Seo Chae-hyun

Seo Chae-hyun (, born November 1, 2003), also known as Chaehyun Seo, is a South Korean professional rock climber who specializes in competition climbing. She won the overall 2019 World Cup title in competition lead climbing in her senior debut season. In August 2021 she represented South Korea at the 2020 Summer Olympics, where she was a finalist, and later that year won the IFSC World Championship in lead.

Early life
Seo was born into a family of climbers. She started climbing in 2008. Her father owns a climbing gym in Seoul.

Rock climbing
In 2018, aged 14, Seo redpointed the graded sport climbing route, Bad Girls Club, at the Wicked Cave, near Rifle, Colorado. On November 22, 2022, aged 19, Seo redpointed the famous graded Spanish sport climb, La Rambla, becoming the second-ever woman to redpoint the route. During that same trip to Spain, Seo onsighted the graded route, L'Antagonista, in Serra de Montsant, becoming the second-ever female to on-sight a route at that grade.

Competition climbing
In 2019, she made her IFSC Climbing World Cup debut and won the Lead World Cup season title ahead of Slovenia's Janja Garnbret and Japan's Natsuki Tanii by earning four gold medals, one silver medal and one bronze medal; medalling in all six lead events. In November of that year she participated in the 2019 Asian Championships, winning gold in both lead and bouldering disciplines. She qualified for the first appearance of sport climbing at the Summer Olympics via her placement in the combined event at the 2019 IFSC Climbing World Championships.

In August 2021, aged 17, Seo competed in the 2020 Summer Olympics where she made the finals and finished in 8th place overall. A month later she went on to win the World Championship in lead climbing.

In 2022, Seo finished the 2022 IFSC World Cup season placed second overall in lead, having earned three silver medals and two bronze medals. She also won gold medals in lead and combined along with a bronze medal in bouldering at the 2022 Asian Championships.

In 2023, Seo finished third in lead at the World Championships. She also represented South Korea at the 2022 Asian Games where she received the silver medal in the boulder-and-lead combined event.