Yannick Flohé wins a well deserved gold in Brixen

After having won both the qualification as well as the semifinal, the pressure was on Yannick Flohé shoulders starting last in the final. He had heard that all his five competitors did the first boulder, out of which one flash by Maximillian Milne. Yannick sends it on his third try after having failed to match the Top on his second attempt. Later, Maximillian is the only one who tops the second boulder at the same time, Yannick can not match the top. As also the third boulder looked a bit too hard and Yannick fell on the second last hold, after a tiring attempt, the pressure increased on the 22-year-old German.

On his next try, he finds a solution on the crux and tops relatively easy and the crowd goes wild as well as the commentators and the DJ. Nobody tops the last and Yannick has secured the gold before trying the last boulder. He makes some good attempts and is again the one getting the closest to send showing who has been the best throughout all three rounds in Brixen. Runner-up was Maxmilian Milne GBR and Tomoa Narasaki got the bronze. Complete results

How did you deal with the pressure starting last as well as first falling so close to topping out the first three boulders?
I think I was lucky as there wasn’t too much pressure as there weren’t that many tops. On #3, I knew that nobody topped before. On a flash round (on easier boulders), it’s much harder to perform well when you come out last. I think I was capable of making finals last year but my head didn’t work. I got much stronger this year but I would never emagine winning a World Cup. Making another final after Salt Lake City was my main goal. (c) NEWSPOWER.IT

Interestingly, Yannick is an active outdoor climber and last year he did two 9a's. In 2022, he started by doing Off the Wagon Sit (8C+) but later he broke his foot. Even so, he did trips to Fontainebleau and Ticino, sending three 8B+ and two 8C in March, which have been covered in 8a articles. The injury made him decide to skip the first two world Cups as he could not run around jumping on volumes.

It should be mentioned that Yannick got the bronze in the World Championship in 2019 and that he in 2021 was the Combined World Champion. However, besides these comps he has only twice been in the Top-16 out of 16 Boulder World Cups before he was #5 and #7 in Salt Lake City in 2022, although having previously several times won or placed Top-3 in the qualifications.