Adam Ondra participated in only three lead world cups in 2019, but with wins in each has taken the overall title for the year. His win in Xiamen was a huge victory.
Most climbers complained about the bad route setting, including Ondra. The favourite for the event was Kai Harada, the bouldering world champion, who fell on the final route near the top, landing him in fourth place.
While Ondra’s title is impressive, it won’t secure a place in the Olympics for him. Instead, he’ll be looking forward to the next comp. In second was Taisei Homma and third was Tomoa Narasaki. For full results see here .
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Xiamen lead and speed World Cup 2019 Lead 1st place But most importantly, overall lead World cup 1st place The comp started with speed, which did not go very well, all I needed was to participate to get the 2nd speed World cup result in order to qualify for the olympic qualifying event in Toulouse in late November. Initially, I just thought of going to Xiamen for speed, but after the victory in Kranj I changed my mind and participated in lead as well. Qualifications of lead were some of the easiest routes I have ever seen on a World cup, the route number 2 got 35 (!) tops. Honestly, I don't think it was more than 8a. Semifinal was nothing but crimps, despite its sketchy character I felt pretty good. But then I commited a huge error – I just did not remember and did not see a hold. Instead, I grabbed a foothold, which made the following 2 moves super hard which resulted in a fall. I was on a shared 2nd place after semifinals, @kai_hrd leading the field. Final route was the total opposite – nothing but volumes – and evidently way too easy from the observation. I climbed in a way too controlled way, making a few sections harder, but luckily the route was not hard enough to spit me off. @tomoa_narasaki and @taisei_homma topped before me, and we were waiting for Kai's top and I guess nobody expected Kai to fall. I felt really sorry for him when he fell in the last move. I mean, it was hard to be happy with my victory, with Kai's heartbreaking fall, my enormous mistake in semis and very poorly set routes. Despite the fact it is hard to be happy with my victory on this World Cup stage, I am incredibly happy for winning lead World Cup overall! Pic by @macklecross @blackdiamond @montura_official @lasportivagram @mazagrande @gardatrentino
A post shared by Adam Ondra (@adam.ondra) on Oct 21, 2019 at 4:40am PDT
