SPORT CLIMBING Preview: Garnbret tries for second Lead win; Jaubert and Song fight for Speed title in Chamonix

The site of the first Olympic Winter Games – Chamonix, France – is the site for this week’s edition of the IFSC World Cup, with the seasonal battle in Speed on the line.

The headliner, however, might be Slovenian star Janja Garnbret, who opened the Lead season last week in Villars (SUI) with another win, to go along with her perfect season in Bouldering. She and first-time World Cup winner Sascha Lehmann (SUI) are first-week leaders:

Men/Lead:
1. 100 Sascha Lehmann (SUI)
2. 80 YuFei Pan (CHN)
3. 65 Alexander Megos (GER)

Women/Lead:
1. 100 Janja Garnbret (SLO)
2. 80 Chae-Hyun Seo (KOR)
3. 65 Ai Mori (JPN)

The Speed season is almost at an end, with just one more competition coming after Chamonix. The races are tight:

Men/Speed:
1. 257 Bassa Mawem (FRA)
2. 240 Dmitrii Timofeev (RUS)
3. 206 Vladislav Deulin (RUS)
4. 189 Reza Alipour (IRI)
5. 153 Alfian Muhammad (INA)

Women/Speed:
1. 300 tie, Anouck Jaubert (FRA)
1. 300 and YiLing Song (CHN)
3. 197 Anna Tsyganova (RUS)
4. 192 Aries Susanti Rahayu (INA)
5. 181 Elizaveta Ivanova (RUS)

In the men’s division, Mawem and Timofeev went 1-3 in the World Cup in 2018 and Deulin and Alipour were 1-2 in 2017, to the top four have lots of experience, and anyone could win.

The women’s race has two-time defending champ Jaubert facing the revelation of the 2019 season, the 18-year-old wunderkind Song, who won the first two events and set the world record of 7.10 in the process. Jaubert, 25, has finished 2-4-3-1 in the four events this season, while Song has gone 1-1-16-2 to be tied thus far. This is too close to call.

The Speed finals will be held on Friday and the Lead event on Saturday (13th). Look for results here.