Great Britain’s Erin McNeice had to shrug off a low Boulder qualification round and a fourth place Lead finish in Seoul to make the Boulder final and did so in style progressing in first.
After crowning Janja Garnbret as the Lead world champion last night, attention turned to the Boulder discipline for the women with the top eight from semi-final staying in with a shot at the gold.
Garnbret was in third on 84.3pts topping the first three boulders but missed out on the fourth and final one of the round. She was one of only three people to top boulder one and two for boulder two.
USA’s Anne Sanders was the only other to top boulder two, and McNeice topped boulder one. All three topped three boulders each.
McNeice and Sanders shared the first spot with 84.6pts, and after the round McNeice said: “It was a lot of fun. After Lead finals it was hard to get into a good mindset again because I so close to the podium, but I was really happy with how I climbed today.
Talking more about her mindset and the boulder qualification round the British climber said: “I was definitely feeling the pressure coming into this comp and was dealing with the temperature as well. It was just a mixture of bad things leading to not my highest ranking of the season, and then it was just a matter of hyping myself up for this round, which was quite hard, but I’m happy with it now.”
All the climbers from positions four to eight made the zone in the first two boulders and topped the next two, so it all came down to attempts.
France’s Oriane Bertone was one of the last climbers out on the wall, and unless she could top boulder four she was heading home. She took four attempts, but she topped to finish on 69.6pts and secure a place in the final in fourth.
Fifth position took a few by surprise as USA’s Melina Costanza was the very first climber out on the wall. Her 69.5pts was enough to make the final as she watched every other climber fail to beat her score. It is Costanza’s first World Championships appearance, and she has only appeared in an IFSC Boulder Cup three times, all coming back in 2022.
Sixth went to Ayala Kerem who scored 69.4pts, and she was just ahead of Jennifer Buckley who scored 69.2pts. Buckley’s seventh place means both the USA and Slovenia have two climbers in the final.
The eighth and final spot in the final went to Anna Maria Apel who scored 68.1pts.
Full women’s Boulder qualification results can be found here
The final will take place later tonight when the new IFSC Boulder world champion will be crowned.
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.