Seven from team Japan to the male final

In the Briancon World Cup qualification, Japanese men dominated securing all but one of the first eight positions and the same thing happened in the semifinal. Hannes Puman is the only non-Japanese male that will compete in the final tonight. Sorato Anraku, 16, who won the Boulder World Cup cruised to the Top and will be last out in the final tonight. Complete results

Among the women, Eliska Adamovska won the semifinal ahead of Nonoha Kume, Natsuki Tanii and Molly Thompson-Smith. (c) Complete results

It should be noted that a majority of the highest-ranked athletes did not participate in Briancon and that includes also, to some extent, team Japan. One of the reasons for this is that the World Championship in Bern starts in two weeks and there are six tickets to the Olympic Games at stake

HIGUCHI Masahiro (JPN): In the picture by Jan Virt/IFSC.
“In qualification I didn’t feel good. I felt drained and I think the atmosphere affected me, I just kept forgetting to breathe in. It was difficult to adjust to the conditions. The semi-final was much better though. I was moving good and felt good. It’s my second time in the finals this year, so it’s exciting but I’m a little bit nervous.”

Molly THOMPSON-SMITH (GBR)
“I’m extremely happy. Having such a good qualifying round definitely put a bit of pressure on to continue the form. When you are in a finals spot and it’s yours for the taking it’s definitely harder to keep it together. I’m just happy I took my time and enjoyed climbing. It was a great experience in front of a great crowd.

“It felt good to finally break the curse almost. It would have been funny had I finished in ninth at every comp this year, but it feels good to be back in finals. Especially after the ankle break it feels even sweeter.

“Now I just want to go out and continue to enjoy climbing. My second qualis route was probably the most fun I’ve ever had at a World Cup. The focus was to go out and play, and I want to try and take that into the finals now and try and find some magic.”

Hannes PUMAN (SWE)
“The route was nice to climb. Very friendly. It was a bit easier at the beginning than I thought but then when I got up onto the head wall it started to get harder. But it was nice. I’ve only ever been to one World Cup final so I’m happy with my performance so far. It’s just nice to be able to climb one more route.”