The latest round of the 2018 IFSC Lead World Cup took place in Kranj, Slovenia. Although this venue is traditionally host to the season finale in November, this year there remain two rounds in China - Wujiang and Xiamen - at the end of October.
© Eddie Fowke/IFSC
Team GB achieved one of their best ever all-round results, with three climbers reaching the semi-finals. William Bosi narrowly missed out on finals in 9th place, while Jim Pope and Molly Thompson-Smith both placed 16th.
© IFSC/Eddie Fowke
Results below highlights and finals videos (don't scroll if you don't want to know!!)
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In the men's final, 3 Italian and 3 Japanese athletes battled for a podium finish alongside 2018 Lead World Champion Jakob Schubert (AUT) and Sean McColl (CAN). Stefano Ghisolfi (ITA) pipped Jakob into 2nd place with a top of the final route, and Masahiro Higuchi (JPN) earned his first ever IFSC Lead World Cup medal in 3rd place. This was the 2nd victory for Ghisolfi this year, who has improved his ranking to 29 points behind Schubert in the Lead season rankings with only two events remaining.
© IFSC/Eddie Fowke
Janja Garnbret (SLO) appeared fatigued throughout the competition in front of a home crowd, qualifying for semis in 4th place and for the finals in 3rd place - atypical results in a season that has largely been dominated by Garnbret. Seasoned multi-time IFSC World Cup Champion Jain Kim was the star of the competition, topping the scoreboard in each round and returning to the top of the podum for the 28th time. Janja Garnbret placed 2nd and Hannah Schubert (AUT) - younger sibling of Jakob Schubert - achieved her first IFSC Lead World Cup medal in 3rd place.
© IFSC/Eddie Fowke
Comments
Back in Leeds 1989 we had 4 male finalists; Jerry Moffat 1st, Simon Nadin 3rd, Mark Leach and Ian Vincent, 6 th and 8th if I can recall correctly, whilst it is fantastic to see a resurgeance of Lead with the excellent results of Will, Molly and Jim and it has taken awhile, don’t forget the history.
Thanks Ian. Duly amended to 'one of their best ever results.'
I don't remember Mark being in the final but I have the results somewhere so I might have a look later.
Well firstly it's easier to get more athletes through on home comp. But also things were very different back then with only a small number of countries competing, or even sport climbing, seriously. Today the pool of talent is so much bigger and standards that much higher.
Overall Team GB seem to be doing really well this year what with Nathan Philips making the final in the World Championships too.
I just hope the BMC gets behind them more now and sends them out to China for the final two rounds. It seems clear the most successful countries (Slovenia, Japan, Austria) are also the ones that give the most support to their athletes. We have the talent. I think the BMC needs to rise to the occasion and dish out a bit more in the way of support for the team now.