Jakob Schubert crowned 2018 Lead Climbing World Champion

It's been a dream weekend for Austrian sport climbing which, after Jessica Pilz's victory yesterday during the World Climbing Championships in Innsbruck, celebrated its second Lead title this evening thanks to Jakob Schubert. The 27-year-old home athlete claimed his second world championship after winning in Paris in 2012, while Adam Ondra from the Czech Republic placed second and Alexander Megos from Germany finished third.

Ten athletes qualified for the final as a staggering six had fallen off the 34th hold in the Semis. Tomoaki Takata, the first out, managed to climb up to the 29th hold, while his team-mate Kai Harada fell disappointingly low. Young Czech climber Jakub Konecny ​​fell off the same hold as Takata, then the time came for his teammate Adam Ondra. The 25-year-old was gunning for his third World Champion title in a row, in an effort to follow in the footsteps of legendary François Legrand who achieved this triplet in 1991, 1993 and 1995. Ondra climbed with his usual class up to the 36th hold, dashing the hopes of first Marcello Bombardi, then Sascha Lehmann, Meichi Narasaki and even Alexander Megos who looked set to reach anew highpoint before misreading the route and reaching for a foothold. Then came the Innsbruck-based climbing machine Jakob Schubert who, fighting in front of his 5000-strong home crowd, climbed to exactly the same hold as Ondra, which meant that he took the provisional lead as a result of his better semi-final result. At that point the only climber who could ruin the fairytale finale for Austria was the last out, 24-year-old Domen Škofic. But just as for Garnbret last night, it wasn’t to be and the Slovenian failed to demonstrate his true worth on this big occasion, falling off the same 29th hold as Konecny ​​and Takata. Schubert Lead World Champion for the second time therefore, while Ondra won silver and Megos bronze.

The male Lead Championship in Innsbruck will certainly be remembered for Schubert’s deserved fairytale victory but also, unfortunately, for a tiny mistake committed by two of the most expert athletes in the world and the consequent decision of the judges. In the qualifiers both Romain Desgranges, winner of the 2018 World Cup, and the top combined climber Sean McColl inadvertently touched a sponsor logo with their left foot and were subsequently demoted to 49th and 37th respectively; well out of the semi-final therefore. A crying shame, for a logo evidently placed poorly by those in charge. The ensuing controversy was fuelled by the fact that - apparently - even multi-world champion Adam Ondra had touched the 3mm-thick logo. The judges however felt that Ondra’s move didn’t warrant a penalty. It has to be said that even if the Czech had been penalised, he would in any case have qualified for the Semis, but the striking similarity of the moves proved puzzling to most, as could be seen by the numerous comments and replays that abounded on social media. The athletes certainly have no fault whatsoever in this regrettable episode, but as McColl rightly pointed out in his dual role as athlete and president of athletes commission, regardless of this particular incident it is essential that all competitors are treated equally, and that there can be no doubt whatsoever that athletes are always judged according to the same criteria.

Final results
1 Jakob Schubert AUT 36+
2 Adam Ondra CZE 36+
3 Alexander Megos GER 33.5
4 Meichi Narasaki JPN 31+
5 Domen Skofic SLO 29+
6 Jakub Konecny CZE 29+
6 Tomoaki Takata JPN 29+
8 Sascha Lehmann SUI 23
9 Marcello Bombardi ITA 20+
10 Kai Harada JPN 16+
11 Max Rudigier AUT
11 Jorg Verhoeven NED
13 Tomoa Narasaki JPN
13 Loïc Timmermans BEL
13 William Bosi GBR
13 Thomas Joannes FRA
17 Hannes Puman SWE
17 Shuta Tanaka JPN
17 Georg Parma AUT
20 Sean Bailey USA
21 Aleksei Rubtsov RUS
22 Stefano Ghisolfi ITA
23 Rudolph Ruana USA
24 Francesco Vettorata ITA
24 Luka Potocar SLO
24 Fedir Samoilov UKR
27 Martin Bergant SLO
27 Kokoro Fujii JPN
29 Yannick Flohé GER
29 Jan Hojer GER
31 Yoshiyuki Ogata JPN
31 Evgenii Zazulin RUS
33 Jongwon Chon KOR
33 Nicolas Collin BEL
35 Jernej Kruder SLO
35 Mathias Posch AUT
37 Sean Mccoll CAN
37 Martin Stranik CZE
39 Mikhail Chernikov RUS
39 Simon Lorenzi BEL
39 James Pope GBR
42 Dimitri Vogt SUI
43 Eric Lopez Mateos ESP
43 Yuval Shemla ISR
45 Pietro Biagini ITA
45 Stephane Hanssens BEL
45 Vladislav Shevchenko RUS
48 Ramón Julian Puigblanque ESP
49 Romain Desgranges FRA
49 Milan Preskar SLO
51 Bittor Esparta Frade ESP
51 Noah Ridge USA
53 Nathaniel Coleman USA
53 Rishat Khaibullin KAZ
55 Mickael Mawem FRA
55 YuFei Pan CHN
57 Jonatan Flor Vazquez ESP
57 Lucas Uchida CAN
59 David Barrans GBR
59 Ronny Escobar CHI
61 Michael Piccolruaz ITA
61 Sungbo Seo KOR
63 Alex Khazanov ISR
63 Tomas Plevko SVK
65 Hanwool Kim KOR
65 Peter Kuric SVK
65 Nimrod Marcus ISR
65 Semen Ovchinnikov RUS
69 Minyoung Lee KOR
70 William Ridal GBR
71 Sergei Bydtaev RUS
71 Vojtech Trojan CZE
73 Mikel Asier Linacisoro Molina ESP
73 Rei Sugimoto JPN
75 Cesar Grosso BRA
75 Ram Levin ISR
77 Artyom Devyaterikov KAZ
77 Galo Hernandez ECU
77 Danny Valencia ECU
80 Manuel Cornu FRA
81 Carlos Granja ECU
81 Jason Holowach CAN
83 Campbell Harrison AUS
83 Pedro Ferreira Nicoloso BRA
83 Thilo Jeldrik Schröter NOR
86 Gholamali Baratzadeh IRI
87 Cheung-chi Shoji Chan HKG
87 Santiago Garcia ARG
89 John Brosler USA
89 Felipe Ho Foganholo BRA
89 Sergei Tiupyshev RUS
92 Ka-chun Yau HKG
93 Tomas Binter CZE
93 Javier Cano Blazquez ESP
93 Josh Levin USA
93 Nickolaie Rivadeneira ECU
93 Mykhayil Tkachuk UKR
98 Maciej Dobrzanski POL
99 Benjamin Ayala CHI
100 Chingkheinga. Maibam IND
101 Calrin Curtis RSA
101 Jean Ouriques BRA
103 Or Miniely ISR
103 Benjamin Vargas CHI
105 Oleksii Krynetskyi UKR
105 Bassa Mawem FRA
107 Simon Potucek CZE
107 George Sanders NZL
109 Robert Luby SVK
109 Bharath Pereira IND
109 HuaLong Song CHN
112 Gaurav Kumar IND
113 Donghyun Jang KOR
113 Yongsu Lee KOR
115 Isaac Estevez ECU
115 Borja Farah CHI
117 Pedro Bello CHI
117 Yarden Pilpel ISR
119 Ludovico Fossali ITA
119 Matthaios Valsamidis GRE
121 Stefan Bednar SVK
121 Orfeas Tsiaousis GRE
123 Marcin Dzienski POL
123 Giga Jankhoteli GEO