Huge Upsets in Men’s Sport Climbing Lead Semifinal
After Monday’s too-stiff bouldering round—in which even the best boulderers accumulated relatively few points—today’s Lead semifinal offered lead specialists the chance to rack up serious points and get themselves back in the running for finals. But the setters had other ideas—putting together a savagely tricky route that spit off some of the world’s best.
How it went
The first climbers, South Africa’s Mel Jans van Rensburg and Australia’s Campbell Harrison, made it through the non-scoring holds lower on the route, but van Rensburg collected just seven points to Harrison’s retroactively admirable 14. The competition picked up intensity when Great Britain’s Hamish McCarthur, who’d come in eighth in Monday’s Boulder round with with 34.2 points, climbed far past Rensburg and Harrison’s high points—a performance that came to seem (also retroactively) more impressive when the majority of the field later fell below him. He was ultimately bested by a powerful campus sequence at the route’s halfway point, and his 45.1 points were (thanks to some gigantic upsets) enough to squeak him into finals in eighth place.
The following climber, Slovenia’s Luka Potočar, had a foot slip at the 24 point hold. China’s Pan Yufei battled through multiple foot slips and fell even lower. Star American lead climber Jesse Grupper got shortroped by his belayer at the end of first sequence and then established a new theme for the day: misreading a move low on the route and falling at the 12 point hold. Disappointing for sure—but nothing to be embarrassed about: the same move later spit off five more climbers, including some greats.
Then Alberto Ginés López, the Tokyo gold medalist and a Lead specialist, came out and absolutely styled the sections we’d just seen half a dozen climbers struggle on. He rested on the same holds McArthur fell from, earned cheers from the crowd when he effortlessly campused through the next section, and then climbed past some moves that I didn’t realize were hard until I later watched numerous competitors fall from them. Ginés López gained the headwall and climbed higher than any other competitor—but couldn’t find a body position from which to clip a quickdraw and ultimately fell at the 72 point hold. This was more than enough to make up for his relatively paltry bouldering round (he started the day in 14th place with just 28.7 points).
The next climber, the tall Frenchman Paul Jenft, found some clever new sequences through the powerful lower moves and easily navigated the sideways campus sequence. He fell several moves lower than Ginés López, and his 57 points did not at first seem likely to overcome his low bouldering score (34.1 points). Adam Ondra styled his way up the route, nearly matching Ginés López’s high point and becoming the first climber to guarantee himself a spot in the finals. Colin Duffy had to get to hold 60—behind both Ondra and Ginés López, but ahead of Paul Jenft—in order to guarantee a spot to the final. But he fell two holds below that—so he had to hope that later climbers made mistakes.
Which they did.
Switzerland’s Sascha Lehmann, who’s won multiple World Cup Lead events, ended his Olympic run after falling on the same move that spit off Grupper. Then France’s Sam Avezou, Japan’s Tomoa Narasaki, South Korea’s Lee Dohyun, and the Netherlands’s Hannes Van Duysen slipped off it too. Germans Yannick Flohé and Alex Megos both got through the move but had foot slips several moves higher, ruining their Olympic chances. (The biggest upsets of these were Narasaki, who came into Lead in second place, and seemed almost guaranteed a spot in finals—and Megos, whose recent silver medal in the IFSC World Cup in Innsbruck demonstrated his Lead fitness.)
As each of these climbers fell, Paul Jenft, Colin Duffy, and Hamish McArthur’s scores all rose toward finalist contention. They also decreased the requirements on the final three climbers—Jakob Schubert, Toby Roberts, and Anraku Sorato—all of whom had good bouldering rounds. Jakob Schubert, for instance, merely needed 26 points to qualify—and he got them easily, climbing through the campus traverse and falling on the same move as Colin Duffy. Toby Roberts, meanwhile, only needed to get to the 16th hold, which was anxiety provoking for the audience, since we knew that involved sticking the move to the 13-point hold that so many climbers had fallen from. But Roberts, despite a surprise foot cut quite low, managed to match Adam Ondra’s high point on the headwall. By this point, the route had spit off so many climbers so low down that the final climber, Anraku Sorato, would have qualified for finals even if he didn’t even try the Lead route. But he didn’t know that. He promptly climbed to the same move that Ondra and Roberts had reached—one hold below Ginés López.
Analysis
The setting
The setting in today’s final was almost excellent—but “almost” isn’t what you want to see in the Olympics. We should never see six of 20 competitors fall on the same move, particularly when that move is at the beginning of the route.
Now, in the setters’s defense, each climber fell while attempting the same uncreative method (keeping square hips while bumping right handed off a very slick right foothold) while most of the successful climbers did the move by (a) using a clever right toe hook, (b) dropping their right knee rather than staying square, or (c) utilizing a low heel hook. Nevertheless, such a sequence would be better placed much higher on the route, weeding out the good from the great rather than spiking our blood pressure—and simultaneously breaking the hearts of athletes who have worked so hard to get here.
Furthermore, three of the four climbers to reach the headwall—Ondra, Roberts, and Sorato—fell on the same move, and the only athlete to climb higher (Ginés López) only did so (a) by one move, and (b) because he saved energy by skipping a quickdraw. Only Roberts managed to clip that draw—something that took extreme energy and ended his bid to the top. And Sorato and Ondra both paused and fumbled with body position for the clip. We never got to see anyone even get close to the anchors.
Given the setters’ total miscalculation in Monday’s Boulder round, I must admit that I’m now losing faith in the setting team’s ability to give us a fun contest for these men. I hope they prove me wrong during Friday’s final.
What we can expect in finals
Despite some huge upsets—and despite the fact that we didn’t get to see the sort of show we expected—the finalist list is a nice mix of expected names and exciting surprises. (Hamish McArthur, 22, is one of these; he has only made finals in two World Cups, both in Lead, and has climbed brilliantly this week.) Thanks to the far-too-hard bouldering round, the skillset skews heavily toward Lead specialists, with Roberts, Ondra, Ginés López, Schubert, Duffy, and McArthur all voicing a preference toward the discipline. That said, everyone present except for McArthur and Ginés López has also medaled in a bouldering round. And Sorato seems to find everything equally easy.
If the setters get it right, it should be an excellent show.
Men’s Boulder & Lead Semifinal Results
- Anraku Sorato: 137.0 (Boulder: 69; Lead: 68.0)
- Toby Roberts: 122.2 (54.1; 68.1)
- Adam Ondra: 116.8 (48.7; 68.1)
- Alberto Ginés López: 100.7 (28.7; 72.0)
- Jakob Schubert: 98.8 (44.7; 54.1)
- Paul Jenft: 91.1 (34.1; 57.0)
- Colin Duffy: 87.9 (33.8; 54.1)
- Hamish McArthur: 79.3 (34.2; 45.1)
- Yannick Flohé: 68.8 (29.7; 39.1)
- Tomoa Narasaki: 66.5 (54.4; 12.1)
- Sam Avezou: 61.3 (49.2; 12.1)
- Pan Yufei: 59.1 (29.0; 30.1)
- Alexander Megos: 48.7 (24.7; 24.0)
- Hannes Van Duysen: 46.3 (34.3; 12.0)
- Lee Dohyun: 46.0 (34.0; 12.0)
- Luka Potocar: 43.6 (19.6; 24.0)
- Sascha Lehmann: 36.1 (24.0; 12.1)
- Jesse Grupper: 30.9 (18.9; 12.0)
- Campbell Harrison: 23.4 (9.4; 14.0)
- Mel Janse van Rensburg: 16.5 (9.4; 7.1)
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