Bouldering World Cup 2016: first victories for Miho Nonaka and Kokoro Fujii in India

The first ever sport climbing World Cup in India. The first ever victory for Japan’s Miho Nonaka. And first gold for her teammate Kokoro Fujii ... the fourth stage of the Bouldering World Cup 2016 that took place in Navi Mumbai last weekend was full of novelties and, if the spectators’ cheers were anything to go by, an explosion of unbridled enthusiasm and spectacular climbing.

On Saturday morning 74 athletes braved the sweltering heat to qualify for Sunday morning’s semi-finals where, much to everyone’s surprise, hot favorite Shauna Coxsey was eliminated. After three straight wins this year the Brit had to settle for 9th place and share the bench with the likes of Jan Hojer, Sean McColl and Martin Stranik, proving just how fickle this game of bouldering can be.

In the men's final last week’s China winner Tomoa Narasaki from Japan took an early lead by literally devouring the first two problems, flashing them both before losing the plot slightly on problem #3. His teammate Kokoro Fujii team got off to a slow start, only managing to reach the bonus hold on problem #1, before getting down to business and flashing problems #2 & #3, and sending the last problem on his second go. This performance delivered him his first ever senior comp victory, as well as provisional first in the race for overall World Cup victory 2016. Fujii required 4 attempts to send his 3 problems, two attempts less than Narasaki, 7 attempts less than Russia’s Alexey Rubtsov and 13 attempts less that Korea’s Chon Jongwon (whose dogged determination got his up problem #2 after 10 attempts). Russia’s Rustam Gelmanov (1 top 3 attempts) and France’s Jeremy Bonder (0 top, 2 bonus) rounded up the finalists.

In the women's final the first problem was somewhat “easy" and flashed by four of the six finalists. The next two problems proved awkward to say the least: no tops and just a few bonuses. On the last problem Monika Retschy climbed magically, flashing it to suddenly take the lead. For a moment it looked as if victory would go to the 24-year old German, but then Miho Nonaka tenaciously sent the last problem, too, becoming the only female athlete to send two in the finals. Success for the 18 year-old from Tokyo comes after two bronze medals this season, one silver last year as well as the victory in the Asian Championships 2015. Her teammate Akiyo Noguchi and France’s Melissa Le Nevé both took advantage of Coxsey’s absence to earn valuable World CUP points, ending their run 3rd and 4th respectively, ahead of Sol Sa from Korea and Katharina Saurwein from Austria.

The fifth stage of the Bouldering World Cup will take place on 20 and 21 May in Innsbruck, Austria. Currently the provisional ranking is led by Shauna Coxsey (337 points) ahead of Melissa Le Neve (258), Miho Nonaka (254) and Akiyo Noguchi (212), while Fujii leads the men's standings with 252 points, ahead of Alexey Rubtsov (242), Tomoa Narasaki (218) and Rustam Gelmanov (216).

IFSC Climbing Worldcup (B) - Navi Mumbai (IND) 20
MEN
1 Kokoro Fujii JPN 3t4 4b4
2 Tomoa Narasaki JPN 3t6 4b7
3 Alexey Rubtsov RUS 3t11 4b11
4 Jongwon Chon KOR 3t17 4b19
5 Rustam Gelmanov RUS 1t3 3b5
6 Jeremy Bonder FRA 0t 2b4
7 Naoki Shimatani JPN
8 Tomoaki Takata JPN
9 Yoshiyuki Ogata JPN
10 Sean Mccoll CAN
11 Gholamali Baratzadeh IRI
12 Tsukuru Hori JPN
13 Atsushi Shimizu JPN
14 Moritz Hans GER
15 Jernej Kruder SLO
16 Amir Nouri IRI
17 Alfons Dornauer AUT
18 Jan Hojer GER
19 Martin Stranik CZE
20 Keita Watabe JPN
21 Yuji Fujiwaki JPN
22 Mohammad S Mohammad Ashraf SIN
23 Eric Sethna CAN
24 Khosro Hashemzadeh IRI
24 Elan Jonasmcrae CAN
26 Reza Kolasangian IRI
26 Sandeep Maity IND
28 Singh Adarsh IND
29 Ajij Jalil IND
30 Irfan Shaikh IND
31 Tuhin Vikas Satarkar IND
32 Seyed Reza Chashi IRI
33 Vicky Bhalerao IND
34 Mohammadhoss. Saghari IRI
35 Somnath Ramdas Shinde IND
36 Will Johnson CAN
37 Gaurav Kumar IND
38 Arturas Volkovas LTU
39 Peter Erard USA
39 Pemba Sherpa NEP
39 Pranil Man Shrestha NEP
39 Saman Shrestha NEP

WOMEN
1 Miho Nonaka JPN 2t4 3b6
2 Monika Retschy GER 1t1 4b10
3 Akiyo Noguchi JPN 1t1 2b2
4 Melissa Le Neve FRA 1t1 2b2
5 Sol Sa KOR 1t1 2b6
6 Katharina Saurwein AUT 0t 2b7
7 Clementine Kaiser FRA
8 Fanny Gibert FRA
9 Shauna Coxsey GBR
10 Hung Ying Lee TPE
11 Leah Crane GBR
12 Berit Schwaiger AUT
13 Karoline Sinnhuber AUT
14 Mei Kotake JPN
15 Julia Pinggera AUT
16 Aya Onoe JPN
17 Elise Sethna CAN
18 Lisa Chulich USA
19 Ayari Sakamoto JPN
20 Alannah Yip CAN
21 Mária Čelková SVK
22 Nasim Biyarjomandy IRI
23 Julija Kruder SLO
24 Vera Zijlstra NED
25 Allison Vest CAN
26 Sima Soltani IRI
27 Athena Bigvand IRI
27 Chea Marak IND
27 Sarah Pearce USA
30 Panchamaya Tamang NEP
31 Siddhi Shekhar Manerikar IND
32 Smriti Singh IND
33 Nehaa Prakash IND
34 Senjam Debala Devi IND
35 Prerna Dangi IND
35 Mayuri Deshmukh IND
35 Sonali Flavia Pereira Kamath IND
35 DHANSHRI Lekurwala IND