Boulder World Cup Gold for Sorato Anraku
Team Japan and Team France took six of the top seven spots at the comp in Keqiao, which featured fantastic setting
Photo by: Kazushige Nakajima/IFSC
Paris Olympic silver medalist Sorato Anraku has earned his first gold medal of the 2025 World Cup season. It’s the 18-year-old Japanese climber’s first time standing atop a Boulder World Cup podium since Salt Lake City in May last year. At yesterday’s men’s Boulder final in Keqiao, China, Anraku topped all four problems with relative ease, earning himself the victory. He flashed problem #4 and topped the other three problems in just two attempts each.
“I had a good time at this comp,” said Anraku after his victory. “I really enjoyed the problems. I liked [men’s problem #4] because I haven’t won recently because I’m not always sending the last boulder. This time I could though, so I am happy.”
Dohyun Lee of South Korea came in second, also topping all four problems. He flashed the first problem of the evening but then took more attempts than Anraku for the his other three tops, leaving him in second place. Meichi Narasaki of Japan rounded out the podium in third with three tops and one zone.
There were some shocking upsets at the men’s Boulder comp in Keqiao. Paris Olympic gold medalist Toby Roberts didn’t make it past the semi-finals where he failed to top a single problem, placing 15th overall. Team USA’s Colin Duffy only topped one problem and reached the zone on one other in the semi-finals, leaving him 18th overall.
Favoured by many to win the Paris Olympics last summer, Anraku ended up winning silver. In 2023, he took the Boulder World Cup by storm in his rookie season, placing first overall after the season’s six events. He took the overall boulder title again last year.
Anraku’s 2024 Boulder World Cup season started out strong. He won silver in Keqiao in April. A month later, he won gold in Salt Lake City. At the end of June, he earned bronze in Innsbruck. His Boulder World Cup performances weren’t as strong post-Olympics, placing 4th in Prague and 14th in Seoul. He earned one bronze, one silver, and one gold in the 2024 Lead World Cup.
Final Results
- Sorato Anraku (JPN) 99.7
- Dohyun Lee (KOR) 99.3
- Meichi Narasaki (JPN) 83.9
- Tomoa Narasaki (JPN) 69.6
- Mejdi Schalck (FRA) 69.5
- Sam Avezou (FRA) 69.5
- Paul Jenft (FRA) 44.6
- Oren Prihed (ISR) 29.7
New Boulder World Cup Rules
Looking at the results above, you might have noticed that there were eight finalists in Keqiao, but Boulder World Cups in the past have typically had six finalists. You might have also noticed a new scoring system is being used. The IFSC recently implemented several important rule changes for to the 2025 Boulder World Cup. The new rules are explained below.
More Boulder finalists
If you’re a World Cup fan, you know that Boulder World Cups have typically had six athletes (per gender category) competing in the finals, while Lead had eight. Moving forward, Boulder World Cups will now feature eight climbers in the finals, just as has been the norm for Lead finals. The IFSC says that the “expanded number of finals places is thought to help increase the probability of more nations claiming finals appearances.”
Running order changes for Boulder finals
Boulder World Cup finals have typically been run with athletes coming out on stage one by one to attempt a problem. The climber would get the spotlight all to themselves each of the four times they came out to try a boulder problem, with the audience getting to closely watch their process on each bloc, from start to finish.
With eight climbers now in the Boulder finals, this format is a thing of the past. The running order will change so that multiple climbers will now be out on the mats at the same time, with the only exception being first and last rotation where only one climber will be featured. This format will be similar to that seen at the Paris Olympics or Olympic Qualifier events where eight athletes competed in a Boulder final round.
The IFSC says that climbers will no longer come out one-by-one in order to “help ensure viewers see continuous climbing with climbers on the wall while others may take some rest or route reading time on the mat.” It’s almost certainly also to reduce the length of the final round.
This rule change, however, has implications for everyone. Live audience members will now have to focus their attention across multiple climbers at once. Viewers of the livestream will be at the whim of the camera and production crew for what they get to watch. And most climbers will no longer get the opportunity to perform on stage alone.
New Boulder scoring system
Starting in Keqiao next month, a new scoring system will be used for Boulder events, quite similar to the one used at the Paris Olympics. The previous system of Boulder World Cup scoring could be quite confusing to newcomers of the sport. You can read our explainer about it here.
Here’s how it used to work: The climber with the most tops earned first place in that round. If climbers were tied in the number of tops, then the number of zones they secured across the round was used to break the tie. If both tops and zones were tied, the number of attempts it took them to reach the tops was used. Climbers are always aware of this and try to climb a problem in the least number of tries possible.
If the top attempts metric was also tied, the number of attempts it took them to reach the zones was the tiebreaker. In the very rare event that competitors were tied across all four of these scores, their standing in the previous round would be used to break the tie.
Things are a little simpler with the points-based system. A zone is worth 10 points and a top is worth an additional 15 points, for a total of 25 points per problem. A deduction of 0.1 points is made for each unsuccessful attempt. For example, if a climber flashes a problem, they are awarded 25 points. If they top the problem on their second attempt, they get 24.9 points (25 – 0.1 = 25). If they reach the zone on their first attempt but then fail to top the problem, they are awarded 10 points. If they reach the zone on their third attempt, they are awarded 9.8 points (10 – 0.1 – 0.1 = 9.8). The points for each boulder in a round are added together to give a final score. In the finals where there are four problems, 100 points are up for grabs (25 x 4 = 100).
The IFSC says “this change in scoring is intended to make following the progress of climbers and the positions on the leaderboard much easier – for climbers, and for newcomers to the sport.” This is almost certainly true, as any long-time Boulder World Cup viewer can attest. Being confused about current standings at any point of the event, particularly in close competitions where number of attempts mattered, was a frequent occurrence for audience members, athletes, and even the commentary team.
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