Familiar looking top of the men's Boulder leaderboard as the 24 climbers confirmed for the semi-final in Bern
France’s Manuel Cornu returned to the IFSC World Cup competition stage in Bern for his first appearance of the 2025 season as once again Japan’s Anraku Sorato led the way.
It’s no real surprise to see Anraku at the top of the men’s Boulder qualification standings as he showed why he has a three gold-one silver medal haul from the four events so far this season. For Cornu, it’s his first time featuring at all on a start list.
Explaining his absence Cornu said: “I tore a tendon in my elbow, I did the exact same thing to my other elbow last year also. I still have a little pain but its better so I can train and climb two days in a row. It’s better, but maybe not enough for a World Cup.”
Focusing on his qualification performance Cornu said: “I feel happy to be back, it’s been a long time since my injury. It’s good to come back to the comp, but I don’t know if I am ready or not. I just saw the score and I am a little disappointed for some boulders.”
Despite the disappointment, Cornu eventually finished the round in 21st spot with 69.3pts – a score that will see him progress into the semi-final.
With Anraku on top as the only climber to complete the five boulders, he was joined in joint-first by South Korea’s Lee Dohyun as the climbers were split into two groups.
Another Asian climber joining Anraku and Lee in the semi-final is China’s two-time Olympian Pan Yufei. He finished in seventh after a mixed round: “It was so-so the performance. I felt I had too many attempts on the easy boulders and didn’t take my chance on the last two boulders. I just didn’t jump enough and had some stupid slips on the feet.”
Pan topped three and could only make the zone in the final two for his score of 94.1pts.
Reminiscing about the last time he was in Bern for an IFSC competition Pan said: “It feels like everything is the same but it’s totally different. The field and the place are the same, but for the World Championships we had two different venues for qualification and the other rounds, we are back to one place and the lights and the audience are making me very excited.”
When you talk about excitement, Mejdi Schalck was full of it last week in Prague when he halted Anraku’s golden run by beating him to top spot, he once again continues his hunt for a World Cup medal progressing in third alongside Belgium’s Hannes Van Duysen.
Netherlands’ Paul Brand made it into his first World Cup semi-final on his sixth attempt in eighth spot, a place he shares with the most experienced man in the field, Japan’s Narasaki Tomoa.
Another climber with little World Cup experience making it through to the semi-final, and one that will get crowd involved, is Switzerland’s Levin Straubhaar. It is only the second appearance for Straubhaar with his first being last week in Prague.
The man in the 24th spot making it through is France’s Paul Jenft who will be hoping to make his way right up the leaderboard in the next round to try and make the final eight.
Full women's Boulder results can be found at https://ifsc.hopp.to/bern25mbr
The semi-finalists will fight it out for the eight spots available for the final on Sunday morning, with the final later the same day.
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, Douyin, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu.
