The African Continental Qualifiers hosted at Loftus, Pretoria awarded 4 more Olympic tickets to Paris 2024. A big congratulations to Joshua Bruyns and Aniya Holder who took the Speed podiums, and Mel Janse van Rensburg and Lauren Mukheibir who took the Lead and Boulder Combined podiums.
Event Highlights
Day 1 – Women’s Combined Boulder & Lead Semi-Finals and Speed
The IFSC African Qualifier commenced on 7 December, just outside of the Loftus Versfeld Stadium with Womens combined Boulder and Lead Semi Finals, Speed Qualifications and Finals.
With some rain and technical delays in the morning the women’s Boulder Semi Finals got off to a start around 10:30 and saw 12 ladies go head to head over the 4 technical boulder problems and up to 100 points to be awarded. The women’s event saw representation from South Africa, Uganda and Mauritius.
Lead was followed later that evening with 1 route and 100 points up for grabs. The top 8 would move forward to finals.
Speed started around midday making for a warm and sunny competition for the athletes.
South African favourites Aniya Holder and Joshua Bruyns respectively took gold in the men’s and women’s final, also pocketing the Speed Olympic quota place for Paris 2024.
For the complete results of the women’s Speed event click here.
For the complete results of the men’s Speed event click here.
Day 2 – Mens Combined Boulder and Lead Semi Finals
The men took to the stage on a very hot and sunny morning at Loftus, Pretoria on Friday 8 December for the combined Boulder and Lead Semi Finals. South Africa filled 14 of the 15 spaces with 1 Uganda athlete and sadly a no show from Nigeria who had registered athletes.
Chris Cosser cruised through the semis finishing with a score of 199.9 and Mel Janse van Rensburg hot on his heels with 199.2 out of a 200 score. The top 8 men would move forward to Finals on Saturday evening.
The Women’s Combined Semi Finals were scheduled for Friday evening but were postponed to Saturday morning due to a classic afternoon highveld thunderstorm that left the competition arena soaked.
Day 3 – Womens and Mens Combined Boulder and Lead Semi Finals
Saturday 9 December kicked off with the womens combined finals. Another hot and toasty summers day saw spectators sharing umbrellas and sunblock while the ladies battled it out for that ticket to Paris.
The boulders were brutal with only one top secured from Lauren Mukheibir and Rauen Krohn managing to get points on most boulders. Lead saw the top two ladies falling only 1 hold apart. Lauren managed a 0.2 point win over Rauen and claimed the 1 ticket quota to Paris 2024. 16 year old Caitlin Bouwer placed 3rd.
For the women’s Boulder & Lead complete results click here
The mens combined finals saw a short delay due to rain but the volunteers all stepped in to get the mats dry and the competition back on track.
The top 8 men put on a show with tops on all boulders except the slaby problem 2. Mel Janse van Rensburg squeezed ahead with the only top on problem 3 and then taking the win from previous Olympian Chris Cosser by topping the Lead route. Chris knowing he couldn’t win still topped the lead route for the crowd and was big smiles for his team mate Mel.
Young and strong, 16 year old Nicholas Allan placed 3rd.
For the men’s Boulder & Lead complete results click here.
Team GoodBETA were stoked to be the IFSC photo and media team for this event 🙂
