Lead World Cup 2017: Marcello Bombardi and Janja Garnbret win in Chamonix

Marcello Bombardi an Italian legend at Chamonix! In his first-ever World Cup Finals, the 23-year-old climber climbed to the top of the route and won his first ever Lead World Cup event. Bombardi’s victory came as no great surprise - in the European Climbing Championship at Campitello a fortnight ago he placed 7th and is evidently in great shape - but last night Bombardi demonstrated his class and, above all, his nerves of steel in the exciting but - it has to said - too easy men’s finals.

Bombardi surely knew this right from the outset, that the first athlete in the competition Romain Desgranges had topped out as he was accompanied by the huge cheers of enormous crowd. It was home-favourite Desgranges who predicted other tops, and he wasn’t wrong: Japan’s Keiichiro Korenaga and Yuki Hada also clipped the anchor. Unlike Desgranges and Hada though, Bombardi and Korenaga were perfectly paired - top in the finals, top in the semifinals and tops on both qualifying routes - and so Bombardi won thanks to his two days of perfect climbing which culminated in a lightening fast finale: a mere 4 minutes and 16 seconds to reach the top, compared to 5 minutes and 28 seconds that Korenaga needed. And what about the other 4 finalists? Perhaps each top that was heard in isolation added even more pressure, and in the end Loïc Timmermans and Sean McColl fell just below the last moves. As did Stefano Ghisolfi, provisional first after the semi-finals and the last out therefore. He climbed quickly and convincingly but then, up on the headwall, fumbled and fell at the last hurdle to finish 7th overall.

"It was absolutely incredible ..." Bombardi told planetmountain.com, and unsurprisingly so as winning in Chamonix is obviously something special. In order to relive an Italian victory here one has to go all the way back to July 2007 and Flavio Crespi who, two years earlier, had won the 2005 Lead World Cup. And in order to relive another Italian victory in the Lead World Cup all one has to do is look back to 2016, when Stefano Ghisolfi sealed his second career win in China.

But this morning it’s all about Bombardi and his fabulous night below Mont Blanc. How did he experience those moments, we immediately asked him, "I wasn’t nervous," he replied, "because I didn’t have any expectations. Just being in the final was a great achievement already and my goal was simply to have fun and enjoy the show." But being there, above all those spectators, isn’t an every day occurrence. "At first I was a bit nervous because of all those people and the atmosphere of Chamonix but as I climbed I started to relax… and just concentrated on the climbing."

As for the female competition, after her easy victory at Villars a week ago Janja Garnbret from Slovenia eased to the top in Chamonix. South Korea’s Jain Kim and Belgium’s Anak Verhoeven topped out, too, but the three were separated on countback. They were followed by Tina Johnsen Hafsaas (4th), Jessica Pilz (5th), Julia Chanourdie (6th), Mia Krampl (7th) and Ievgeniia Kazbekova (8th).




Male
1 Marcello Bombardi ITA Top
2 Keiichiro Korenaga JPN Top
3 Yuki Hada JPN Top
4 Romain Desgranges FRA Top
5 Loïc Timmermans BEL 42+
6 Sean Mccoll CAN 42
7 Stefano Ghisolfi ITA 40+
8 Yuval Shemla ISR 35+
9 Kokoro Fujii JPN
9 Francesco Vettorata ITA
11 Jan Hojer GER
12 Hannes Puman SWE
13 Piotr Schab POL
13 Domen Skofic SLO
15 Christoph Hanke GER
16 Sean Bailey USA
16 Javier Cano Blazquez ESP
16 David Firnenburg GER
16 Hanwool Kim KOR
16 Jorg Verhoeven NED
21 Charli Blein FRA
22 Sebastian Halenke GER
23 Nao Monchois FRA
24 Ramón Julian Puigblanque ESP
25 Masahiro Higuchi JPN
26 Fedir Samoilov UKR
27 Martin Bergant SLO
27 Sergei Bydtaev RUS
27 Alberto Gotta ITA
27 Thomas Joannes FRA
27 Max Rudigier AUT
32 Tomas Ravanal CHI
33 Tanguy Topin FRA
34 Guillaume Colin FRA
34 Yufei Pan CHN
34 Hiroto Shimizu JPN
37 Mikhail Chernikov RUS
37 Mario Lechner AUT
37 Minyoung Lee KOR
37 Matthias Schiestl AUT
37 Sungbo Seo KOR
37 Martin Tekles GER
43 Shinichiro Nomura JPN
44 Sébastien Berthe BEL
45 Nicolas Collin BEL
45 Jakub Konecny CZE
47 Elan Jonasmcrae CAN
48 Milan Preskar SLO
49 Anatole Bosio FRA
50 Simon Lorenzi BEL
51 Maciej Dobrzanski POL
52 Minoru Nakano JPN
53 Aleksei Shchervianin RUS
54 Dichong Huang CHN
55 Dimitri Vogt SUI
56 Ruben Firnenburg GER
57 Yannick Flohé GER
58 Eric Lopez Mateos ESP
59 Lasa Temi INA
60 Jj Mah CAN
61 Nicolai Uznik AUT
62 Vladislav Shevchenko RUS
63 Seungwoon Cho KOR
64 Stepan Volf CZE
65 Jonatan Flor Vazquez ESP
66 Nathan Martin FRA
67 Romaric Geffroy FRA
68 Tomas Binter CZE
69 Cesar Grosso BRA
69 Martin Kuhnel USA
71 Arsène Duval FRA
72 Àlex Hernández Castilla ESP
73 Kyle Murdoch CAN
74 Mykhayil Tkachuk UKR
75 Tom Gauquelin FRA
76 Benjamin Ayala CHI
77 Gaëtan Massonnet SUI
78 John Brosler USA
79 Louis Debrulle BEL
80 Denis Pail CZE
81 Or Miniely ISR
82 Amri Amri INA
83 Dominick Spernaza USA

Female
1 Janja Garnbret SLO Top
2 Jain Kim KOR Top
3 Anak Verhoeven BEL Top
4 Johnsen Hafsaas Tina NOR 37+
5 Jessica Pilz AUT 37
6 Julia Chanourdie FRA 33+
7 Mia Krampl SLO 32.5
8 Ievgeniia Kazbekova UKR 30
9 Anne-Sophie Koller SUI
10 Brooke Raboutou USA
11 Nolwenn Arc FRA
12 Hannah Schubert AUT
13 Mina Markovic SLO
14 Vita Lukan SLO
15 Salomé Romain FRA
16 Mathilde Becerra FRA
17 Risa Ota JPN
18 Michelle Hulliger SUI
19 Julia Fiser AUT
20 Nolwen Berthier FRA
21 Katharina Posch AUT
22 Hélène Janicot FRA
23 Laura Rogora ITA
24 Jenny Lavarda ITA
25 Margo Hayes USA
26 Luiza Emeleva RUS
27 Joanne Brinkmann SUI
28 Kenza Slamti FRA
29 Kajsa Rosen SWE
30 Katherine Choong SUI
31 Claudia Ghisolfi ITA
32 Netta Fredman ISR
33 Chloe Caulier BEL
34 Valentine Mangin FRA
35 Celine Cuypers BEL
36 Emilie Pellerin CAN
36 Homare Toda JPN
36 Alannah Yip CAN
39 Romy Fuchs GER
40 Rebecca Frangos CAN
40 Ann Stirling Lucinda AUS
42 Léa Marigo FRA
43 Roxy Perry AUS
44 Jiwon Bae KOR
44 Lenka Slezakova CZE
46 Jara Späte SUI
47 Katrin Amann SWE
48 Evgeniya Lapshina RUS
49 Léa Delacquis FRA
50 Audrey Sniezek USA
51 Rohma Syarifah Abdul INA
52 Gabriela Vrablikova CZE
53 Denise Plück GER
54 Meagan Martin USA
55 Yiling Song CHN
56 Marion Traber FRA
57 Nanna Söderin SWE
58 Virgita Nadya Putri INA
59 Maria Clostermann Chiara GER
60 Tereza Kubatova CZE
61 Panchamaya Tamang NEP
62 Sarah Mckenzie AUS
63 Jennifer De La Torre USA