Sean Bailey Earns His First Climbing Podium Of The Season At The Chamonix World Cup

Sean Bailey competes during the men's bouldering qualification round at the IFSC Climbing World Cup on May 28, 2022 in Salt Lake City.

There’s something about Chamonix, France, that sport climber Sean Bailey must love. 
The 26-year-old won the lead event at the Chamonix World Cup in 2021. He followed that up with a bronze in the same event this weekend. 
Bailey was one of the four climbers who reached the top during the semifinal round on Sunday morning, putting him into the evening finals along with eight other climbers. He recorded a score of 29+ in the final, behind only Taisei Homma of Japan and Adam Ondra of the Czech Republic, who both scored 39+, though Ondra was credited with the victory.  
This is the first IFSC podium Bailey has earned in any event since winning the lead event in Chamonix in 2021. The Shoreline, Washington, native won three events in 2021 — two lead and one bouldering — to finish the 2021 season as the No. 2 lead climber and No. 4 boulder climber. 
This finish puts Bailey eighth in the lead rankings for this season. Fellow American Colin Duffy — who represented Team USA at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 — is currently ranked second with 1,845 points, 340 points behind Homma. 
Two Americans made the women’s lead finals in Chamonix, with Natalia Grossman taking sixth and Brooke Raboutou seventh. No U.S. climbers ended among the top 10 in the speed event held Saturday.
The next climbing world cup is set for July 22-23, when women’s and men’s lead events will be held again in France, this time in Briançon.