Flohé and McArthur win the qualification

Yannick Flohé topped out all five boulders in eight attempts and won his group ahead of Kokoro Fujii who needed four attempts more. The other group had harder boulders and there Hamish McArthur won by doing three boulders in six tries. In the end, you needed a score of 23 to make it to the semifinal in the group of harder boulders and a score of 35 in the group with a bit easier boulders. In total, 39 participants, out of 99, did not get one zone. The chief route setter, Marcin Wszolek from Poland, says he was surprised by the difference in the group as their aim was that equally many tops in both groups. "We thought the hardest two boulders in each group would be done by six climbers and then that twelve should do the next two hardest followed by 20 for the easiest one. Sometimes we make mistakes but sometimes it is just coincidences. For example, Tomoa Narasaki did not do his easiest boulders but the three hardest."

The route setter team have been working long days since Sunday and when everyone was leaving the venue 21.30 they started to take down the ten qualification boulders before setting up and readjusting the four female semifinal boulders.

“It was a hard competition – said Flohé to IFSC – each boulder with its difficulty, I reached all the tops quite fast, so I am satisfied. The first boulder was a steep one and not a slab one! And that was something unusual. I reached the first top and then I followed the flow”. On his part, Fujii said: “It was a great competition, I did not feel complete control of my body at top 4, but then it was fine”.

Japan dominated as they always have had the last few years with six guys making it to the semi and Germany was runner-up with four. The Japanese coach talked about, "position to position", "power inpuls" and "team atmosphere" as explanations for their success. (More about this as a follow-up). Slovenia will not have any males in the semifinal on Saturday but all their team of five was Top-45. Complete results