Japan Cup podium presents new faces to the WC

Ryuichi Murai, #3 in the 8a ranking game, comments the Japan Bouldering Cup where he sensationally got the silver which made him qualify to the national team going for the World Cups. "I spent only one month to training for BJC2018. I mainly trained my weak movements. For example, coordination and triple dyno. Additionally I also did pull-up with Beastmaker2000." 1st Kokoro Fuji - Akiyo Noguchi 2nd Ryuichi Murai - Ai Mori (14) 3rd Tomoa Narasaki - Futaba Ito (15) Interesting is that it was basically only this competition with 160 participants where new athletes could qualify for the national team and the World Cup 2018. "An athlete who have high world ranking last year, and an athlete who won in Bouldering World Cup last year, could already be qualified." Futaba Ito won the Youth World Championship where she was accompanied by two 14 year olds. Ai Mori was #7 in that World Championship but she is to young to do WCs this year. Some coaches said last year in Innsbruck that these Japanese girls are the future. Bear in mind that these young girls did actually beat Miho Nonaka #4 in the WC last year as well as Aya Onoe and Mei Kotake, #10 and #11 in the WC 2017. Remember also the fast positive trend for Japan and that they had five guys in Top-8 last year. With so many new faces winning over some of the best boulderers, we just might see the Japanese domination increase in the future.