Grossman and Gejo notch up perfect scores to top women's boulder qualification at the World Cup in Seoul 

American Natalia Grossman and Serbia's Stassa Gejo lead the field after earning perfect scores of five tops and five zones at the women's boulder qualification rounds at the IFSC - Climbing World Cup event in Seoul, South Korea, on Saturday (7 May).

Reigning World Cup champion Grossman earned top spot in the rankings thanks to her lower number of attempts, as only 20 of the 55 participants advanced to Sunday's semi-finals.

The 20-year-old, who also won the world championship title in 2021, will be joined by three other Americans, Kylie Cullen, Cloe Coscoy, and Olympian Brooke Raboutou.

Austria manage to qualify three athletes into the semis, with Franziska Sterrer, Jessica Pilz, and Johanna Farber leading the way for the European nation, as did Japan who will be represented by Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Nonaka Miho as well as Ito Futaba, and Mia Aoyagi.

Hosts South Korea will have plenty of reason to cheer, after Sol Sa managed to confirm her spot on home soil with a ninth place finish.

The men's qualifying event follows later on Saturday, and is available to watch and stream live on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com in some regions.

It comes after Aleksandra Miroslaw of Poland made history on her way to speed event victory at the Jungnang Stadium on Friday, beating the world record she had set at Tokyo 2020 by two tenths of a second (6.64 seconds). Kiromal Katibin of Indonesia broke the men's world record in qualifying with his time of 5.17 seconds, but lost out in the final.

Sport climbing competition format for 2022 season

Now that the speed event is over, the attention moves to the boulder competition which is also featured at this sport climbing World Cup event in Seoul.

When sport climbing made its debut at Tokyo 2020 in 2021, each athlete had to compete in boulder, lead, and speed disciplines and their total scores for each event were combined together to determine the winners of one set of medals.

There will be a different format at the Paris 2024 Games, with two separate competitions. The speed event will have its own medals, while lead and boulder will be combined.

READ MORE: World record tumbles at speed climbing World Cup event

Schedule for the remainder of the sport climbing World Cup in Seoul

(Korea Standard Time)

Saturday, 7 May:
4:15 PM Men's Boulder qualification

Sunday, 8 May:
11:00 AM Men's and Women's Boulder semifinals
5:00 PM Women's Boulder final
Followed by Men's Boulder final

Keep following as updates from the men's Boulder qualification action today will follow shortly