Women’s Lead Semifinal Yields Some Expected Results—and a Major Upset

Today’s Women’s Lead Semifinal route was everything that yesterday’s Men’s Lead Semifinal route struggled to be: a consistent pump-fest that brought clear separation to the field, simultaneously allowing the sport’s greatest names to show their stuff while also giving the less-dominant athletes a stage to climb and enjoy the Olympic experience.

The route

The route was divided into five sections. Section 1 involved a series of small blue crimps on white volumes and was unscored. Section 2 carried on with the white-volume, blue-crimp theme for 10 moves, each of which was worth 1 point. Section 3 involved a series of easy (no competitors fell there) but tiring lockoffs or campus moves on sloping pink pocket jugs, where each hold was worth 2 points. Section 4, where each hold was worth three points, was where the field thinned: it involved a rightward traverse on a series of sloping blue volumes and jibs, and featured a hard clip, a nervy jump, and several tensiony heel hooks. Section 5, the headwall, where each hold was worth four points, was also a masterpiece of resistance climbing, with layback black crimps hidden on yellow volumes, culminating in a jump to the finish.

• Related: Was Climbing Better Before It Was an Olympic Sport?

How it went

As in Tuesday’s Boulder Semifinal, Great Britain’s Erin McNeice, climbing second behind South Africa’s Lauren Mukheiber (whose presence in the Games is symbolic, scoring zero points in Boulder and just 4.1 points in today’s Lead), made things look easier than they were. McNeice climbed with apparent ease all the way to the headwall before surprising herself (and us) by missing a hold and slipping off, adding 64.1 points to her total, and making 123.7 the score to beat.

McNeice’s performance rose in our esteem as 13 of the 18 subsequent competitors fell below her. Germany’s Lucia Dörffel racked up 51.1 points. Italy’s Camilla Moroni, who finished Boulder in seventh, fell moving to the 37-point hold, which dropped her from finalist contention. Ukraine’s Ievgeniia Kazbekova was the first of several climbers to struggle with a clip in Section 3. China’s Zhang Yuetong, the sixth climber, matched McNeice’s high point and climbed one 4-point hold past it, an impressive performance that was ultimately not enough to offset her poor Bouldering round; she finished the day in 13th position. France’s Zélia Avezou, who came into the day in 11th place, started up the route with some of the most fluid climbing we’d seen thus far, but broke the hearts of the hometown crowd when, like Kazbekova, she struggled with the clip and picked up just 45.1 points. China’s 18-year-old Luo Zhilu made the clip but fell soon after, gaining 48.1 points. Italy’s Laura Rogora—who finished second in the Briançon Lead World Cup a few weeks ago and was also the second woman to ever climb an outdoor route graded 5.15b—fared far less well than expected, falling below McNeice and Yuetong. McNeice’s compatriot, Molly Thompson-Smith, who trained most of last year on one foot while recovering from a broken ankle (and who could probably drink a full cup of tea while hanging a 20mm edge with one hand), climbed gracefully and managed to rest on the holds that others failed to clip from, but she then popped off the same move as Rogora, finishing her Olympic run with 66.8 points (9.8 in Boulder, 57 points in Lead). As each of those climbers dismissed themselves from final contention, suddenly McNeice’s 123.7 point combined score was looking good.

Australia’s Oceana Mackenzie, coming into the day in fifth place, was too pumped to even attempt Section 4’s cruxy clip—but it was enough to set her up for a solid chance to make finals, with a combined score of 124.7—one point higher than McNeice. The 12th climber, Slovenia’s Mia Krampl, ended her Olympic run when she misread a heel sequence and slipped off on her way to the 52-point hold. South Korea’s Seo Chaehyun Seo, one of the best competition Lead climbers of the last few years, needed to get 84 points to guarantee a spot in finals—and though she climbed brilliantly, establishing a new highpoint two moves higher than McNeice and one move higher than Yuetong, she came several moves below the 84-point mark—setting her up for a painful wait. (She ultimately qualified for finals in eighth place.)

• Also Read: Huge Upsets in Men’s Sport Climbing Lead Semifinal

Oriane Bertone, from France, who finished second in the Boulder round, needed to get to the 42-point hold to guarantee a spot in finals; she fought her way there (barely) before falling, becoming the first climber to assure herself of a spot with 129.6 points.

The first heartbreak of the day came from Japan’s Miho Nonaka, the silver medalist in Tokyo, who needed to get to the 60-point hold to pass McNeice and guarantee her spot in finals. She climbed well but didn’t quite get there—falling at 51.1 points, giving her a combined score of 115.5. And just like that, Erin McNeice had a spot in finals.

The second heartbreak came from USA’s Natalia Grossman, who’d underperformed expectations on Tuesday by finishing fifth in Boulder, her specialty. Still, to get into finals, she only needed to get to the 48-point hold—yet she fell far below that, gaining just 39.1 points. Her failure guaranteed Chaehyun Seo a slot in finals.

After that it was one brilliant performance after another. Austria’s Jessica Pilz became the first climber to move high onto the headwall, falling just a few moves below the chains and demonstrating not just her fitness for finals, but her readiness for a podium. America’s Brooke Raboutou climbed with characteristic ease high onto the route, falling on the same move as Seo (72.1 points) and easily nabbing a slot in finals. Japan’s Ai Mori—who’d scored just 54 points in Boulder and needed to match Erin McNeice’s high point to make finals—reminded us that she’s one of the greatest Lead competitors ever by climbing all the way to the last move and generating toward the finish hold—scoring 96.1 points.

In characteristic fashion, Janja Garnbret basically just needed to show up to make finals thanks to her 99.6 points in Boulder, but she did more than that, by jumping to (but not quite sticking) the final hold—giving her a score of 96.1.

Analysis

What’s there to say? Well done, setters. Well done, athletes. As with yesterday, it was delightful to see a great performance early in the round (first by Erin McNeice, then by Zhang Yuetong) become retroactively more and more impressive, until, finally, it’s enough to get some underdogs into finals.

This, of course, meant losing some favorites—and it’s especially sad, as an American, to see Natalia Grossman coming up so short, particularly since many of us considered her both a likely medalist and one of the only climbers well-rounded enough to Give Janja Garnbret a run for her money in the combined discipline. But unlike yesterday’s men’s route, where Jesse Grupper and five other competitors were dismissed by the same ridiculously hard move low on the route and never had a real chance to work their magic, this women’s Lead Semifinal was hard in the right way. Grossman (and Avezou and Thompson-Smith) made little mistakes that added up, not one big one, and got pumped, not spit off, which made it feel like the route was a fair test. It just wasn’t her comp.

Sure, it’s a bit sad to see multiple athletes stymied by a hard clip—definitely the worst part of this route—but that only happened a few times, and the clip was only hard because some athletes (but not all) arrived there pumped out of their minds. By the time I saw Jessica Pilz—the fourth to last climber of the day—get a new high point but still not finish the route, leaving some uncertainty for the final climbers to unlock, I was thinking “This is a perfectly set route.” The only thing that could have gone better is if Janja Garnbret had stuck the finishing jug towards which Ai Mori had desperately flailed. But perhaps we’ll get that version of events in finals.

Women’s Sport Climbing Semifinal Results

1. Janja Garnbret: 195.7 (Boulder: 99.6; Lead: 96.1)
2. Jessica Pilz: 156.9 (68.8; 88.1)
3. Brooke Raboutou: 155.8 (83.7; 72.1)
4. Ai Mori: 150.1 (54.0; 96.1)
5. Oriane Bertone: 129.6 (84.5; 45.1)
6. Oceana Mackenzie: 124.7 (79.6; 45.1)
7. Erin McNeice: 123.7 (59.6; 64.1)
8. Seo Chae-hyun: 116.3 (44.2; 72.1)
9. Miho Nonaka: 115.5 (64.4; 51.1)
10. Luo Zhilu: 111.7 (63.6; 48.1)
11. Natalia Grossman: 108.3 (69.2; 39.1)
12. Camilla Moroni: 100.1 (64; 36.1)
13. Zhang Yuetong: 97.7 (29.7; 68.0)
14. Zélia Avezou: 94.4 (49.3; 45.1)
15. Ievgeniia Kazbekova: 84.6 (39.5; 45.1)
16. Lucia Dörffel: 80.3 (29.2; 51.1)
17. Mia Krampl: 79.5 (28.4; 51.1)
18. Laura Rogora: 70.3 (13.2; 57.1)
19. Molly Thompson-Smith: 66.8 (9.8; 57.0)
20. Lauren Mukheiber: 4.1 (0.0; 4.1)