Adam Ondra Relives His Boulder World Cup Experience in Prague

On the first weekend of June, the fourth men’s Boulder World Cup of the 2023 season was held in Prague, Czech Republic. After an absence from World Cup competition, Adam Ondra made his triumphant return to the boulder circuit in front of a roaring Czech home crowd. Ondra recently released a video reliving his experience at the Prague World Cup, which can be viewed below.

Ondra entered qualifiers feeling a little nervous. “The qualification round is always really stressful in bouldering because when there are 100 competitors making it to the top 20, it’s sometimes really cruel,” he said in the video. “There are so many good competitors and sometimes it comes down to not really making mistakes. Sometimes one attempt too many costs you just so much.”

He had trouble on problem #1, which featured powerful pocket-pulling with poor feet. He was only able to reach zone. He gained some confidence back on problem #2 by topping the balancey committing slab sequence. Problem #3 again gave him trouble when he was unable to match the final almost nonexistent hold. Three problems in and he only had one top. He began thinking he would maybe not make it to the semis.

Problems #4 and #5 turned out to be easy for him though, as he flashed both boulders. This left him with three tops and five zones in the qualification round, which was enough to enter the top 20 and move on to the next day’s semi-finals.

Ondra’s start in the semis was no better than his start in the qualifying round. He was unable to reach zone on problem #1, a wild paddle dyno coordination boulder. He made quick work of problems #2 and #4 though, topping them both. He reached zone on problem #3. These two tops and three zones were enough to put him in fifth place in the very tough round of bouldering. He was moving on to the finals.

“Climbing in the finals was a dream,” he said. “I mean, I’ve competed in so many different World Cup stages and so many World Championships. I competed at the Olympics, but you know, the home crowd is just one.”

The start of the final round was again less than ideal. Ondra topped the problem but took way more attempts than most of his fellow competitors. He also took more attempts than most to top the second problem of the evening. This left him moving into problem #3 well behind a podium placement. Problem #3 was a balancey rightward traverse on slabby volumes. The sound of the crowd was deafening as Ondra started the problem.

“Paradoxically, I think in the very crucial moment on boulder problem #3, which was a pretty slow slab where high precision was required, where the pressure and nervousness is not going to help you, I could really calm myself down and just top it out with I’d say, quite a lot of confidence,” he said.

Other than Korea’s Dohyun Lee, Ondra was the only athlete to top the problem, rocketing him into second place.

The final problem of the night was bit of wash, as all competitors flashed the problem with ease. Lee took gold and Ondra won silver. “In the end, I’m even glad that Dohyun Lee, who climbed amazingly throughout the whole weekend, did the slabby boulder problem as well as I think that he deserved the victory [more] than me, he said. “It was a fairytale start of the season and I can’t wait for more to happen!”