D4: Men lead semi-final: leaders at the top
Adam Ondra (CZE) and Domen Skofic (SLO) easily overcome the men lead semi-final. Just next to them, two French climbers are still in the race.
What a final to come. The lead semi-final picked 8 big champions who will fight tomorrow in a final that seems already perfect.
Just look: Adam Ondra, Domen Skofic, Gautier Supper, Romain Desgranges, Jakob Schubert (AUT), Ramon Julian Puigblanque (ESP), Sean McColl (CAN) and Keiichiro Korenaga (JPN). The climbers who went the highest this morning are probably the most known in the lead climbing world. Apart from the Japanese, they all won at least one Lead Climbing World Cup. In a nutshell, there is going to have famous contenders on Sunday in the route wrapping up the Climbing World Championships.
But let's have a look at what we saw this morning. First we saw the 2016 leader – Domen Skofic (2nd of the temporary ranking) – challenged by the climbing living legend – Adam Ondra (1st), impressive when climbing. We also saw the two French leaders do the job in front of their crowd (Gautier Supper and Romain Desgranges are 3rd and 4th). Finally, we saw three big names in lead climbing win their ticket for the final. Jakob Schubert (4th), Ramon Julian Puigblanque (6th) and Sean McColl (6th) made it strongly.
There was a third French climber in this semi-final. Thomas Joannes fell when grabbing the 13th hold due to a shaky move. He ends up 26th of these Climbing World Championships.