A good Bouldering round is hard to find—or at least hard to set. Today’s route setters for the Women’s Boulder Final were still tweaking the boulders just an hour before the event, trying to make sure that each of the four problems was the right mix of hard yet doable. On the one hand, setters want the climbers to climb the boulders and put on a good show for the crowd. But setters also want climbers to fail in various places, so that, at the end of the round, there’s a clear point hierarchy between the athletes.
The setters today did a brilliant job at giving us a show—and a pretty good job at dividing the climbers. The first two boulders didn’t give us much separation; only lead specialists Seo Chae-hyun (South Korea) Ai Mori (Japan) failed to top either boulder; but the problems were fun to watch, and the crowd saw great tops by a number of competitors, who distinguished themselves based on attempts.
The separation was established by Boulder 3, the power boulder, which Mori sent in an epic two-minute effort. When Brooke Raboutou and Janja Garnbret followed suit, it left them clearly ahead of the rest of the field as the only competitors to top 3 climbs. Boulder 4—while arguably the least effective problem from a viewer standpoint, since no one finished it—yielded a nice mixture of zone 1 and zone 2 results. (See the bottom of this article for a detailed blow by blow of the boulders.)
The big story in the Boulder final was how close Raboutou and Garnbret were throughout the round. The slim margin separating them by the end was purely a function of attempts. Raboutou needed four tries to stick the run-and-jump start on problem 1, after which she cruised the boulder with ease (24.7 points). Garnbret, classically, flashed it (25 points). Both climbers then sent the second problem—the slab boulder—on their third attempt (28.8 points), but Garnbret seemed surprisingly nervous, making a few small errors and—while sending—pausing multiple times to breathe away visual traces of panic. She recovered on Boulder 3, the power boulder, by flashing it (25 points), while Raboutou had to settle with a second-go send (24.9). Boulder 4, a three-part coordination climb, gave both climbers more problems than some previous competitors experienced. Garnbret seemed to tweak a finger on the lache start (lache moves involve swinging from a jug and then landing on a volume)—after which she tried to do it one-armed instead. She did it, but looked frazzled and stressed. She eventually stuck the second zone but then took a huge fall on the final move—a move no one stuck—after which she seemed noticeably dismayed. Hopefully she was worried not about the finger–no news on that yet–but by the realization that she didn’t have a commanding lead going into the Lead final.
Garnbret picked up 84.4 points on the boulders, a scant lead over Raboutou’s 84. Both were nearly 25 points ahead of a tight cluster of competitors vying for the third place position—with Oceana Mackenzie, Oriane Bertone, Erin McNeice, and Jessica Pilz all scoring within one point of one another.
This sets us up for a serious fight in the finals.
Seo Chae-hyun was the first out the gate. She quickly established on the start—a fiendish run-and-jump—and gained her first 5 points, but was briefly stymied by a leftward double dyno that blocked access to the 10-point zone, and then couldn’t quite manage the final coordination jump to the final hold. The next competitor, Erin McNeice, did a bit better—cruising the climb on her second attempt, picking up 24.9 points. And the next, Oceana Mackenzie, set the bar high by flashing it—as did Oriane Bertone. But Ai Mori, the shortest and least bouldery competitor, failed to establish on the start. Brooke Raboutou struggled on the start too, but once she stuck it—on her fourth attempt—she blitzed to the finish. Jessica Pilz nearly flashed, but didn’t quite latch the final jump, and had to settle for a 24.9 points second-go send. Janja Garnbret, of course, flashed it.
The slab boulder began with a few “easy” moves to the 5-point zone, but a very hard foot sequence guarded the 10-point hold, and a tricky traverse—navigable by either spinning 180 degrees and facing the crowd or doing a tricky foot swap—led to the finish. Chae-hyun managed just 5 points on the boulder. McNeice flashed it. Mackenzie managed it on her third attempt. Bertone managed it on her second try—the first climber to opt for the inward-facing upper sequence. Mori gained the 10-point hold but timed out before she could pick up the finish. Raboutou did it third go—facing inward like Bertone. Pilz topped on her fifth go—a bit of a buzzer beater. Garnbret surprised us all by not flashing—slipping off after the 10-point zone, then rushing and falling off the start. She looked very nervous on her final attempt, pausing multiple times to pause and breathe and looking about as close to panic as many of us have ever seen her. But she sent, of course.
This one was hard—beginning with a powerful undercling sequence, followed by a tricky cross to a blocked crimp (5-point zone) and an unwind to the 10-point hold that seemed totally unreasonable when the first few competitors tried it. Chae-hyun barely managed a 5-point zone. McNeice didn’t even get there. Mackenzie, a very powerful climber, was shut down after the first zone. Bertone, a boulder specialist, didn’t even post a score. But then Mori, who is not a boulderer, and who had struggled mightily on boulders 1 and 2, surprised everyone by spending nearly two highly composed minutes on the wall and making the boulder’s first top. Raboutou followed suit with relative ease on her second attempt. Pilz read a different sequence for the crux sequence between zones 1 and 2—a heinous campus move where the others had done a heinous piano match—but she couldn’t quite make it work. Demonstrating both strength and incredible ingenuity as she worked through multiple sequence options mid-crux, Garnbret, of course, flashed it.
The final boulder was a three-part coordination problem. Part one involved a large lache move to the 5-point zone. Part two was a large paddle dyno to the 10-point zone. And part three involved a combination move with multiple foot moves and a swing and paddle dyno.
Chae-hyun set the pattern by managing to reach the 10-point zone but failing to stick the final hold. McNeice was a bit better, getting quite close to finishing, but not quite managing. Bertone struggled to get to the 10-point hold—accomplishing it eventually. Raboutou—who’d have taken second place in the field without even trying Boulder 4—needed to do well on the problem to keep pace with Garnbret, but she was only barely able to match the high points established by previous competitors. Pilz scored just five points—not managing to make zone 2. And Garnbret seemed to tweak a finger on the first move—the lache—after which she succeeded in doing it one-armed. She eventually stuck the second zone but then took a huge fall on the final move, after which she seemed noticeably dismayed.
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