Olympic climbing

LIVE: Schubert is now challenged in bouldering

Austria's climbing ace Jakob Schubert started his second Olympic Games on Monday.

(Bild: AFP/APA/Fabrice COFFRINI)

Austria's climbing ace Jakob Schubert made a successful start to his mission for Olympic gold on Monday. He showed a convincing performance in bouldering and finished in sixth place with 44.7 points. The climbing competition in Paris lasts a total of five days, with Schubert's showpiece discipline, lead climbing, following on Wednesday. The final follows on Friday. 

Great start for Jakob Schubert in the Olympic combined climbing competition. The Tyrolean is already in sixth place after the bouldering part of the semi-final. This means that the top eight's ticket to the final is almost set before the second part, the lead.

Here is the final score:

There had previously been 56 unsuccessful attempts to reach a top in the bouldering part of the combined semi-final. Jakob Schubert had to come first. The Tyrolean made it to the top on his very first boulder, triggering a storm of applause. The spell was finally broken. Just a few seconds later, the applause became even more intense, with local hero Sam Azevou also scoring a top.

In the second boulder, Schubert did not climb all the way to the top, but at least to the second zone. By the halfway point, he had already scored more points than almost all the other athletes in the entire round.

Wednesday's showpiece discipline
The second part of the semi-final, the lead climb, will not take place until Wednesday. In view of Schubert's strength in this discipline, however, his ticket to the final was almost booked at this point.

Although "Jockel" only managed the first zone in the last two boulders, that was still enough for sixth place with 44.7 points. Unsurprisingly, Japan's young star Sorato Anraku was in the lead after the bouldering with 69.0 points.

Coach Heiko Wilhelm is highly satisfied with the starting position: "It was mega that he managed the first boulder. It was also good for Jakob that it was a difficult bouldering round." Because the lead climb weighs all the more.

(Bild: Birbaumer Christof/Birbaumer)

"It's definitely looking very good for the final if I'm already in the top 8. It's tight, but if I perform normally in the lead, I should make it," says Schubert optimistically, adding: "It was surprisingly hot, which made the first two boulders difficult because of the friction. The atmosphere was awesome. You normally find out if there are tops at the back, but this time I only just realized that mine was the first one because it was so loud all the time."