France’s Oriane Bertone and Great Britain’s Toby Roberts ended up being in first place at the end of a Climbing marathon that happened over the span of 12 hours in Laval, France, at the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) European Qualifier.
The first round of the day saw Bertone claim the top of the women’s Boulder & Lead semi-final ranking with a three-top performance on the Boulder wall, where she built a consistent margin on her closest opponent – Belgium’s Chloe Caulier – 84.2 points against 68.7.
The Boulder phase of the men’s semi-final followed shortly after the end of the women’s round, and featured a field of four challenging boulders. 18-year-old Roberts finished with three tops and 84.7 points, while France’s Sam Avezou and Mickael Mawem followed in second with 80.0 and third with 79.7.
At 19:00, finally, the passionate audience that crowded the Espace Mayenne in Laval turned their attention to the Lead wall, where the third and decisive act of the day went down.
Both Bertone and Roberts sealed their semi-finals with a positive Lead climb, and both confirmed their big margin on second place: Bertone added 60.0 more points and closed with 144.2, while Roberts fell one move away from securing the top, and closed with 180.8.
In the women’s ranking, Stasa Gejo of Serbia climbed up from fourth to second place thanks to a Lead effort worth of 57.1 points, for a total of 120.8. France’s Zélia Avezou and Italy’s Camilla Moroni followed in third and fourth place, respectively with 117.9 and 115.7 points.
Climbing last on the men’s route, legendary climber Adam Ondra took second place with 128.7 points – almost evenly divided between the two phases: 64.6 in Boulder, 64.1 in Lead. Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Alberto Ginés López of Spain also jumped up a few positions, upgrading his 11th place at the end of the Boulder round in a third overall, and scoring 113.4 points.
Avezou finished in fourth position with 113.1 points.
For the women’s Boulder & Lead semi-final results click here
For the men’s Boulder & Lead semi-final results click here
The IFSC European Qualifier Laval 2023 will conclude tomorrow, when both finals will award the coveted Olympic quota places for Paris 2024 to the two gold medallists. The women’s Boulder & Lead final will commence at 9:30 (UTC+1:00), and the men’s final will follow at 14:30.
Both finals will be available on Eurosport and Discovery, and live streamed on the IFSC YouTube channel with no restriction applied.
Updates and news about the event will be available on the IFSC website , and on the Federation digital channels: Facebook , Instagram , X , LinkedIn , and exclusively for the Chinese audience, Douyin and Weibo
Toby Roberts of Great Britain finished with a margin of more than 50 points on second place© Jan Virt/IFSC