roberts, USA’s Colin Duffy and the Japanese pair of Homma Taisei and Anraku Sorato all topped both of the routes and head the competition through to the semi-finals.
Lee Dohyun of South Korea was the only other climber to register a top and goes through in fifth. Japan have 11 representatives in the 26 with Boulder World Cup Keqiao winner Narasaki Tomoa joining teammates Anraku and Homma.
Another of the Boulder World Cup medallists from Keqiao, Belgium’s Hannes Van Duysen, also progresses into semis and is joined by previous Lead World Cup winners Sascha Lehmann of Switzerland and Luka Potocar of Slovenia.
Australia’s future Olympian Campbell Harrison is enjoying his start to the Olympic year and goes through in 24th. Harrison said: “It’s my third Lead World Cup semi-final in a row so I’m pretty stoked as I’ve only done five semi-finals in total. And I’m not feeling in great Lead shape yet so it was cool to be able to keep it altogether and have a decent round. So far the season is kicking off well for me so it’s a good sign for Paris.”
Just like the men’s standings, the women also had double tops and familiar names. None more familiar with the top of the leaderboard than Janja Garnbret. With two tops, once again the Slovenian goes through to the semi-finals.
Matching the result is Italy’s Laura Rogora and a home favourite, Luo Zhilu, who will be hoping the crowd can give her that extra little push as she goes further into the competition.
The other two athletes to top a route were France’s Manon Hily who goes through in fourth and South Korea’s Seo Chaehyun in fifth.
Hily said: “The routes were very good and very powerful. I think it’s my style, just giving 100%. I love this wall also as it’s very overhanging and the routesetters did a good job with the routes, they were very nice to climb.”
There is more home interest in the semi-finals with Zhang Yuetong, who has already qualified for Paris 2024, making it through qualification in 11th.
Zhang said: “I felt good, better than I expected. I haven’t really trained a lot of Lead and I think I climbed a little differently, but I climbed well so I’m happy. The second route was more to my strengths, so I climbed good on that one. I just don’t have that much endurance because I haven’t been training Lead as much.
“Before the competition I was a little bit nervous as everyone knows I have the Olympic ticket so they may have been expecting me to be really strong. Even at the Boulder World Cup people were telling me they were looking forward to me climbing Lead, but I haven’t been training as much so I didn’t want to disappoint.”
On her 100th Lead World Cup appearance, which takes her to fourth on the all-time list for women, South Korea’s Kim Jain joins teammates Seo and Cho Gayeon who made it through to the next round in the final 26th spot.   
To hear more from the climbers in Wujiang click here
For full results click here
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