D3: women lead semi-final: a very strong top 4
They are not 3 anymore but 4 to grasp the spectators’ attention during the women lead competition. Let’s have a look at the semi-final that treated well its favorites.
From the bouldering to lead wall, there are only a few meters away. However, the scenario is the complete opposite to what happened in the men bouldering semi-final. When individual successes were happening and turning upside down the bouldering world, a bit higher, on the lead wall, the women leaders were crushing their opponents.
On this very physical route, the crowd was looking at Janja Garnbret (SLO), Kim Jain (KOR) and Anak Verhoeven (BEL). All three made a big impression in this second round. But not everything was done and one question still remains: will Mina Markovic be back at her best level? Now that we have the answer we can say that the lead queen is claiming her throne. The Slovenian achieved the second best performance of this semi-final. The scenario of this final will see four girls fighting hard tomorrow for the three medals.
Behind, we still have few key actors. Jessica Pilz, Magdalena Röck, who finished 5th and 6th. The Austrian team made a big impression. Three girls also realized impressive performances: the American Claire Buhrfeind, Swiss Alina Ring, and French Julia Chanourdie: « I never saw her fight so hard. She’s in good shape and she never panicked. I think this performance is going to be an epiphany for her career. », notices Corentin Le Goff. Julia Chanourdie gave tonight « the run of her life », choose the best moment to do this and will definitely fight hard for a medal in final tomorrow night.
Congrats Julia! Behind her, it was also close for Mathilde Becerra. The French girl finished 10th, 2 ranks away to get into the final. Salomé Romain also showed pretty good things. Charlotte Durif failed one move lower, Nolwenn Arc and Hélène Janicot finished 23th ex-aequo. « Having our 6 girls in semi-finals was already a great performance. And we also saw great things from some young athletes so we have big ambitions for the future. » concludes Corentin Le Goff.