Sport climbing standout Seo Chae-hyun (19, The North Face-Seoul City Hall) had a nightmare at the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games Women’s Combined (Lead Bouldering) on March 7 in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, China. She fought hard, tying with her ‘rival’ Ai Mori (JPN) in the semifinals, but when the final was canceled due to rain, she was awarded the silver medal based on her qualifying performance Her disappointment was compounded by the fact that she missed out on the gold medal .But Seo didn’t cry. After returning home, she continued to train and improve, and on Thursday, she dominated the women’s lead final at the 104th National Sports Climbing Championships at the Mokpo International Sports Climbing Stadium in Mokpo, Jeollanam-do, and won the gold medal.
“I performed poorly in the Asian Games qualifiers because I couldn’t fully adapt to the local conditions, but I improved from the semifinals onwards,” said Seo Chae-hyun in a post-match interview. “I expected to win the final, but I was disappointed that the final itself was canceled.” “But I didn’t cry,” he said, emphasizing that the Asian Games is not the final goal. Encouragement from Seo’s father, national team coach Seo Jong-guk, also helped. “He encouraged me by saying that if I had made the final, I would have become a gold medalist,” Seo said. “His words were very encouraging and gave me the drive to keep training hard.”Seo seemed to find her confidence at the national championships.
“My current physical condition is not bad,” he said, “I will continue the current trend until next month, when the Asian Quarterfinals for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will be held, and I will definitely qualify for the Olympic Games.” With the disappointment of the Hangzhou Asian Games out of her mind, Seo Chae-hyun put on a different performance on the day. She finished the qualifying routes A and B, the semifinals, and the final with a ‘TOP’ in all four attempts to win the title .Seo Chae-hyun is the face of Korean sport climbing. Of all the athletes on the national team, she came the closest to a medal in Paris.
It’s also a good thing that the speed event was recently removed from the Olympic Combined event. Speed is a competition to see who can climb a 15-meter-high artificial rock wall with a 95-degree slope the fastest, while lead is a competition to climb the highest within six minutes by holding onto an artificial structure on a 15-meter-high rock wall and attaching a rope to a quickdraw at the highest point .Bouldering is a sport that involves passing through various artificial structures on a 4.5-meter-high rock wall without a rope within four minutes.
Seo’s main event is the lead, and speed is her weakness .At the Olympics, only her bouldering and lead scores are combined to determine her combined score. But Seo isn’t complacent. “Not only me, but many combine athletes will think that the absence of speed events gives them an advantage,” she says, “so I will calmly prepare for the Olympic qualifiers 스포츠토토 and the main event.
