This weekend the last IFSC World Cup of the year took place in Morioka, Japan. The event was once again dominated by Japanese athletes. Half of all finalists in the competition were Japanese.
After five Japanese athletes made it to the men's finals, Team Japan's dominance culminated in a triple medal. Tomoa Narasaki added the icing on the cake to a fantastic month of October, adding World Championship gold to the three Asian Championship titles he won in Seoul earlier this month.
I'm happy to have won the very first World Championships medal in this format.
Tomoa Narasaki
"It was definitely a tough round, but I'm glad I got my first-ever World Championship medal in this [new combined, ed. Red.] format,” said Narasaki. "To be honest, I didn't feel like doing two laps on the same day this morning, but I concentrated and did my best."
With 84,3 points in the bouldering round and 72,1 points in the lead round, Narasaki placed well ahead of his closest rival and compatriot Ogata Yoshiyuki, who had the best lead climbing performance but only solved one of the four boulder problems . Ogata's final grade was 138,4. For his part, Fujii Kokoro climbed to third place, ensuring all-Japanese dominance on the men's podium.
The only non-Japanese in the final were Frenchman Paul Jenft (4th place), Yannick Flohe from Germany (5th place) and the American Sean Bailey (8th place).
Japanese dominance among women too
The Japanese were also clearly in the majority among the women, four out of eight places in the final went to the host country. The Japanese Ai Mori and Natalia Grossman from the USA were the only climbers to clear all problems in the bouldering loop, finishing with 98,8 and 99,1 points respectively.
On the following and crucial lap, Mori was the best of the field, dropping a few moves from the top and finishing with an impressive 190,9 point total. Natalia Grossman followed in second place with 171,2 points.
"I'm very happy to have won a medal in my own country," said the 19-year-old Japanese shortly before the award ceremony. "Today was fun, although it was pretty tough to compete in both disciplines."
The men and women agreed that the new combined format demands everything from them.
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