Sport climber Seo Chae-hyun takes second place at Jakarta World Cup

Korea's Seo Chae-hyun competes in the final of the women's lead event during the International Federation of Sport Climbing World Cup in Jakarta on Monday. [AFP/YONHAP]

Sport climber Seo Chae-hyun secured her fifth podium finish of the 2022 International Federation of Sport Climbing season on Monday, taking second place in the women’s lead event at the Jakarta World Cup.

After topping the wall to lead in the semifinals, Seo ended up slipping behind Olympic gold medalist Janja Garnbret of Slovenia in the final, reaching 40 holds while Garnbret topped the wall.

Sport climbing has three disciplines: Speed, bouldering and lead.

In speed, athletes compete to climb an identical 15-meter (50-foot) wall set at an angle of 95 degrees faster than their opponents.

In bouldering, athletes climb different routes without ropes within 4 minutes. The routes vary in difficulty and athletes do not get to see them in advance.

In lead, athletes attempt to climb as high as they can on a 15-meter wall within 6 minutes.

Not every World Cup event includes all three disciplines, so Seo, who focuses mainly on lead, started off her season competing in bouldering events before shifting to lead as the events changed in June.

Since then, she has reached the podium five times, taking second-place in Innsbruck, Austria in June, third in Chamonix, France and second in Briancon, France in July, third in Edinburgh earlier this month, and now second in Jakarta.

With the five podium finishes, Seo currently sits in second place on the World Cup ranking and on the World Ranking for lead, after Garnbret.

At just 18-years-old, Seo has already racked up in an impressive career as a sport climber. In 2019 she won the overall World Cup title in lead in her debut season, adding the lead world championship title in 2021.

That year she also represented Korea as sport climbing made its Olympic debut at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. At the Games, all three disciplines were combined into one event, leaving specialists like Seo with a serious disadvantage and, despite finishing second in the qualifiers, she slipped to last in the final.

Seo wasn’t the only Korean climber competing in Jakarta.

In lead, 16-year-old Seo Ye-joo finished 20th in the women’s event, while Lee Do-hyun took sixth place in the men’s event.

Five Koreans competed in the men’s speed event, with Lee Seung-beom finishing eighth, Shin Eun-cheol at No. 10, Moon Tae-ung at No. 29, Jung Yong-jun at No. 37 and Kang Min-su at No. 38. In the women’s speed event, Jeong Ji-min finished 13th and Cha You-jin finished 20th.

There’s one event left on the 2022 World Cup circuit, as the climbers head to Morioka in Japan for the last tournament from Oct. 20 to 22.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]