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The highly anticipated return of sport climbing at the summer Olympics is finally here. We’re dropped right into the action on day 1, with the men’s boulder semi-final and the women’s speed qualification and elimination rounds.
The boulder semi-final was a low-scoring affair and for a while, the audience might have feared they’d see no tops. However, commentator Shauna Coxsey some kind of curse with the hopeful line “I think we’re going to see some tops”. Jakob Schubert must have heard her, because he managed to record the first top on his first boulder. At the close of the semi-final, the tally was only 6 tops made on 80 attempts of the 20 athletes each trying 4 boulders.
Jakob Schubert, Adam Ondra, Sam Avézou, Toby Roberts and Tomoa Narasaki all made one top and Sorato Anraku managed to get two. Needless to say, those sends put them at the top of the leaderboard and created some serious distance from climbers without tops, who will have their work cut out for them on Wednesday, when they tackle the lead wall.
The seeding round of the Women’s speed event started with some technical difficulties. In the first two races of the seeding round, one of two clocks that climbers have to hit at the top of the wall to finish their run, didn’t work. After about 15 minutes of troubleshooting and repairs, Chinese climber Zhou Yafei and Indonesian athlete Desak Made Made Rita Kusuma Dewi had to reclimb their first seeding time.
Things went fast once the competition was under way, and the Tokyo Olympic record of 6.84 seconds, held by Aleksandra Miroslaw, got destroyed instantly and repeatedly. In quick succession, Zhou Yafei, Desak Made Made Rita Kusuma Dewi and US climber Emma Hunt pushed the Olympic record down. Yafei from 6.84 to 6.54, Desak Made pushed it to 6.52 and Emma Hunt to 6.36.
But next up was world record holder Aleksandra Miroslaw and she went on to not only push the brand-new Olympic Record of Emma Hunt down some more, she broke her own world record that previously stood at 6.24 by climbing the speed route in 6.21 seconds in the first lane and in 6.06 seoncd in the second lane. She clearly came here with her eyes set on the gold medal and she’ll be tough to beat.
After the seeding round, the roster for the elims was set. Miroslaw was up first and sent South Africa’s Aniya Holder packing with a 6.10 second run. Emma Hunt stayed consistent and progressed over Manon Lebon. Next, Polish climber Aleksandra Kalucka beat New Zealand’s Sarah Tetzlaff. There was no upset just yet and in the next heat Yafei beat Beatrice Colli. However, the times in these heats got closer and closer together, but still, Deng beat Viglione in the next heat. Made Rita Kusuma Dewi, the current world champ, sent the USA’s Piper Kelly home in a close call
The highly anticipated return of sport climbing at the summer Olympics is finally here. We’re dropped right into the action on day 1, with the men’s boulder semi-final and the women’s speed qualification and elimination rounds.
The boulder semi-final was a low-scoring affair and for a while, the audience might have feared they’d see no tops. However, commentator Shauna Coxsey some kind of curse with the hopeful line “I think we’re going to see some tops”. Jakob Schubert must have heard her, because he managed to record the first top on his first boulder. At the close of the semi-final, the tally was only 6 tops made on 80 attempts of the 20 athletes each trying 4 boulders.
Jakob Schubert, Adam Ondra, Sam Avézou, Toby Roberts and Tomoa Narasaki all made one top and Sorato Anraku managed to get two. Needless to say, those sends put them at the top of the leaderboard and created some serious distance from climbers without tops, who will have their work cut out for them on Wednesday, when they tackle the lead wall.
The seeding round of the Women’s speed event started with some technical difficulties. In the first two races of the seeding round, one of two clocks that climbers have to hit at the top of the wall to finish their run, didn’t work. After about 15 minutes of troubleshooting and repairs, Chinese climber Zhou Yafei and Indonesian athlete Desak Made Made Rita Kusuma Dewi had to reclimb their first seeding time.
Things went fast once the competition was under way, and the Tokyo Olympic record of 6.84 seconds, held by Aleksandra Miroslaw, got destroyed instantly and repeatedly. In quick succession, Zhou Yafei, Desak Made Made Rita Kusuma Dewi and US climber Emma Hunt pushed the Olympic record down. Yafei from 6.84 to 6.54, Desak Made pushed it to 6.52 and Emma Hunt to 6.36.
But next up was world record holder Aleksandra Miroslaw and she went on to not only push the brand-new Olympic Record of Emma Hunt down some more, she broke her own world record that previously stood at 6.24 by climbing the speed route in 6.21 seconds in the first lane and in 6.06 seoncd in the second lane. She clearly came here with her eyes set on the gold medal and she’ll be tough to beat.
After the seeding round, the roster for the elims was set. Miroslaw was up first and sent South Africa’s Aniya Holder packing with a 6.10 second run. Emma Hunt stayed consistent and progressed over Manon Lebon. Next, Polish climber Aleksandra Kalucka beat New Zealand’s Sarah Tetzlaff. There was no upset just yet and in the next heat Yafei beat Beatrice Colli. However, the times in these heats got closer and closer together, but still, Deng beat Viglione in the next heat. Made Rita Kusuma Dewi, the current world champ, sent the USA’s Piper Kelly home in a close call
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SportsTranscript
00:00The highly anticipated return of sport climbing at the Summer Olympics is finally here.
00:06We're dropped right into the action on day one with the men's boulder
00:11semifinal and the women's speed qualification and elimination rounds.
00:18The boulder semifinal was a low-scoring affair and for a while the audience might have feared they'd see no tops.
00:27However, commentator Shauna Coxsey lifted some kind of curse with the hopeful line
00:33I think we're gonna see some tops.
00:34Jakob Schubert must have heard her because he managed to record the first top on his first boulder.
00:44At the close of the semifinal the tally was only six tops made on 80 attempts
00:50of the 20 athletes each trying four boulders.
00:54Jakob Schubert, Adam Ondra, Sam Avezu, Toby Roberts and Tomoa Narasaki all made one top
01:02and Sorato Andraku managed to get two.
01:05Needless to say those cents put them at the top of the leaderboard and created some serious
01:10distance from climbers without tops who will have their work cut out for them on Wednesday
01:15when they tackle the lead wall.
01:17The boulder semifinal started slow with a punishing and powerful first boulder problem.
01:23The climbers came out in an order based on the current IFSC world ranking and the lower
01:29ranked climbers struggled with the first move of the boulder.
01:32It was the British Hamish MacArthur who stuck it first but the difficulty of B1 was very consistent.
01:39Reaching and using the high zone proved too difficult for most climbers
01:44and only a couple of them got near the top.
01:46Yannick Flohe and Adam Ondra managed to touch the final hold but we had to wait until Austrian
01:52powerhouse Jakob Schubert showed up to see the boulder topped.
01:56Toby Roberts got extremely close and for a moment it seemed like he topped but when he
02:01jumped down he signaled to the brushing team to get to work so he must have realized his
02:06match didn't count.
02:08Japanese climber Sorato Andraku was the final climber to climb since he was the only climber
02:14since he sits on top of the world rankings and he joined Jakob as one of only two climbers
02:19to top B1.
02:21Boulder 2 looked really fun and most climbers made it too and passed the high zone for 10
02:26points with relative ease.
02:28But the final move proved too much for the field.
02:31Alberto Ginés López, Sama Vesu and Colin Duffy seemed to get very close but once again
02:37it was only Sorato, the youngest climber of the field, who managed to stick the coordination
02:43move and match the final hold for 25 points, taking a massive lead on the field.
02:49Boulder 3 started with two coordination jumps that gave most of the field a lot of problems.
02:55But the real crux was the jump from the high zone.
02:58Yi Dohyun seemed to come closest to sticking that move but no one ended up getting the
03:03top.
03:04Finally, Boulder 4 was a very tricky slab and getting to the high zone for 10 points
03:10was a challenge for the first half of the field.
03:12Hannes van Deuzen and Paul Genthe managed to reach the high zone but it wasn't until
03:17Sama Vesu came onto the mat that we saw a top and the French crowd had a reason to go
03:23wild.
03:23Adam Ondra, Tomo Narasaki and Toby Roberts were the only climbers to channel Sam's
03:29solid footwork and composure and send the problem as well.
03:37At the end of the day, it's not the order in which the climbers finish but the amount
03:42of points they get that counts.
03:44So climbers with tops have a massive benefit going into the lead semifinal and have the
03:50highest chance to get a good combined score.
03:53The two Japanese climbers, Narasaki and Anraku, arguably the favorites for Boulder, came in
03:59first and second place and combined world champion so we'll be looking to him to qualify
04:04for finals near the top of the field.
04:07Toby Roberts performed very well with his top as did Sam Avesu who delivered massively
04:13for the French home crowd in Le Bourget.
04:15Alberto Ginés López sits surprisingly low in the Boulder ranking since he was definitely
04:21one to watch based on his performance in the qualifier series.
04:28Before we have a look at what happened in the Women's Speed Qualification and Elimination
04:32rounds, we're having a closer look at our very own Belgian climber Hannes van Duijzen's
04:37performance.
04:38Hannes was in the lead after his four boulders for a long time until the tops started coming
04:44in which pushed him down the ranking.
04:47On Boulder 1, he flashed the high zone which is the main reason for his edge over the climbers
04:53who also scored somewhere near 34 points.
04:57On Boulder 2, he made the high zone in three tries but couldn't stick the top.
05:01No one else aside from Sorato Anraku did so that was no reason to panic.
05:06On Boulder 3, he only made the low zone once again in three tries.
05:11The second coordination move caused him too much trouble.
05:15On Boulder 4, he was up against a tricky slab which is his bread and butter and he was the
05:21first athlete to make the high zone.
05:23He nearly stuck the top but bounced off the wall a little too much and had to settle for
05:29the 10 points.
05:31He ended up in 7th with 34.2 points as the first climber without tops and is in a good
05:38position going into lead climbing.
05:40To state the obvious for those less familiar with the format, Hannes will want his combined
05:45score to put him in the top 8 after the lead event on Wednesday, August 7th if he wants
05:52to progress to the finals.
05:54Come on Hannes!
05:55The speed events start off with a seeding round and an elimination round.
06:00In the seeding round, athletes get two runs, one in each lane, to set a good time, based
06:06on which they are put into the roster for the elimination heats.
06:10The fastest climber takes on the slowest climbers and the winners of the elimination heats
06:15go on to the quarterfinals which are held in a couple of days.
06:19The seeding round started off with some technical difficulties.
06:23In the first two races of the seeding round, one of the two clocks that climbers have to
06:27hit at the top of the wall to finish their run didn't work.
06:31After about 15 minutes of troubleshooting and repairs, Chinese climber Zhou Yafei and
06:37Indonesian athlete Desak Mademaderi Takusumadewi had to reclimb their first seeding time.
06:43Things went fast once the competition was over.
06:46Things went fast once the competition was underway.
06:49And the Tokyo Olympic record of 6.84 seconds held by Aleksandra Miroslav got destroyed
06:57instantly and repeatedly.
06:58In quick succession, Zhou Yafei, Desak Mademaderi Takusumadewi and US climber Emma Hunt pushed
07:05the Olympic record down.
07:07Yafei from 6.84 to 6.54, Desak Mademaderi pushed it to 6.52 and Emma Hunt to 6.36.
07:16But next up was world record holder Aleksandra Miroslav herself.
07:20And she went on to not only push the brand new Olympic record set by Emma Hunt down some
07:26more, she broke her own world record that previously stood at 6.24 by climbing the speed
07:34route in 6.21 seconds in the first lane and in 6.06 seconds in the second lane.
07:41After the seeding round, the roster was set for the Elims.
07:45Miroslav was up first and sent South Africa's Anja Holder packing with a 6.10 second run.
07:53Emma Hunt stayed consistent and progressed over Manon Lebon.
07:57Next, Polish climber Aleksandra Kaluka beat New Zealand's Sarah Tetzlaff.
08:01There was no upset just yet.
08:03And in the next heat, Yafei beat Beatrice Colli.
08:07However, the times in these heats got closer and closer together.
08:11But still, Dong beat Vic Lione in the next heat.
08:14Rita Kusumadewi, the current world champ, sent the USA's Piper Kelly home in a close call.
08:21And in the next heat, Spanish climber Leslie Adriana Romero Perez
08:26caused the first upset, beating Indonesia's Radja Salsabila,
08:30who fell early in her run but who progressed to the quarterfinals anyway
08:35because she has the fastest time of the losing climbers.
08:38A brutal moment took place when, because of the slip,
08:41Salsabila pushed out Beatrice Colli from the fastest loser spot in the final elimination heat.
08:48Here's the roster for the quarterfinals, coming up on Wednesday, August 7th.
08:53That's all from Day 1.
08:55If you want to learn more about sport climbing at the Summer Olympics,
08:58check out our Everything You Need To Know video.
09:01And we'll see you tomorrow for the Day 2 post-show.
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