The first day of competition closed with home favourite Natalia Grossman at the top of the ranking.
Day one at the IFSC World Cup in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, closed with a hard women’s Boulder qualification round.
None of the 55 participating climbers was able to solve all five problems, and the top position was secured by home favourite Natalia Grossman of the USA with four tops and five zones.
The 22-year-old from Boulder, Colorado, is one of the six climbers from Team USA who have already qualified for the Olympic Games Paris 2024, while her teammate and Tokyo 2020 Olympian Kyra Condie is enlisted to participate in the upcoming Olympic Qualifier Series in Shanghai, China, and Budapest, Hungary.
“I have a new tactic where I try to stay calm between each boulder, sometimes it’s easy to get too excited or too frustrated, so after every boulder I try to go back behind the wall and calm down. It’s been helping me both at the first World Cups in China and this competition,” said Condie, third in the round with four tops and five zones, but a higher number of attempts to top than Grossman.
The list of Tokyo 2020 Olympian that made it into the top 20 in Salt Lake City also includes Australia’s Oceania Mackenzie – fourth with three tops and five zones – and Austria’s Jessica Pilz – 15th with two and five.
Both Mackenzie and Pilz have already booked their second Olympic participation at Paris 2024, where 19-year-old French talent Oriane Bertone – fifth in the qualification round – will compete on home soil.
For the women’s Boulder qualification full results click here.
The IFSC World Cup Salt Lake City 2024 will continue tomorrow with the men’s Boulder semi-final, starting at 10:00 (UTC-6:00), with the final scheduled at 18:00. Speed qualifications and finals are also set to take place, starting at 15:00 and 20:00 respectively.
News and updates about the event will be available on the IFSC website, and on the Federation’s digital channels: Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and exclusively for the Chinese audience, Douyin and Weibo.