Natalia Grossman, who won last weekend, topped all four boulders on her first try. "Going first allowed to have fun the whole time, with no pressure", Grossman commented in the IFSC interview. She closed today’s semi-final in sixth place and was the lowest-seeded competitor in the final round. "I’m always trying to be as confident as possible, but the fourth problem seemed to be the hardest one. Winning last week’s event definitely gave me a little bit more confidence this time."

Janja Garnbret, who had won the last seven Boulder WC's she had participated in, needed one more attempt on the two first boulders. Brooke Raboutou got the bronze just like last weekend and was also crying together with her best friend Natalia like last weekend.

1. Natalia Grossman (19) USA 44 : 4 (c) Daniel Gajda
2. Janja Garnbret SLO 44 : 6
3. Brooke Raboutou (19) USA 34
4. Oriane Bertone (16) FRA 33 : 5
5. Stasa Gejo SRB 33 : 9
6. Miho Nonaka JPN 24
Complete results

(For some reason, in competition climbing a first try send is considered a flash, although in practice the competitors have no beta, i.e. it is onsight. In Lead climbing, it is called a flash when you can sit and watch 50 climbers and having friends calling out beta.)

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

Tomoa Narasaki, who was #2 in the qualification after Kokoro Fujii, topped all four problems in seven tries winning the semi ahead of Sean Bailay needing 13 attempts. Last out was Fujii and he was in the seventh position until some 30 seconds remained when he did come up with some new beta skipping one move and secured a spot in the final. Complete results (c) Vladek Zumr

It should be mentioned that Adam Ondra reported on Insta why he not participated. Here is part of his comments. "I hurt my shoulder in the finals last week. It is not too serious, I can still climb, but certain moves are painful and way too dangerous for me. If I decided to compete, I could likely get into the situation when I would either give up on a certain move or risk a serious injury."

Among the female, Janja Garnbret won again but surprisingly she failed on one boulder. Runner up, with two tops, was Miho Nonaka followed by Oriane Bertone. The fourth was Brooke Raboutou and she was actually the only one doing boulder #3. Noteworthy is that Brooke had only scored one zone in the two first boulders. Complete results The final starts 00.55 Euro Time

Five males topped all five boulders in the SLC qualification, out of which three from Japan. Kokoro Fujii and Tomoa Narasaki, were the best, using only seven respectively eight attempts. Only five of the Olympians made it to the Top-20 semi-final. 42, out of the 54 participants made at least two tops. Adam Ondra did not start as he reported on Insta that he had a bad shoulder from last weekend. Complete results

Among the female, Janja Garnbret won the qualification with five tops in six attempts followed by Miho Nonaka, Natalia Grossman and Futaba Ito also doing all five boulders. In total, seven Olympians made it to the semi-final and they were all Top-14. Complete results

The semi-finals are live-streamed and starts 18.55 Euro Time. (c) Vladek Zumr

Leonardo Veddriq from Indonesia won the Speed final where he also set a new world record at 5.208. Runner up was his teammate Kiromal Katibin, who had made two new world records in the qualifications. "I’m very happy today for this gold medal and for breaking the world record,” said Leonardo right after the final. “It’s been amazing to compete alongside my teammate. We didn’t come here for the victory, we came here to break records." (c) Daniel Gajda/IFSC

Among the female, Olympian Aleksandra Miroslaw won and her fastest time was 7.20 from the qualification. The big sensation was that Miho Nonaka got the bronze and her best time was 8.20. Complete results. Full report from IFSC.

Kiromal Katibon from Indonesia, who was #14 in the Speed Junior World Championship in 2019, did break the Speed World record twice in Salt Lake City. The previous record was 5.48 by Reza Alipour from 2017 and Kiromal made 5.32 and 5.25. Also his teammate Leonardo Viddriq broke the record with 5.37. It should be noted that Qixin Zhong has unofficially done 5.35 winning the China Nationals.

Only nine of the 20 male Olympians participated and Mickael Mawem was fastest by the non-Speed specialist with 6.28. Tomoa Narasaki, who has a PB at 5.73, made a false start in his first run and then he was disqualified for participating in the second. Noteworthy is that neither Alex Megos or Adam Ondra did participate although having signed up for competing. Complete results.

Among the female, Olympian Aleksandra Miroslaw, who is not doing any of the two Boulder World Cups in Salt Lake City, won the qualification with 7.20. Janja Garnbret set a big PB with 8.36 being #7 just ahead of Kyra Kondie 8.43. In total, ten of the female Olympians participated.

On the first semi-final boulder in the Salt Lake City World Cup, Oriane Bertone innovated a new 'ballerina' move by putting almost all of her weight on the upper side of the shoe. In the screenshot, she lifts her left foot in order to put it against the volume while both her hands are on side pulls. As it turns out, she was not aware of having done it like this when we asked for comments.

"I forgot where I actually did a ballerina move 😭 To be completely honest, I was pretty confused when climbing. The beta I chose was surely not the best one. I ended up fighting to stay on the boulder by putting a knee (towards the volume). It was not gracious at all but it worked, so I guess all good in the end :))

On the contrary, I think it was gracious like a ballerina with that new innovation move.
I haven’t thought about it, to be honest, but when I think about it I feel like the shoes I have are pretty much adapted to that upper-side-shoe move and again, I don’t really remember if I did it before. Until you told me you liked the way it looked, I just thought it was a pretty ugly move 😭 I really thought I climbed pretty badly, thanks a lot! Yeah, it for sure helped a lot, I guess it was a bit part of the strange beta I imagined ha, ha."

Jana Vincourkova has done her fourth 8A+ during the last six weeks, Nataša in Babí lom. It is an 8A+ roof she made the FA of last month and this times she did it backwards, video. Noteworthy is that Jana restarted climbing 2.5 years ago after having taken a two years break. In the 8a ranking game, she is #6 after four girls from the USA and Oriane Bertone from France.

"It all started when my boyfriend wanted to repeat Izabela 8A+ which I made the FA of last month. I was sitting under the crag and watching him climb. Then he said that I could try to climb Izabela backwards to kill some time while I was waiting and I was like „Noo, it would be the same boulder, same moves..“ But later I tried it anyway and find out it's really hard and definitely much harder for me than Izabela. So I started to climb but wasn't able to do all the moves in a row and so the projecting began. It took me two long climbing days to sent this boulder and I have to say that the moves are so different and the whole problem takes much more endurance than Izabela. I called the boulder Nataša because I am very bad at naming new boulders so I just looked into the calendar whose name day was that day and it was Nataša. It's the same story with Izabela."

Brooke Raboutou, who was #3 in Salt Lake City, excels also outdoors by flashing her first 8A+, Euro Trash in Little Cottonwood Canyon (UT). "So psyched!! Still riding the high from the World Cup final and couldn’t resist climbing on what was supposed to be a rest day. Oops haha. So psyched to flash it!"

Later she did her seventh 8B during the last year, Euro Roof Low Low. "After the flash of the 12 I went for this one! Happy to also put it down in about 4 more tries! Great day with a fun group! Comps are so fun but outdoors...❤️"

In the 8a ranking game, the 20-year-old Olympian is #2. On Friday, she will compete in Speed in Salt Lake City and then on Saturday, there is a new Bouldering World Cup coming up. (c) Daniel Gajda