The first round of the two-part Olympic Qualifier Series took place in Shanghai, China earlier this month, where Sport Climbing was showcased alongside Breaking, Skateboarding and BMX freestyle. A nervy competition led to both upsets for favourites and breakout performances by young up-and-coming athletes. GB Climbing's six-strong cohort achieved one podium finish and two further top-20 places in Boulder & Lead, with Erin McNeice winning bronze, Hamish McArthur placing 7th and Molly Thompson-Smith 13th.

Fellow GB Climbing team members Jack MacDougall, Max Milne and Jim Pope finished 28th, 38th and 40th respectively. 

To qualify for Paris 2024, athletes must rank among the top 5 eligible athletes in Speed and top 10 in Lead & Boulder after ranking points are added together for both Olympic Qualifier Series rounds. Due to the reallocation of unused Host and Universality quota places, making the top 7 among eligible athletes in Speed and top 12 in Boulder & Lead will potentially qualify athletes for Paris (one possible exception explained in Speed below). 

The next round takes place in Budapest, Hungary from 20-23 June.

Speed

Arguably the most tense rounds of the competition, some early false starts and finish pad misses rattled the field. The cruel battle between Polish twins Aleksandra and Natalia Kalucka for one final Polish quota place got off to an interesting start, with Aleksandra making her mark early on with a win in the qualifying round with the fastest time of 6.55 seconds and Natalia ranking 5th with 6.77 seconds. Teammate Patricia Chudziak was disqualified after a false start. Yafei Zhou (CHN) and Capucine Viglione (FRA) completed the top three. 

In the 1/4 finals, all athletes enjoyed close races under ~7 seconds. Rajiah Sallsabillah (INA) beat Aleksandra to progress to the 1/2 finals. Natalia beat Jimin Jeong (KOR), while Yafei Zhou (CHN) and Di Niu (CHN) joined them in the semis. Sallsabillah beat Natalia by 0.01 seconds (6.69/6.70 seconds), while Zhou beat Niu with 6.69 over 6.81 seconds. 

A convincing win by Zhou over Sallsabillah (6.54 vs. 6.75) gave her a PB, the top spot and 50 points to carry forward to Budapest. Bronze went to Natalia Kalucka, who bested Niu with a 6.67-second performance.

"I just performed like myself. I performed the way I do normally," said Zhou. "I tried to focus on every single climb, on every single run I had to do today. I did feel nervous, but I tried to block out the noise that came from the spectators. I felt I just had to focus on myself. I just thought about the action, about the things I had to do."
 
She added: "This was not the best level, because some athletes were not here. It felt like the second level. The level could be even higher."

Seventh-place finisher Viglione (FRA) can earn a Host Country reallocated place for her home Games if she does not already qualify by ranking among the top five eligible athletes after Budapest. Read more on the qualification process here.

In the men's qualification event, Kiromal Katibin (INA) clocked the fastest time of 4.90 seconds. He was beaten by Xinshang Wang (CHN) in the 1/4 finals, who joined Veddriq Leonardo (INA), Yaroslav Tkach (UKR) and Peng Wu (CHN) in progressing to the semi finals. Wu narrowly beat Tkach (5.01 vs 5.09) and Leonardo continued his fast form with a time of 4.88 over Wang's 6.21 seconds.

In the final, Leonardo won against home favourite Wu Peng of China, hitting the finish pad at 4.83 seconds – four tenths of a second away from the current world record. Wu placed second with 4.88. The men's Speed podium was completed by Wang Xinshang of China, winner in 4.99 seconds of a tight small final race against Ukraine's Yaroslav Tkach.

Boulder & Lead

Qualification

Split over two days, Boulder & Lead qualification began a tough test of energy, skin and nerves for the climbers progressing to the next rounds.

Jenya Kazbekova (UKR) topped the leaderboard in the women's Boulder qualification round, with Lee Dohyun (KOR) ranking first in the men's, with Hamish McArthur (GBR) in 2nd and Olympic Champion Alberto Ginés López (ESP) in 3rd. A few surprises saw strong boulderers fail to pick up as many valuable points as they might have liked, including Tokyo 2020 Olympians Kyra Condie (USA), Alannah Yip (CAN) and Mickaël Mawem (FRA). 

Lead shuffled the rankings as strong performances by Jain Kim (KOR), Laura Rogora (ITA), Chaehyun Seo (KOR and Molly Thompson Smith (GBR) bumped up their combined score. in the women's round. The top-three after both rounds were Miho Nonaka (JPN), Brooke Raboutou (USA) and Jenya Kazbekova (UKR). Erin McNeice finished 7th and 9th in each event, qualifying in 7th for the semis, with Molly Thompson-Smith in 16th. 

In the men's event, Lead "specialists" Ginés-López, Stefano Ghisolfi (ITA), Sascha Lehmann (SUI) and Alex Megos (GER) occupied the top-three positions, with Dohyun Lee sharing the =3rd rank and demonstrating excellent versatility across both disciplines alongside Ginés-López. GB Climbing's Hamish McArthur qualified in third for semi-finals. 

Semi-finals

In semis, four women topped all four boulders. Brooke Raboutou edged ahead with a score of 99.8, Jenya Kazbekova in 2nd (99.5), Miho Nonaka in third (99.1) and Futaba Ito (JPN) in 4th. The battle for the final Japanese women's spot between Nonaka and Ito was heating up. Erin McNeice (GBR) placed 6th.

Korean teammates Chaehyun Seo and Jain Kim were =1st after the Lead route, reaching 39+ - eight points above Brooke Raboutou (USA) and a cluster of climbers on 31+. After both rounds, Seo qualified in 1st, Raboutou 2nd and Nonaka in 3rd. Erin McNeice qualified for finals in 8th, securing the chance to improve her ranking and earn as many points as possible. Both Japanese women, Nonaka and Ito, would continue to climb for the last quota place in the final.

With three French climbers making the top-ten in semis, which was dominated by Paul Jenft (FRA) with three Tops, the pressure was on these men to outperform one another for the two available places. Adam Ondra (CZE) finished 2nd behind Jenft, and his French teammate Mejdi Schalck - arguably a favourite for an Olympic spot - finished 3rd. Hamish McArthur set himself up well for a potential finals place in 4th place.

In Lead, once again Dohyun Lee (KOR) topped the scoreboard, with Ginés-López (ESP) and Lehmann (SUI) just one move behind. Hannes van Duysen excelled across both rounds and bettered his Boulder rank in Lead to achieve 3rd place ahead of finals. Hamish McArthur ranked 5th in Lead to qualify in 6th. Schalck missed out on finals in 10th place behind his finals-qualified teammates, meaning he has work to do in Budapest next month. 

Finals

Tired climbers with sore skin lined up for the finals after a marathon of climbing. The format certainly seemed to test climbers physically as well as emotionally, given pressure to perform as well as possible across two events. 

In the women's Boulder final, Brooke Raboutou was the only woman to top three Boulders with a thrilling ascent of a sideways jump into a press that stopped the rest of the field, and challenged Raboutou until late in her attempts, scoring 83.8 overall. With one Boulder being arguably too easy for the women, the results came down to attempts to top two boulders. Erin McNeice and Zhilou Lou (CHN) placed =2nd with 59.7, and all athletes down to 6th place were within 0.6 points of their score. The pressure was on ahead of the Lead route, with so little separating the women. 

GB Climbing's Erin McNeice was out first, and looked fatigued but determined after a brutally long competition. Her persistence paid off as she made use of a rest position that no other athletes seemed to find, before succumbing just over the lip of the headwall. Erin sat in the leader's chair and watched as athletes failed to surpass her highpoint. Only Chaehyun Seo managed get further and push her into second place in Lead. In the overall standings, Erin ranked 3rd by 0.1 points over Nonaka in 4th - her first ever international podium, at junior or senior level. Raboutou, despite falling lower than she'd have liked in Lead after missing a clip, took the win ahead of Seo in 2nd place. 

Raboutou said: "It means a lot. I have been working really, really hard. I have big goals and dreams and I was really proud of the climbing I put in today. I still feel like I have more to give which is exciting.
 
"I really just climbed for myself which is when I climb my best. I was able to get in a really good mindset and enjoy myself but with determination. It felt really good to try really hard and show what I am capable of.
 
"I went through some really hard times last year and I learned so much from them. Honestly, I am grateful for them because I feel like they are making me stronger today, both physically and especially mentally. Nobody wants the hard times and the challenging times but that's just part of my path and journey. So, I am proud of what I am doing."

Nonaka (JPN) finished 4th, one place ahead of compatriot and rival Ito. Just two ranking points separate them - which came down to one attempt, or 0.1 Boulder points - ahead of Budapest as they aim to clinch Japan's final women's Lead & Boulder spot. 

The men's Boulder final was set hard and only Adam Ondra could manage more than one Top, completing B1 and B3 - using static beta on a dynamically-set B1 to finish on 64 points. Paul Jenft (FRA) and Hamish McArthur completed the provisional top three with one Top each 49.1 and 48.8. Paul topped the technical slab of B3, Hamish secured a stunning Top on coordination-based B4.

In Lead, unfortunately Sam Avezou's final did not improve: having scored 9.8 points in Boulder, he needed a high scoring Lead round (in what is arguably his strongest discipline). A slip at 6 points on the Lead route ended his competition in 8th place. Hamish McArthur fell lower than he might have liked at 45.1, with Ondra, van Duysen and Jenft scoring into the 60s. Both Ginés-López and Lee topped the route, with Lee likely having to perform under the added pressure of knowing that his closest rival in the competition had topped. Lee took the win after his superior boulder round, and along with the Spanish Olympic Champion appears to be both a solid bet for Paris and a medal contender. Ondra placed 3rd - a solid result despite looking less confident in Lead than his usual self.

Lee told the IFSC: "Even though the Boulder results weren't great, I wasn't that affected. I was still confident in Lead because Lead is my main discipline. I just wanted to do what I could do but I didn't believe I could top it," said Lee.

"I didn't feel any pressure, but I was surprised to top the climb. I am not very expressive, I am very calm normally, but today I was emotional. I trained a lot for this and I realised what it meant.
 
"This is the main reason why I am climbing. For Korea, climbing is not that big so this will tell many people about climbing."

The ranking points from this round will be added to the points earned in Budapest. See the table below for the current standings and points.

*To earn a Universality place for Iceland, Svana Bjarnason needs to rank among the top-36 after Budapest. She is currently ranked 47th.