Moving from Keqiao to Wujiang, from Boulder to Lead, climbers made the short trip between the Chinese cities to take on another stop of the World Climbing Series 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three climbers who switched cities and disciplines were Slovenia\u2019s Janja Garnbret, South Korea\u2019s Seo Chae-hyun and USA\u2019s Annie Sanders \u2013 and all three share first place in the women\u2019s competition after topping the two qualification routes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two-time Olympic champion is once again chasing a 50th<\/sup> gold medal after taking silver last week, and there no surprise in her feelings after her round: \u201cI thought qualification was too easy. It got hard in maybe the last four or five moves, but I think tomorrow is another day and I think semis and final will be harder, and I hope I can show my best there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One climbers easy is another climbers difficult \u2013 especially when that one climber is Garnbret \u2013 and apart from the top three, only Italy\u2019s Laura Rogora and Great Britain\u2019s Erin Mcneice topped a route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mcneice and Rogora both topped the first route and scored 40+ on the second, so they share fourth position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garnbret leads a strong Slovenian women\u2019s team with five climbers into the semi-final. From Garnbret in first all the way down to Mia Krampl in 24th<\/sup>, the Slovenian team have some big names looking for podiums in Wujiang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you talk about big names, legendary climber Jain Kim and Olympic medallist Jessica Pilz spring to mind \u2013 and both the South Korean and Austrian climber make it throught the round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fresh off medals from Keqiao, France\u2019s Z\u00e9lia Avezou and Australia\u2019s Oce Mackenzie both progress into the semi-final, but some work will need to be done to go deep into the competition with Avezou in tenth and Mackenzie 14th<\/sup>. Both however are more than capable of making that happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just like the women, there were two tops and a joint lead for the men, and the two climbers with the position of first were Japanese teammates Neo Suzuki and Satone Yoshida. Both were high in the series ranking last season, and they continue that form into the new year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another climber who finished strongly in 2025 was Italy\u2019s Giovanni Placci, and just like his Japanese rivals, he\u2019s picking up where he left off. A top and 42+ puts Placci through in third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After his qualification Placci said: \u201cI\u2019m very happy, I\u2019m feeling very good. On the wall I felt like I could show my shape. Winter training went very well, and I think I can do great things this year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Talking about his season plans Placci said: \u201cI want to do all the World Climbing Series this year and build some confidence for the next few years that will be very important for the Olympics. That\u2019s my goal I\u2019m working toward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also with tops in the round were Indonesia\u2019s Putra Tri Ramadani and Slovenia\u2019s Luka Potocar. Both also had strong second climbs so sat in the top five to progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With no problem switching between disciplines, last week\u2019s winner is looking to add a Wujiang gold to his collection this week, Japan\u2019s Sorato Anraku. He made it through qualification in tenth, one spot below Spain\u2019s Alberto Gin\u00e9s L\u00f3pez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Between the position\u2019s 11 to 18 there is a cluster of five French climbers with Sam Avezou heading the group that includes a medallist in last year\u2019s series, Max Bertone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other notable names through to the semi-final are South Korea\u2019s world champion Lee Do-hyun and Switzerland\u2019s World Cup winner Sascha Lehmann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both the men and women will take on the semi and final tomorrow, something which Garnbret actually prefers in the schedule: \u201cHaving qualis and semis the same day, it\u2019s a very long day. Today I wake up at 5.45am, then you start warming up around 7am and if you also have semis in the same day, you may not finish until around 11pm; that\u2019s a very long day. So, I prefer semis and final on the same day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Moving from Keqiao to Wujiang, from Boulder to Lead, climbers made the short trip between the Chinese cities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[144,102],"class_list":["post-12698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-lead","tag-sport-climbing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jarja-Garnbret-.jpg",1920,1080,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jarja-Garnbret--150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jarja-Garnbret--300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jarja-Garnbret--768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jarja-Garnbret--1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jarja-Garnbret--1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jarja-Garnbret-.jpg",1920,1080,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jarja-Garnbret--825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jarja-Garnbret--590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jarja-Garnbret-.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12698"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12701,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12698\/revisions\/12701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}