Perhaps our bodies are better adjusted to Olympic Sport Climbing’s 2 a.m. MT start time today, but, wow, was the women’s Boulder semifinal ever more interesting than yesterday’s men equivalent. The problems in the men’s round were far too hard—with just seven tops in total and only one athlete topping two boulders. But if the men’s boulder’s were overcooked, the women’s were fresh and accessible, yielding an exciting round with 30 tops.
Boulder 1 called on power in spades. An awkward, outward facing start led to a mandatory dyno to a large sloping feature (zone 1). This was followed by a powerful undercling move to a sharp left hand sidepull (zone 2), and finally a dynamic, tension-heavy traverse to finish. When the South African Lauren Mukheibir failed to do the first move, and when Erin McNeice (GBR) gave in shortly after reaching the first zone hold, I rolled my eyes. Were the boulders going to be as equally out of reach as yesterday? Half the heat had to fail on Boulder 1 until Australia’s Oceana Mackenzie flashed the problem with relative ease, powering to the second zone and then keeping it together for the tensiony finish—launching her toward her fourth place finish.
Boulder 1 got a slew of repeats afterward, including by Oriane Bertone who embraced her home-country advantage and a high left heel hook to grab the same left crimp in a static, steady manner. Then Miho Nonaka (JPN) underlined her tank status by 1) not using the heel hook and 2) using a far harder paddle dyno top sequence and topping on her second go. While American Brooke Raboutou followed suit, the finish sequence stymied Natalia Grossman, who seemed to struggle at times in this round.
Garnbret’s flash, though unsurprising, was aggressive and beautiful. Apparently it takes a whole fleet of Olympians to climb before her to remind me exactly what level Garnbret is on. Though on paper she was the second person to flash the problem, to me, she was the first and only climber to own Boulder 1.
Boulder 2 strove for electricity and delivered accessibility. McNeice stuck the top as just the second competitor of the day, giving me hope that we’d see less falling off the first moves of boulders than yesterday. Camilla Moroni (ITA) powered through the blue bread-loaf slopers to the top, but not before taking an awkward and painful-looking fall, then Ievgeniia Kazbekova (UKR), Luo Zhilu (CHN), Mackenzie (with a standout, very solid, second go), Bertone, Nonaka, Grossman (flash!), Brooke Raboutou, and Ai Mori (JPN)—all found tops. For Mori, who had a poor showing on Boulder 1’s powerful, reachy sequences, flashing Boulder 2 was an important confidence boost.
But of course, Janja Garnbret stole the show. She cooly campussed the problem’s start, then, perhaps without even realizing there was a far easier beta available, crossed to the final hold off a miserable, shouldery right hand sloper instead of bumping off of it like everyone else. Flash. Of course.
The third boulder’s coordination focus felt perhaps the most satisfying to me, since the powerful climbers could monkey through the crux leftward traverse between zone two and the top, while technicians finagled an acrobatic splits (pioneered by McNeice) that allowed them to statically reach the same decent sidepull. Both sequences seemed to require a bullet-proof core to maintain tension going to the final hold. The problem saw tops by McNeice, Mackenzie, Zelia Avezou (FRA), Bertone (who flashed it), and Austria’s Jessica Pilz, who held an absolutely savage-looking barn door on the final hold. The crowd gasped audibly when Garnbret failed to flash it and needed a humanizing second attempt.
Just like yesterday’s men’s semifinal, Boulder 4 was a balancey, foot-work intense tech fest—which can be a real kick in the ass for competitors feeling mentally drained after the demanding set. However, as someone comfortably seated at home, I loved this boulder. Deft camerawork illustrated the footwork-crux: a blind inside step-through to a brutal little knob hidden below a dual tex heartbreak. Stick the slickness and it led to a cool foot-bump sequence and the second zone. The final crux involved a right-hand deadpoint to a sharp finishing sidepull with a simultaneous coordination foot sequence. Moroni was first to top it out, generating a ton of upward momentum while executing a no-look left heelhook to catch her swing. Zhilu took the opposite approach—pushing hard with her right foot into the wall to stay tight—proving the awesome variety that technical boulders allow. Case in point: on Grossman’s successful top, she death crimped the edge of the volume between the first and second zone to mitigate that brutal step-through’s risk. And after Garnbret fell multiple times on that same step through, she opted to skip it all together with a dynamic run & jump to zone two. It was athletic, highly risky, and so, so awesome.
All in all: fantastic setting, fantastic climbing—the best round (in my opinion) of the Olympics so far.
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