Adam Ondra and Chaehyun Seo control Kranj

For the 24th year Kranj hosted its stage of the Lead world Cup and expectations were particularly high as many athletes had travelled to Slovenia in the hope of gaining vital points prior to the Combined Qualifier for the Olympics in Toulouse. Current World Cup lead Alexander Megos was notable for his absence due to finger injury, but apart from him many of the world’s best turned up for the two-day event which proved tough as per tradition: hot favourite triple Janja Garnbret, after winning the record-breaking triple world championship (Lead, Boulder and Combined) in the space of just a week in Japan, failing to qualify for the finals is a case in point.

This year’s revelation Chaehyun Seo from Korea took up from where she had left off and secured her third World Cup gold this season after managing to move off a hideous sloper that Jessica Pilz had matched, while Lučka Rakovec picked up her first world cup medal in front of her home crowd and finished third. Anak Verhoeven celebrated her return to form after injury and narrowly missed out on the podium due to countback after having fallen off the same hold as Verhoeven, while a hard move low down stopped the rest of the field, which consequently was split on count back: Ai Mori placed a disappointing fifth after having led the semis, her teammate Natsumi Hirano placed 6th, Mia Krampl placed 7th and Mei Kotake placed 8th.

The men’s competition was won for the fourth time in his Kranj career by Adam Ondra. The Czech was in cruise control all weekend and after dominating the qualifiers and semi, he powered his way to the only top in the final before being helped to the ground by event organiser Tomo Cesen. 2018 Boulder World Champion Kai Harada made his best senior lead performance to date and took silver, while 16-year-old Alberto Ginés López claimed his first senior medal and clinched silver. 8 years after his win in Kranj, Sean McColl proved his still a force to be reckoned with and placed fourth, just ahead of Kokoro Fuji and Stefano Ghisolfi who invented the impossible to work his way past two heinous slopers. These proved the undoing of Jakob Schubert and Martin Stranik, and after having done so well in the semis the two were separated on countback.

1 Chaehyun Seo KOR 34.5+
2 Jessica Pilz AUT 34.5
3 Lucka Rakovec SLO 34+
4 Anak Verhoeven BEL 34+
5 Ai Mori JPN 20+
6 Natsumi Hirano JPN 20+
7 Mia Krampl SLO 20+
8 Mei Kotake JPN 20+
9 Jain Kim KOR
10 Tjasa Kalan SLO
11 Lana Skusek SLO
12 Laura Rogora ITA
13 Janja Garnbret SLO
14 Kyra Condie USA
15 Mina Markovic SLO
16 Ashima Shiraishi USA
17 Nolwenn Arc FRA
17 Julia Fiser AUT
19 Katherine Choong SUI
20 Elnaz Rekabi IRI
21 Fanny Gibert FRA
22 Anne-Sophie Koller SUI
23 Futaba Ito JPN
24 Yuki Hiroshige JPN
25 Heloïse Doumont BEL
26 Nika Potapova UKR
27 Molly Thompson-Smith GBR
28 Vanda Michalkova SVK
29 Honoka Moriwaki JPN
30 Michelle Hulliger SUI
31 Eva Maria Hammelmüller AUT
32 Sandra Lettner AUT
33 Viktoriia Meshkova RUS
34 Lynn Van Der Meer NED
35 Sol Sa KOR
36 Hannah Schubert AUT
37 Claudia Ghisolfi ITA
38 Elena Krasovskaya RUS
39 Afra Hönig GER
40 Alex Johnson USA
41 Michaela Smetanova CZE
41 Lucija Tarkus SLO
43 Lan Kim KOR
44 Anna Zaikina RUS
45 Emily Phillips GBR
46 Alma Bestvater GER
47 Hung Ying Lee TPE
48 Maggie Hammer USA
49 Sara Morandini ITA
50 Estelle Park USA
51 Wai-ping Yu HKG
52 Bianca Magalhaes De Castro BRA
53 Aleksandra Kalucka POL

1 Adam Ondra CZE Top
2 Kai Harada JPN 32
3 Alberto Ginés López ESP 31.5+
4 Sean Mccoll CAN 30+
5 Kokoro Fujii JPN 27+
6 Stefano Ghisolfi ITA 25+
7 Jakob Schubert AUT 12+
8 Martin Stranik CZE 12+
9 Rei Sugimoto JPN
10 Dmitrii Fakiryanov RUS
11 Fedir Samoilov UKR
12 Romain Desgranges FRA
13 Luka Potocar SLO
14 Sean Bailey USA
15 Martin Bergant SLO
16 Anze Peharc SLO
17 Yannick Flohé GER
18 Marcello Bombardi ITA
19 Hamish Mcarthur GBR
20 Sebastian Halenke GER
21 Nao Monchois FRA
22 Taisei Homma JPN
23 James Pope GBR
24 Jesse Grupper USA
25 Jakub Konecny CZE
26 William Bosi GBR
27 Loïc Timmermans BEL
28 Max Rudigier AUT
29 Yuki Hada JPN
30 Hannes Puman SWE
30 Francesco Vettorata ITA
32 Hanwool Kim KOR
33 Meichi Narasaki JPN
34 Jongwon Chon KOR
35 Tim Reuser NED
36 Alfons Dornauer AUT
37 Nikolai Iarilovets RUS
38 Nimrod Marcus ISR
39 Mark Brand NED
40 Matthias Schiestl AUT
41 Keita Dohi JPN
42 Jernej Kruder SLO
43 Aleksey Rubtsov RUS
44 Kim Marschner GER
45 Ziga Zajc SLO
46 Harold Peeters BEL
47 Michael Piccolruaz ITA
48 Jabee Kim KOR
49 Mikel Asier Linacisoro Molina ESP
50 Florian Klingler AUT
51 Vadim Timonov RUS
52 Milan Preskar SLO
53 Sébastien Berthe BEL
54 Nicolas Collin BEL
55 Philipp Martin GER
56 Andrej Polak SLO
57 Alistair Duval FRA
58 Cesar Grosso BRA
59 Dohyun Lee KOR
60 Louis Gundolf AUT
60 Mykhayil Tkachuk UKR
62 Max Kleesattel GER
63 Cheung-chi Shoji Chan HKG
64 Šimon Potůček CZE
65 Leto Cavé NED
66 Ka-chun Yau HKG
67 Kieran Forrest GBR
68 Chi-fung Au HKG
68 Aleksandr Shikov RUS
70 John Brosler USA
71 Simón Padin ARG
72 Jan Kriz CZE