On the first day of competition the six teams began their quest for the Boulder title by taking on the Boulder Qualification round which consisted of two men’s boulder, two women’s boulder and a ‘mixed’.
Two men from each team climbed the men’s boulder, two women climbed the women’s, and then the coach choose one man and one woman to take on the mixed.
From the six teams, two would advance straight to the Final and the other four would enter the Elimination Heat where another two teams would advance.
Sorato Anraku, Sohta Amagasa, Mao Nakamura and Miho Nonaka competing for Team Japan scored a near perfect 249.7pts out of a possible 250pts giving them the top spot and a day off from Boulder.
Japan was joined by Israel’s team of Adi Bark, Maya Dreamer, Oren Prihed, Alma Sapir Halevi who took second with 233.9pts. South Korea, featuring Dohyun Lee, were third with 189.3pts and would have to climb again in the Elimination Heat.
Making a tactical move, maybe with Lead in mind, South Korea replaced Lee and lined up Chon Yejun, Jung Yejin, Noh Hyunseung, and Oh Gayeong, but they did more than enough to move into the Final from the Elimination Heat in first place with 219.8pts.
The fourth and final team that would stay in with a shot of the podium was the USA. Vail Everett, Declan Osgood, Paloma Slowik, and Zoe Yi scored 189.2pts and edged out their North American rivals Canada who scored 183.4pts.
Speaking after the round Slowik said: “It was super fun. I really enjoyed climbing with my teammates and going back and forth with beta.”
On the team’s game plan for the Final Slowik said: “We just have to try as hard as we can. We need to make sure we communicate well, like who is brushing and things like that, but it’s just about trying hard like we did this round.”
Having to go through an extra round of competition compared to Japan and Israel, Slowik thought there was good and bad: “Experience wise it has been great for me because I get to get on more boulders and that’s always exciting, but skin wise, not so much. But I’ll recover and tape up if I need to. Head set and mental wise though, I think it has helped a lot.”
The Canadian team of Riley Doherty, Hugo Dorval, Matthew Rodriguez, and Babette Roy and Team Australia featuring Judith Carroll, Maxim Pare, Dylan Parks, and Roxy Perry will watch to see which of the four remaining teams will claim the title after their exit.
RESULTS
All the results can be found at https://ifsc.hopp.to/ngfresults
WHERE TO WATCH
All elimination heat and final rounds in Fukuoka will be live streamed on the IFSC YouTube channel, with restrictions that may apply according to the territory.
News and updates about the event will be available on the IFSC website and across the Federation’s digital channels: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, X, and exclusively for the Chinese audience, Douyin, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu.