Brooke Labatou won the first Olympic qualifying event, beating out Chae Hyun Seo and Erin McNeice to top the podium in Shanghai.
At the women's Olympic qualifiers held in Shanghai, USA's Brooke Labatou (gold medal), South Korea's Chae Hyun Seo (silver medal) and Great Britain's Erin McNeice (bronze medal) led the remaining field in the race to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Brooke Labatou left no doubt in Shanghai that she was one of the top contenders to qualify for the Olympic Games. From the preliminaries to the finals, she placed second or better in every round. In the end, a strong performance in bouldering and a score of over 37 points gave her the win.
Lead specialist Seo Chae-hyeon excelled in the top events right from the start. The Korean climber struggled in bouldering, especially due to the fierce competition in the qualifiers. She steadily improved from 25th place to 8th in the semi-finals and 7th in the finals, and together with her lead victory, she took 2nd place overall.
Video: Bouldering & Lead Finals Women's
20-year-old British Erin McNeice confidently made it through the qualifying rounds in seventh place and then withstood the pressure in the semi-finals, placing eighth to advance to the finals, where she turned up the heat and took second places in bouldering and lead.
Japan's Miho Nonaka missed out on the podium by just 0.1 points in the Shanghai Olympic qualifying series, ahead of her teammate Futaba Ito who finished fifth in the qualifying rounds.
Ukraine's Yevgenia Kazbekova, China's Jire Luo and France's Zélia Avezzou took sixth through eighth places.
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Credits: Cover photo IFSC