Anraku the King of Keqiao

From semi-final to final, Anraku Sorata always looked like the climber to beat at the World Climbing Series Keqiao in China. Both Anraku and Mejdi Schalck were the two standouts in the morning’s semi-final, but only the Japanese young gun could carry that through for a podium finish.

Anraku topped the first boulder but took a couple of attempts at it. He only made the zone on boulder two, but so did everyone else. Another top on boulder three put him into a great position going into the final boulder.

Boulder four was a long, twisty route to the zone and all the final competitors were struggling. No one made the zone until South Korea’s Lee Do-hyun stepped up and went from a dynamic and strong first attempt to a precise and strong second in which he topped.

Do-hyun had two tops and two zones for 69.6pts. On came Frenchman Schalck, who already had two tops and a zone, looking to overtake Lee and put himself into top spot.

It was just a step too far though for Schalck who finished with 59.8pts and second position after failing to zone the boulder.

The pressure was now on Anraku. The maths turned out to be simple. Get nothing for bronze. A zone for silver. A top for gold.

After a failed first attempt, Anraku dialled in could be seen looking to the heavens as concentrated on his finger position throughout the tricky pocket sequence. But you never thought it was ever in doubt, and he duly topped to claim yet another gold in his still early career.

After his win Anraku said: “I’m very happy, it’s unbelievable. I was so happy to send the final boulder for the win. The crowd was great tonight here in China, it gave me a little extra and I felt powerful hearing them.”

With Anraku now first with 84.4pts, it pushed Lee down to silver and Schalck into bronze.

Just off the podium in fourth was Tomoa Narasaki who had two tops and a zone but was not as clinical as Schalck. Narasaki finished with 59.5pts.

The Chinese crowd were treated to a first for the nation. It was the first time there were two men in a Boulder final, and those men were Yufei Pan and Xuanpu Bai. Pan was fifth with 44.6pts and Bai was sixth in his first ever final, with a highlight being the first top of the night on boulder one on his way to 34.7pts.

Rounding off the final positions were Belgium’s Hannes Van Duysen who was shrugging off a bad knee scrape from the semi-final in seventh and South Korea’s Jongwon Chon who was eighth.

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