Para Climbing action began in Laval at the Espace Mayenne with nearly 250 registered climbers across 19 sport classes completing their qualification before seven will continue on in their search for medals with finals tonight.

AU & AL SPORT CLASSES

In her first ever appearance on the world stage, Sweden’s Liv Wikman Gandre finished in fourth place in the women’s AU2 in Innsbruck, Austria last year. Unfortunately she would have to wait for her second appearance:

“I started climbing in these comps last year and then I hurt my one and only wrist, so I’ve had a year of trying to come back into Climbing and this is the first competition I have been allowed to do by my physiotherapist.”

Talking about her qualification round Wikman said: “I did fall right about where I thought I might fall, but it was a bit earlier than what I thought would be the hardest part so that was quite annoying. But overall, I’m happy, it was a lot of fun.”

There will be no repeat or better of her Innsbruck result as she finished in 12th out of the 17 women competing, but the Swedish climber is enjoying the experience of being back: “I’ll be just out of the finals tonight, but I’m excited to watch everyone else kill it.”

Wikman is one of the newer climbers to the circuit and shows that the path to the top isn’t always straightforward and clear: “I started climbing around 2020. It was really random. There was just a guy who asked me and my family on the beach, ‘Oh, you look handicapped’ because I had my prosthesis on to swim, ‘do you want to try Climbing?’. There was this group in Stockholm which started to do Para Climbing and they invited me. I tried it and it stuck.”

Italy’s Lucia Capovilla leads the way in the women’s AU2 and USA’s Wanying Morningstar progresses in first in the women’s AU3. She won silver in her debut earlier in the season in Salt Lake City, and she will add another medal to her collection with three finalists now fighting over the colour they end up with.

The men’s AU2 is led by the experienced Kevin Bartke from Germany while AU3 is led by someone on the opposite end of the scale, Guillermo Gouiric. It’s only the second competition for the Argentinian after he made his debut in Innsbruck last time out.

The AL1 sport class has women and men joined in a mixed competition and Slovenia’s Matej Arh is top after qualification. He has to stay ahead of Austria’s Angelino Zeller who is second but has never got anything other than gold in an AL world class competition he has entered.

Both the women’s and men’s AL2 competitions have joint leaders with USA’s Cail Soria and France’s Lucie Jarrige top in the women’s and USA’s Lee Shaffer and Belgium’s Frederik Leys top in the men’s.

RP SPORT CLASSES

Sometimes not overthinking things is the best route to take in climbing, and that was true for USA’s Benjamin Mayforth in the men’s RP2.

“I’m very happy. The first route was a little rough, I wasn’t exactly mentally into it, and I reverted into an older version of myself in the second one.”

When pressed further to explain what he meant Mayforth said: “I have a tendency to black out during climbers and forget what I did and that came back out and the movement and the flow carried me through and moved me up from fourth to second.”

Mayforth’s USA teammate Brayden Butler leads the way in the competition.

In the men’s RP1, Germany’s Sebastian Leistner topped both routes to progress in first. France’s Antoine Keodara also topped both routes in his competition, the men’s RP3, to show that a gold on his debut in Innsbruck was not just beginner’s luck.

USA’s Melissa Ruiz leads two teammates into the women’s RP1 final, and with only four finalists’, the odds are in the USA’s favour for the medals.

Austria’s Jasmin Plank was one of three climbers to top the first route of the women’s RP2, but her second route was significantly better than her rivals giving her a boost going into the final round in top spot.

Top spot in the women’s RP3 was Germany’s Laura Nesciobelli.

B SPORT CLASSES

The B sport classes have a mix of countries vying for gold after finishing in the top spots from qualification.

Japan’s has the imperious Sho Aita leading the way in the men’s B1, Romania has Razvan Nedu in the men’s B2 and France has Adrian Maillard in the men’s B3. Maillard is just 16-years-old and is comepeting in his first World Climbing Para Series event.

Italy’s Nadia Bredice progressed in first from the women’s B1 while Great Britain’s Abigail Robinson and Germany’s Luisa Grube shared first position in the women’s B2. France was the country to have more than one at the top of the B classes with Elsa Boutel Menard topping out both routes for her first position in the women’s B3.

Boutel Menard will be hoping to continue her form and take home a medal in her homeland as she appears in one of the seven sport classes who have their finals later in the evening.

Women’s B3, the men’s and women’s AU3, women’s AU2, men’s RP3, and the men’s and women’s AL2 will all crown their Laval champions tonight while the other 12 classes take a break until tomorrow evening to wrap up their competitions.

NEXT UP

The first set of seven finals will begin at 20:00 (UTC+2). The remaining 12 finals will conclude the programme on Saturday, 29 August, from 20:30. Both finals rounds will be livestreamed on the World Climbing YouTube channel.

News and updates about all World Climbing events will be available on the World Climbing website, and on the Federation’s digital channels: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, and exclusively for the Chinese audience, Douyin, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu.