Sean Bailey wins in front of 3000 in SLC

Sean Bailey, who was very close to having qualified for the Olympics, won his first World Cup and saved the show for the route setters by doing two boulders in the second Salt Lake City event. As a matter of fact, he would have won even if he had not made the top on the last boulder. The 25-year-old is also a very accomplished rock climber having done two 9a+ and one 8C+. Runner-up was Kokoro Fujii followed by Tomoa Narasaki, both doing one boulder. The remaining three did all together score just four zones. Noteworthy is that during both the qualification and semi-final, all 20 and six participants, respectively, making it to the next round, did at least all but one boulder.

"I don’t know, I can’t even think right now!" said an ecstatic Bailey moments after the final. "I never thought this day would come, and it’s crazy that it came. We had some pretty tough boulders, and I wanted to find some success on something again. The crowd hype was real!"

1. Sean Bailey USA 24 (2 Tops and 4 zones) (c) Vladek Zumr
2. Kokoro Fujii JPN 14
3. Tomoa Narasaki JPN 13
4. Yoshiyuki Ogata JPN 2
5. Zach Galla USA 1
6. Maximillian Milne GBR 1
Complete results