Team USA’s Annie Sanders Wins First World Cup of the Year
The finals were incredibly close, with the top five athletes only achieving a single top each
Photo by: Kazushige Nakajima/IFSC
Annie Sanders starts the 2025 season just as she ended the 2024 season – with gold. The 17-year-old American came out on top today at the first women’s Boulder World Cup of the 2025 in Keqiao, China. She was joined on the podium by Oriane Bertone of France in second and Great Britain’s Erin McNeice in third.
The finals were a tight one, with a series of four very difficult boulder problems. Sanders won gold with just one top and three zones. Bertone earned silver with one top and two zones. McNeice also achieved one top and two zones, but she took three attempts to reach her top, while Bertone only needed two tries. “I was in a bit of a bad headspace, but the third boulder lightened my mood and the fourth I just gave it everything to get to the zone,” said Sanders after her victory.
Team Japan took the next three spots, with Mao Nakamura in fourth, Miho Nonaka in third, and Melody Sekikawa in sixth. Nakamura and Nonaka earned one top and two zones just like Bertone and McNeice, although they took more attempts overall, reducing their point total and leaving them off the podium.
Sanders made her World Cup circuit debut in the 2023 season, making finals at both the Salt Lake City and Seoul Boulder World Cups. In 2024, she earned gold at the Boulder World Cup in Seoul and bronzes at the Boulder World Cup in Innsbruck, Lead World Cup in Koper, and Lead Word Cup in Seoul.
Final Results
- Annie Sanders (USA) – 54.7
- Oriane Bertone (FRA) – 44.9
- Erin McNeice (GBR) – 44.8
- Mao Nakamura (JPN) – 44.4
- Miho Nonaka (JPN) – 44.1
- Melody Sekikawa (JPN) – 29.6
- Chaehyun Seo (KOR) – 19.6
- Oceania Mackenzie (AUS) – 9.9
New 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 coming 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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