In Round 2 of the Bouldering World Cup series, hosted by China and held in the City of Chongqing last weekend, Shauna Coxsey claimed another podium place for Team GB. Leah Crane reports on how she and the rest of the team got on.
In Round 1 of the IFSC Bouldering World Cup series, which was held in Meiringen, Switzerland, Shauna Coxsey took gold and proved that she’s fully recovered and stronger than ever, while Michaela Tracy narrowly missed out on making the finals and Leah Crane and Nathan Phillips were both just a move away from making the semis. Orrin Coley flew out to China to join the team for Round 2 of the World Cup last weekend. There are seven rounds in total.
Chongqing is known for its city smog and high temperatures, but this year Team GB were greeted by a blue sky, cool breeze and a brand new competition venue situated in the Huayan Climbing Park. The structure, which is open-fronted with a roof, spectator space, seating and lighting, hosts a lead wall, speed wall and bouldering wall.
Qualifiers
On day one of the competition, the men's qualification round started in pleasant conditions. However, by the time the women's competition started, temperatures had risen to a more challenging 30 degrees C.
As is usual in these competitions, the highest ranked competitors climbed first, and the blocs were quickly dispatched by these elites. First up from Team GB was Nathan Phillips, who put in a sterling effort on the burly, dynamic and techy blocs but just fell short of making the cut for the semis. Orrin Coley, meanwhile, had a longer wait. The temperatures rapidly increased into the late twenties and Orrin pushed hard down to the very last second, but unfortunately also missed out on making the semis.
In an awesome display of dominance, Team Japan had entered 14 climbers, 10 men and 4 women, all of whom would make it to the semis.
As number one female boulderer in the world, Shauna kicked off the women's competition. She topped all the blocs, flashing two of them third go. Michaela impressively also topped all five blocs, in 16 attempts. Leah Crane had a hard time this round — topping one bloc and falling off penultimate holds on two others. So it was Shauna and Michalea to fly the flag for team GB in the semis.
Shauna supported by GB Climbing team members
Semi-finals
Michalea put on a good show for the crowd and topped her nemesis boulder of an awkward coordination dyno on her seventh attempt. Agonisingly though, she then proceeded to drop the last moves on the three other boulders. Her semis result does not do her performance justice but that's the way competitors go and she came in at 15th place. Shauna, meanwhile, went through to the finals.
It seems that most finals end up including a 'wildcard' competitor, someone who is new to or hasn't made it through to many final rounds before. This time it was Alannah Yip of Canada who came in at sixth place, and knocked world class climbers Petra Klingler (Switzerland) and Miho Nonaka (Japan) out of the finals.
For the men, three out of six of Team Japan's members made it through to the finals, along with Aleksei Rubtsov (Russia), Manu Cornu (France) and Jongwon Chon (South Korea).
WATCH: IFSC Climbing World Cup Chongqing 2017 - Men and Women's Semi-finals
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Finals
The competition organisers then paused the proceedings for an hour so that the climbers would not be climbing in full sun and to allow the temperature to cool. As the sun began to lower in the sky a big crowd gathered and the second final of the year commenced.
The blocs were fun and crowd pleasing, testing different aspects of the climbers' repertoire, with teetering slabs, dynos and power blocs.
For the women, it came down to the last bloc as to who would take the womens crown: Shauna or Janja Garnbret (Slovenia). Shauna flashed the final bloc and put the pressure on Janja. Janja had to top the last bloc to win. And that she did on her third go, making her the only women to top four blocs. Janja had completed every boulder in the competition. This performance resulted in her first ever Bouldering World Cup victory at age 18.
As for the men, it was Jongwon Chon who dominated his fellow competitors. He was the only one to top all four blocs in six attempts, while Tomoa Narasaki won silver with two flashes, and Aleksei achieved bronze.
Now all the competitors are continuing their journey to Nanjing for Round 3, which takes place next weekend.
WATCH: IFSC Climbing World Cup Chongqing 2017 - Bouldering Finals Highlights
VIDEO
After claiming second place, Shauna tweeted:
WATCH: Leah completing her final training session before heading out to China:
Nathan Phillips posted some thoughts on competitions on the way out to China:
Orrin Coley on the China experience:
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