Ready for Friday

Schubert wants to secure a place in the lead climbing final

Climbing ace Jakob Schubert is in the final.(Bild: AP/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Climbing ace Jakob Schubert has secured himself a place in the climbing final on Friday. The starting position for the Austrian medal hopeful was already good after the bouldering on Monday. In lead climbing, his showpiece discipline, he secured a place in the final, although he was not entirely satisfied with his performance.

Schubert achieved 54.1 points in lead climbing. This secured the Tyrolean a relaxed place in the final, although he had expected more in his showpiece discipline. "It was a difficult round, but that's exactly what I wanted to see. I'm one of the best in lead climbing, the more difficult the round, the better for me, that's where I can make up the most points. Unfortunately, that wasn't quite the case today," said Schubert

Here are the final results:

With the results from both semi-final competitions, Schubert ended up in fifth place with 98.8 points. The 17-year-old gold medal contender Sorato Anraku from Japan came in a commanding first place with 137.0 points.

Even though he had no idea of the intermediate score, he was quite sure when he fell that it must have been enough. He had noticed that some of the top athletes had not made it far and he had assumed that he would not have to climb all the way up. "And if I was knocked out because of strength and not because of a mistake, it wasn't a completely bad performance. I was very sure when I flew that it would go well," said Schubert, who won the bronze medal in Tokyo. Back then it was still a triple combination with speed.

A little anger in his stomach
Nevertheless, he was a little angry because he had underperformed a little. During the inspection, he and his colleagues had already seen that they weren't sure how to solve one part. For the final on Friday (10.15 a.m.), however, he is hoping for another tricky task. "I hope they don't read too much into it and screw in a similar route again. Completely different holds, of course, but a similar difficulty. I need a route like that if I want to win gold."

And Schubert definitely wants to go for it. "You could see that Sorato was good. But when I'm fully on fire, I can take a lot of points off him if I do the route at the top." Nobody made it all the way to the top in the semi-finals, with Spain's Alberto Gines Lopez going furthest ahead of Great Britain's Toby Roberts and the Czech Adam Ondra, who tied on points. "I now have to reflect on the fact that the compulsory task has been completed," said Schubert. Everyone expected him to make it to the final, including himself, so he's happy about that for now. "Now comes the important part."