The men began the hunt for a world title with qualification in Seoul
Boulder qualification began at the IFSC Climbing World Championships 2025 in Seoul, South Korea with the men the first out on the wall for their round of action.
Ninety began but only 24 could make it through to the semi-final, and with a strong start list of climbers, the competition was fierce.
With so many competitors the climbers were split into two groups, and it was Team Japan who led the way in both after five boulders were completed.
No one in either group got more than three tops, and it was Anraku Sorato and Narasaki Meichi who posted that score for joint-first position.
The home crowd were in good spirits as home nation climber Lee Dohyun progressed in third spot alongside Olympic champion Toby Roberts.
The British climber has spoken about mental resilience all season after that victory at Paris 2024, and he needed it again after missing out on the lead semi-finals yesterday: “It’s been up and down, basically the whole season really, but not making Lead semi-finals I am really disappointed with as I am more of a Lead climber, but to bounce back and make semi-finals in Boulder – I’m pretty psyched.”
Talking specifically about his round Roberts said: “It was quite a hard round; there weren’t so many tops. I was happy with slab and one of the only tops on that I think so that kind of got me into the semi-final.”
Roberts was in fact the only climber to top the slab as the majority of climbers failed to even make the zone.
Needing his slab strength and mental resilience, Roberts aims for a better finish to his World Championships than how it started: “I need to reset and focus and try to get into the Boulder final. The Lead didn’t go how I wanted, but I can’t let that affect my Boulder competition.”
The British team have four climbers through to the semi-final with Jack MacDougall, Dayan Akhtar and Hamish McArthur joining Roberts.
Sitting alongside MacDougall in fifth was Bulgaria’s Mikolay Rusev, and those two were just ahead of a trio of French climbers – Sam Avezou, Mejdi Schalck and Samuel Richard.
China’s Pan Yufei won his first World Cup gold earlier in 2025 and keeps his world title hopes alive by progressing into the semi-final.
Austria’s Jan-Luca Posch and Belgium’s Hannes Van Duysen have made finals this season and so has Anze Peharc who has had a consistent Boulder World Cup season reaching multiple finals. The Slovenian will need to recapture that form though as he was in the 24th position just making it through.
Some big names did miss out, climbers like Japan’s Amagasa Sohta, France’s Paul Jenft and Germany’s Elias Arriagada Krüger which shows to win the world title you have to be on top form throughout the competition.
Full men's Boulder qualification results can be found here
News and updates about the event will be available on the IFSC website and on the Federation’s digital channels: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, and exclusively for the Chinese audience, Bilibili, Douyin, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu.
