Japan dominate the male boulder qualis in Bern

The World Championships in Bern started today with the men’s boulder qualification. Yoshiyuki Ogata and the 16-year-old wonderkid Sorato Anraku, both from Japan, won their respectively groups, doing all five boulders. Runner-ups were Yannick Flohe (GER) and Sam Avezou (FRA) followed by another three from team Japan. It can be mentioned that also France did get five males to the semifinal. (c) Jan Virt/IFSC

Adam Ondra just barely made it to the semi by being #19 with two tops. Overall, 130 males participated and basically there were no big sensational results.

Yannick commented to IFSC, ”It was pretty good. I did all five boulders. I did the two slabs, and this year I haven’t done any slabs in the World Cups so I’m happy. I tried to have a little break after the last World Cups and have a good training block to refocus, I think that helps a lot, because there was a lot of competitions and after Villars I was pretty ‘comp burned out’ so some structured training helped me to get back to feeling good, and I am feeling good right now.”