Janja Garnbret & Toby Roberts win World Cup Gold in Wujiang

After winning the first stage of the Boulder World Cup 2024 a week ago at Keqiao, Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret doubled her takings in China yesterday by winning the first stage of the Lead World Cup 2024 at Wujiang. Although some big names were missing, notably Oriane Bertone, Natalia Grossman, Ai Mori and Brooke Raboutou, but Garnbret really did appear unbeatable and she won topping all 4 routes last weekend - the only athlete to do so. Her climb in the finals was - once again it has to said - an absolute masterclass in climbing, and where the others were in obvious difficulty, the 25-year-old simply flowed on ever upwards.

After winning Boulder bronze a week ago, home favourite Luo Zhilu placed second by crimping a foothold on the long reach at the start of the headwall, while Seo Chaehyun placed third when she failed to stick the reach. Japan’s Tanii Natsuki placed fourth after reaching hold 40, one move higher than Great Britain’s Erin McNeice who, in her first final ever, secured her personal best. The three remaining climbers, Laura Rogora, Oda Natsumi (a mere 16 years old and in her first finals) and Mia Krampl all fell off the same burly sloper and placed 6th to 8th respectively.

Some major names were missing in the men's event, too, such as Alexander Megos, Adam Ondra and Jakob Schubert, but the field was still world-class. After a blistering Semifinal the favourites were quite clearly Toby Roberts and Sorato Anraku, but as usual anything could happen in the finals. The route proved fairly intense right from the outset and after 20 moves six of the athletes fell within the space of just three holds: Murashita Zento placed fourth, Sascha Lehmann fifth thanks to countback, Hannes Van Duysen sixth, Tanaka Shuta seventh, Max Milne eighth and Omata Shion ninth.

Taisei Homma, out sixth, was the first to climb through the powerful and crimpy crux and he made significant headway before falling off hold 36+. Anraku made it through the crux but then popped off, eventually settling for bronze behind his teammate. Last out Toby Roberts put in another one of his hallmark battles and, after misreading the beta low down, somehow managed to regain composure and climb to precisely the same hold at Homma; countback to the semifinals secured his second Lead World Cup of his career. He is now only the second British male win two World Cup stages, after Simon Nadin won the first ever IFSC Climbing World Cup in 1989.

1 Janja Garnbret SLO TOP
2 Zhilu Luo CHN 44+
3 Chaehyun Seo KOR 43+
4 Natsuki Tanii JPN 40
5 Erin Mcneice GBR 39
6 Laura Rogora ITA 34+
7 Natsumi Oda JPN 34+
8 Mia Krampl SLO 34+
9 Manon Hily FRA 21
10 Futaba Ito JPN
11 Yuetong Zhang CHN
12 Zélia Avezou FRA
13 Hannah Meul GER
14 Ryu Nakagawa JPN
15 Molly Thompson-Smith GBR
16 Stasa Gejo SRB
17 Jain Kim KOR
18 Miho Nonaka JPN
19 Hélène Janicot FRA
20 Mattea Pötzi AUT
21 Adriene Akiko Clark USA
22 Gayeon Cho KOR
23 Noa Shiran ISR
24 Lynn Van Der Meer NED
25 Giorgia Tesio ITA
26 Sukma Lintang Cahyani INA
27 Martina Demmel GER
27 Ayala Kerem ISR
27 Camilla Moroni ITA
30 Chunhua Wu CHN
31 Valentina Aguado ARG
32 Tomona Takao JPN
33 Kyra Condie USA
34 Sol Sa KOR
35 Liv Egli SUI
36 Yejoo Seo KOR
37 Xuanzhen Chen CHN
38 Yali Wei CHN
39 Petra Klingler SUI
40 Tereza Siruckova CZE
41 Helen Gillett USA
42 Chloe Caulier BEL
43 Fanny Gibert FRA
44 Olivia Ma USA
45 Yongshan Huang CHN
46 Anja Köhler BRA
47 Maya Stasiuk AUS
48 Ingrid Kindlihagen NOR
48 Roxy Perry AUS
50 Emily Scott AUS
51 Jingjing Mao CHN
52 Alyssa Keanini USA
53 Zihan Huang CHN
54 Tseng-Shun Wong HKG
55 Natalie Goh Sihui SGP
56 Ziqi Elly Gao HKG
57 Eilin Tan SGP
58 Ting-Chen Yao TPE
59 Yun-Shan Hsieh TPE

1 Toby Roberts GBR 36+
2 Taisei Homma JPN 36+
3 Sorato Anraku JPN 32+
4 Zento Murashita JPN 24+
5 Sascha Lehmann SUI 24
6 Hannes Van Duysen BEL 24
7 Shuta Tanaka JPN 23+
8 Maximillian Milne GBR 23+
9 Shion Omata JPN 21+
10 Tomoa Narasaki JPN
11 Satone Yoshida JPN
12 Sam Avezou FRA
12 Ao Yurikusa JPN
14 Masahiro Higuchi JPN
15 Luka Potocar SLO
16 Dohyun Lee KOR
17 Martin Stranik CZE
18 Filip Schenk ITA
19 Yoshiyuki Ogata JPN
20 Colin Duffy USA
21 Yuta Imaizumi JPN
22 Stefano Ghisolfi ITA
23 Jonas Utelli SUI
24 Campbell Harrison AUS
25 Musauwir Musauwir INA
26 Stefan Scherz AUT
27 Hyunbin Min KOR
28 Jongwon Chon KOR
28 Nimrod Marcus ISR
30 Nicolas Collin BEL
31 Christoph Hanke GER
32 Nino Grünenfelder SUI
33 Yunchan Song KOR
34 Jinwei Yao CHN
35 Declan Osgood USA
36 Simon Lorenzi BEL
37 Chih-En Fan TPE
38 Yongchen Chen CHN
39 Giorgio Tomatis ITA
40 Hugo Hoyer USA
41 Guy Mcnamee CAN
42 Auswin Aueareechit THA
43 Chi-Fung Au HKG
44 Luke Goh Wen Bin SGP
44 Simon Potucek CZE
46 Victor Baudrand CAN
46 Junzhe Hu CHN
46 Geva Levin ISR
49 Edvards Gruzitis LAT
50 Jack Macdougall GBR
51 Martin Bergant SLO
52 Kindar Mcnamee CAN
53 Guoqing Ni CHN
54 Yuping Mei CHN
55 Nima Sangzhu CHN
56 Hossein Familrohani IRI
57 Tzu-Yu Chou TPE
58 Ali Salimian IRI
59 Qun Tao Ke MAS
60 Dylan Parks AUS