Sports Bulletin Report
Innsbruck (Austria):-Raboutou led stellar lineup into Women’s Boulder Final of the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) World Cup Innsbruck 2023 closed with the women’s Boulder semi-final round, selecting the top six athletes advancing into night’s final.
Signing off with a fantastic four-tops performance was Tokyo 2020 Olympian Brooke Raboutou, of the USA, who was the only climber able to top all four boulders in the round, despite a consistent number of attempts.
Raboutou – who podiumed at the three previous World Cups she participated in in 2023, collecting one gold and two bronzes – was joined by her friend and teammate Natalia Grossman – current leader of the women’s Boulder World Cup ranking, and winner of the season trophy in 2021 and 2022.
“Semi-final was hard. It felt a bit weird doing qualification in the morning and then semi-final in the evening, especially as we competed a few days ago,” she said, after finishing fifth with three tops and four zones. “Mentally I’m trying to allow myself breaks because it is tiring just being in competition mood for a week. It doesn’t need to be long breaks, even just between qualifiers and semis I tried not to think about climbing at all and try to disconnect a little, I guess.”
Just ahead of Grossman placed current Olympic Champion Janja Garnbret, who beat the buzzer on problem number three, and was only able to secure the zone on the fourth one – the slab.
“I enjoyed it a lot, especially beating the buzzer on the second boulder which was so nice. I don’t think I’ve ever had that in my entire life. I had less than 30 seconds probably and I thought about heading back in, but then I just thought to myself ‘let’s give it a go’, and luckily it worked out for me,” said Garnbret.
“I’m just so excited to be back. I had around eight months out, and my first competition back was in Prague, I’m still trying to get my competition flow, so I’m just enjoying things at the moment. I still don’t feel completely comfortable on slabs because I couldn’t do them in the past months, so I’m still trying to find the balance and feeling again.”
Second and third place in the round were taken by Japanese duo Ito Futaba and Nonaka Miho, respectively, both with the same score as Grossman and Garnbret – three tops and four zones – but lower numbers of attempts to top.
Ito said: “It was good. The boulders were so fun. I feel good now and I’m really enjoying the boulders here. I’m excited for the final and I hope I can get a medal, but everyone in the final is really strong so it’s not going to be easy.”
