2023 Pan American Games Climbing Results: Combined Lead/Boulder Winners

2023 Pan American Games Climbing Results

As one of the qualifying competitions for the Olympic Games, the 2023 Pan American Games climbing events were met with strong competition as professional climbers from across the America’s gathered together to go head-to-head for their golden ticket to the Olympic games.

The USA Climbing team sweep the four tickets available for qualification to the 2024 Paris Olympic games. With USA’s Samuel Watson and Piper Kelly taking home the gold medals for men’s and women’s speed climbing; America’s Jesse Grupper and Natalia Grossman securing the gold medals for men’s and women’s combined lead/boulder competition.

Women’s Combined Lead/Boulder

The 2023 Pan American Games climbing event for women’s combined lead and boulder was met with delays. When Canada’s Rebecca Frangos was scaling the lead wall, the lights began to flicker due to a malfunction. Luckily, the problem was quickly resolved and the games commenced with no further difficulties.

Despite the delays and malfunctions, America’s Natalia Grossman was able to secure the gold medal in the women’s combined lead and boulder event with a 7 point lead over her fellow compatriot Brooke Raboutou in the finals.

“Obviously if it were any other competition we’d be so psyched to be one and two, but having only one spot, it’s a bittersweet feeling.”

Natalia Grossman, Olympic.com

Grossman hit the bouldering round with a strong finish of 84.3, putting her in a 14.9 lead against her teammate Raboutou. Raboutou tried to overcome the point deficit with an outstanding performance in the lead round, but it was not enough to catch up to Grossman who also put up a solid climb in the lead stage of the competition. This put Raboutou in second place at the 2023 Pan American Games climbing event.

Joining Grossman and Raboutou on the podium was Canada’s Alannah Yip in third place. She took home the bronze medal in spectacular fashion as she showed that she is a strong competitor in both disciplines: lead and bouldering. Although the two American climbers pulled ahead of her, it was a very successful 2023 Pan American Games climbing event for the seasoned-pro.

Men’s Combined Lead/Boulder

America’s Jesse Grupper was overjoyed when he realized that he had between out his fellow compatriots to take home not only the gold medal at this years’ 2023 Pan American Games climbing event, but to ultimately gain his golden ticket to the 2024 Paris games.

Grupper trailed significantly behind his fellow competitors after the boulder stage, falling 15 points behind the top three spots. Fortunately he made up for the deficit in the lead round, where he blazed past the other competitors making it all the way to the 3rd boulder from the TOP.

America’s Sean Bailey and Zachary Galla took home the silver and bronze medals at the 2023 Pan American Games climbing competition in men’s combined lead and boulder. They both put up strong performances in the boulder stage, but trailed behind when they both stumbled in the middle of the lead course giving Grupper the edge he needed to take home gold.

Although athletes have received golden tickets to the 2024 Games, the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective NOC teams at the Olympic Games. Athletes’ participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024. To learn more about the Road to Paris, check it out here.

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