Sport climbing medal hopeful Seo Chae-hyun qualified for the women’s combined event final at the Paris Olympics on Thursday, making up enough ground in the lead portion of the competition after struggling in bouldering earlier in the week.
Seo tied for fourth in the lead semifinal with 72.1 points at Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue in Le Bourget, north of Paris. Combined with 44.2 points from the bouldering semifinal Tuesday, Seo finished eighth overall among 20 climbers with 116.3 points to grab the last ticket to Saturday’s final.
Seo finished only 0.8 point ahead of Miho Nonaka of Japan, who had 64.4 points in bouldering but only 51.1 points in lead.
In the lead event, climbers get one attempt to ascend as high as they can on a route set on a 15-meter wall within six minutes. They score the 한국을 maximum 100 points if they reach the top hold.
Climbers receive one point for reaching any hold out of the 10 lowest, two points for any of the next highest, three points for the any of the next highest and four points for any hold of the 10 highest.
If climbers move toward the next hold but don’t reach it, they get 0.1 point.
Only three climbers had a higher lead point than Seo, with Janja Garnbret of Slovenia and Ai Mori of Japan tying for the lead at 96.1 points. Jessica Pilz of Austria had 88.1 points.
Seo was safely inside the top eight after her lead performance, but there were still seven more climbers left in the semifinal. She watched nervously as her name kept dropping but stopped at No. 8.