Sport climbing medal hopeful Seo Chae-hyun qualified for the women’s combined event final at the Paris Olympics on Thursday, making up enough ground in the lead portion of the competition after struggling in bouldering earlier in the week.
Seo tied for fourth in the lead semifinal with 72.1 points at Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue in Le Bourget, north of Paris. Combined with 44.2 points from the bouldering semifinal Tuesday, Seo finished eighth overall among 20 climbers with 116.3 points to grab the last ticket to Saturday’s final.
Seo finished only 0.8 point ahead of Miho Nonaka of Japan, who had 64.4 points in bouldering but only 51.1 points in lead.
In the lead event, climbers get one attempt to ascend as high as they can on a route set on a 15-meter wall within six minutes. They score the maximum 100 points if they reach the top hold.
Climbers receive one point for reaching any hold out of the 10 lowest, two points for any of the next highest, three points for the any of the next highest and four po
ints for any hold of the 10 highest.
If climbers move toward the next hold but don’t reach it, they get 0.1 point.
Only three climbers had a higher lead point than Seo, with Janja Garnbret of Slovenia and Ai Mori of Japan tying for the lead at 96.1 points. Jessica Pilz of Austria had 88.1 points.
Seo was safely inside the top eight after her lead performance, but there were still seven more climbers left in the semifinal. She watched nervously as her name kept dropping but stopped at No. 8.
“When I saw the standings after I was finished, I didn’t think I could get to the final,” Seo said. “I basically gave up at that point. I can’t believe I am going to the final. It’s a lot of fun to be competing in front of so many fans. And I will get to have another opportunity to do it.”
Seo is world No. 3 in lead and No. 18 in bouldering. After finishing in 13th place in bouldering, Seo had said she felt confident she could score enough points in lead to move on to the final.
Seo said Thursday she might have put t
oo much pressure on herself to mount the comeback.
“I didn’t think lead would be difficult, but once I started thinking this would be my last opportunity to qualify for the final, I started getting nervous,” Seo said. “I tried not to think about coming from behind and to focus instead on doing what I am supposed to do. But those thoughts kept creeping into my head, and I didn’t execute as well as I should have.”
The eight finalists will start from a clean slate Saturday and will compete in both bouldering and lead events that same day. The objective of bouldering is to scale multiple routes with the fewest attempts within a time limit in a problem-solving mission.
Seo finished eighth at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, when sport climbing made its debut and the combined event featured bouldering, lead and speed.
The speed discipline has been separated for this year’s Olympics, and Seo, the 2023 Asian Games silver medalist in the lead and bouldering combined event, will try to become South Korea’s first Olympic cl
imbing medalist.
“Obviously, I’d love to win a medal. For now, though, I am just happy to have qualified for the final,” Seo said. “There will be no pressure to make up any ground in the final. If I can just enjoy the stage, I should have good results at the end. Since it will be my last event here, I will go in with confidence and try to savor the experience.”
Source : Yonhap News Agency