Based on almost 1 000 unique votes, Adam Ondra is favorite to win Combined in Tokyo. The Bouldering qualification starts tomorrow. 50 % Adam Ondra 28 % Tomoa Narasaki 13 % Jakob Schubert 05 % Alex Megox 03 % Others 01 % Kokoro Fujii

Adam Ondra was the only one to get five tops in the qualification and he did it in only six tries. In the second group, Japan set a new domination record by getting all the Top-6 positions. No big surprises as the result followed the starting order suggesting that the conditions deteriorated with more chalk and higher temperature. Complete results (c) Vladek Zumr From the Combined perspective, the Mawem brothers did really well. Mickael was #23 and Bassa, the #1 in the Speed WC, was #67 by doing one zone in three tries. Also QiXin Zhong was #67 by getting one Top and two zones in the other group. If any of them will win Speed, they have chances to qualify to the Combined Top-20 event and, if so, any of them will get the Olympic ticket.

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The semi and the final will take place tomorrow for both gender. This means that meanwhile the female had a rest day, the male will compete two days in a row. The male isolation opens 10.45 and then it is a full day of preparation and competing, finishing with medal ceremonies around 22.00. Adam Ondra topping out all five boulders in just six tries means that he saved some energy. The day after tomorrow, the WCH continues with the Lead qualification in between 10 - 20 for both the male and the female. Then the following day, semi and final in Lead. Then there will be one rest day before the Combined WCH take place where the athletes will do all three disciplines followed by a rest day and then all three disciplines again. As anyone can understand, qualifying to the Olympics will be an endurance challenge where these athletes might have to do 21 boulders, 6 routes and around six Speed runs. In practice this means that the guys with a excellent endurance will benefit from the tight schedule, especially if you saved as much energy as possible in the first bouldering qually like Adam Ondra.

Jaka Šprah has done his first 9a, Water world in Osp/Misja Pec. "Water world is an amazing 55m long line in the big cave of Osp opened by Klemen Bečan five years ago. I first tried it last September and did it with one hang after about 10-15 tries, but it eventually took me 46 tries to piece the whole thing together. This July we took a long trip to Rodellar and it was a great preparation for Water world with a similar style of climbing. Something that helped me a lot was visualizing the route every evening. It enabled me to come back to it after about five months and feel almost like I was on it yesterday. I did it with two different shoes because Adam Ondra does it that way and I want to be sponsored by both Scarpa and La Sportiva."

From a female Speed specialist perspective, the bouldering qualification results could not be better. From the complete results; #37 Anouck Jaubert, #49 Andrea Rojas, #57 Aleksandra Miroslaw, #65 Yiling Song and a total of just 89 participants, compared to 122 last year. Further more, as just half of them are god Combined climbers it will be relatively easy for the best Speed specialist to make it to the Top-20. As a matter of a fact, it could be two or in theory three, making it to the Top-20 Combined final. In reality, the winner of each discipline will most certainly make it to the Top-8 final and there finish at least Top-4. It should be noted that it says that only the Top-7 will get an Olympic ticket but with the max two country quota and four Japanese and five Slovenians Top-21, it just might be that even #10 will get a ticket. In practice this actually open up for two female speed specialists making it through. In theory, this means that we could end up with three or even four female Speed specialist in Tokyo 2020 and with a chance that one of them will get a bronze in the Olympics although being dead last among the boulder and lead specialist in every round. The one who loose with Speed specialist getting good other results is Miho Nonaka as she is the fastest non-Speed specialist. All the above speculations are based on the multiplication format that will be used in Combined. Finishing 1 * 20 * 20 = 400 is a better results than 7 * 8 * 8 = 448. In the final 1 * 7 * 8 is better than 4 * 4 * 4.

Janja Garnbret onsighted all five problems and also Akiyo Noguchi, Petra Klingler, Nanako Kura and Chaehyon Seo (15), in her very first international Bouldering comp, got five tops. In total, four from both Japan and Slovenia to the semi and Switzerland had three that made it through. The big surprise was that the best female from Austria was Jessica Pilz as #33. Last year she was #4 in Bouldering and #3 in Combined. Noteworthy is that the fifth and last Slovenian was #21 and that Anouck Jaubert, the Speed specialist, got her best ever bouldering result being #37. It should also be mentioned that 25 % of the 89 female ended up with no Top and no Zone. Complete results (c) Vladek Zumr