World Championships 2012
We know the first finalists!

Today was the 3rd day of the ongoing World Championships in Sport Climbing and Paraclimbing and simultaneously the decisive day when it comes to whom we are going to see in the finals of Men’s Bouldering and Women’s Lead events.

The impressive climbing arena at Bercy, Paris
(photo: Championnats du Monde 2012 d'Escalade)

In both cases there was a stiff fight taking place already in the qualification rounds the previous day. According to Jacky Godoffe, who is the chief routesetter of the bouldering event, the grades of men’s five qualifications problems equaled 7A, 6C+/7A, 7B+, 7C and 7B+ and it seemed like the most problematic boulder was the 6C+/7A tricky slab. Actually, also in the women’s event, there were more slabs than the competitors could possibly have yearned for. Today’s semis boulders were equally exciting. There was a tricky 7A+ for warm-up, another nasty slab graded 7B+, quite difficult 7B+ dyno and to end with - a 7C+ looking easier that it actually was. Surprisingly, the last and the hardest boulder of the semi-final round was topped out by the most of the competitors, whereas the tricky 7A+ and the slab caused problems to names such as Jan Hojer, Rustam Gelmanov or Sean McColl. The third dyno boulder was completed only by few of the semi-finalists, Kilian Fischhuber, regarded as one of the most dynamic competitors, not included. It may sound awkward but we still should bear in mind that Jacky, who is a real Fontainebleu master, tends to undergrade boulders he sets :-) Eventually, six athletes waded through the semis achieving the results good enough to face the final challenge and these are:

Unfortunately, there will be no host’s representative in the final since Guillaume Glairon Mondet achieved the result one attempt for bonus hold worse than Rei Sugimoto, which makes him end  up the competition ranked #7… By the way, did you know that “Guillame” is the French equivalent of “William”?

GiGi's working his way to the top
(photo: www.worldclimbing2012.com)

Women’s semi-final route running at a slant of the huge 16 meter high wall located in the Bercy arena was full of slopers and pockets and in terms of difficulty it was officially graded 8b+ (the women’s qualifications routes were said to be 8a and 8a+). The team of routesetters with chief routesetter Adam Pustelnik did a great Job combining hard bouldery crux sections with technical traverse and pumpy endurance-based ending. The top group of Saturday’s 8 finalists achieved different results but none of them topped out the massive route. The brightest star of the semi-final was no one but Jain Kim of Korea (36+ result). Johanna Ernst, the youngest World Champion, fell off the wall one hold lower (35+), whereas the current third position was taken by brilliant Momoka Oda (42+) who bewitched the audience with her flawless technique and feet work. Apart from the aforementioned girls, in tomorrow’s finals we are going to see Angela Eiter (40+), Hélène Janicot (40), Matilda Söderlund (38+), Evgenia Malamid (36) and Charlotte Durif, who achieved the lowest score of 33.

Charlotte Durif in the qualification round
(photo: Championnats du Monde 2012 d'Escalade)

Another fun fact regarding names is that both Jain Kim’s brothers’ names start also with “Ja-“ prefix. It is said to be a common procedure in Asian countries to give siblings the names starting the same way. But the most important thing is that in the Korean language “Ja” means “rope”, which, treated as the factor of predestination, may at least to some point explain Jain Kim’s unquestionable climbing talent :-)

The first awarding ceremony was devoted to the Paraclimbing event. In the male category of Arthritis, Neurological, PD the gold medal was taken by Kumar Manikandan of India, silver went to Mishimura Raphael (Brasil) and bronze was won by French Besnard Mathieu.

The winners of the first Paraclimbing final
(photo: www.worldclimbing.2012.com)

Tomorrow’s live coverage (www.ifsc.tv) will start at 10 am with Women’s Boulder semi-final.
Later on we’re going to see also the semi-final of the Men’s Lead event, the Men’s Bouldering Finals and the 2nd final round of the Paraclimbing event. For the entire program visit the official site of the Championships.