Sport climber Seo Chae-hyun wins bronze for 2nd straight medal

Sport climber Seo Chae-hyun secured her country's second consecutive Asian Games medal on Thursday, claiming bronze in the women's boulder event. The 25-year-old finished third with a total of 70 points at the Nagoya, central Japan venue. Her Chinese rival Zhang Yuetong claimed gold with 85 points, while Japan's Ai Mori secured silver with 84.8 points.

Boulder is a climbing discipline where athletes aim to complete the most routes in the fewest attempts on 4-meter walls. Points are awarded for finishing a route (25 points) and reaching a designated midway hold (10 points). However, for each failed attempt, a climber loses 0.1 point.

Seo had the same score as Luo Zhilu of China, but she emerged victorious in the tiebreaker due to her superior performance in the previous semifinals phase, where she achieved the perfect score of 100 points.

In the final, Seo secured the maximum 25 points in her first two boulders but earned only 10 points each in the subsequent two attempts. Despite this, she managed to outscore Mori in the combined event at the 2023 Asian Games, where the competition featured both boulder and lead disciplines.