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Intriguing competition from Arco, with slightly odd results and some of the favourites losing out but leaving no doubt that the winners were the best people on the day on their particular routes.

The women's semi-final routes featured a hard crux which led to a lot of people falling at the same point, but there was enough separation to generate a final list. It was particularly good to see Molly Thompson-Smith making finals — the first British woman to do it since 2004! — and to see Ashima Shiraichi in action — it's hard to believe, given her list of achievements and her reputation, that's still only 16 years old.

The men's semis route also featured a hard crux, but more people made it through giving a clearer separation. After his performance in Munich, it was fun to watch Alex Magos absolutely storm the semis; and if his finals campaign didn't go to plan, then it just goes to show how bad luck can catch out even the very best.

The finals routes were extremely tough, with the women's featuring a hard cut-loose that troubled a lot of people. Kim Jain was the only person to hold it with an awesome show of core power, only to get timed out slightly further on — a real shame, given that she looked like she was still fresh and had only a handful of moves to go. The men's featured an odd dyno low at move twelve which bothered a lot of people: Jacob Schubert took a while sizing it, but got back into his groove; Megos really struggled; while Ondra, who had the reach, did the move statically.
sawyl: (Default)
I've been watching the lead climbing from Chamonix over the last couple of days — like everyone, I was a bit thrown by the mid-week schedule — and the results have been interesting. The general feeling seems to be that the qualifier routes were a bit odd, with lots of people falling at the same point. Some very strong climbers failed to make it through in the men's competition — I really feel for Sebastian Hallenke, who was distraught after slipping off a very chalky sloper fairly low down — and in the women's comp, only Janja Gambret topped the route. The men's final started slightly oddly, with the first climber out topping the route, followed by three more tops, with the competitors differentiated on time — I think they were drawn on count back to previous rounds. Likewise the women's route saw three tops, with Anak Verhoeven saying that she felt the route wasn't really hard enough to challenge the athletes — which, given her amazing performance in the European Championships, isn't much of a surprise...

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