Raboutou and Schalck win Hachioji - 2023 opener

• Monday 24th April 2023

The opening boulder event in the IFSC World Cup calendar for 2023 was held in Hachioji over the weekend with the gold medals going to Brooke Raboutou (US) and Mejdi Schalck (FRA).

Once again, many of the world’s best competition boulderers gathered in Hachioji over the weekend. Hachioji hosted the World Championships back in 2019; that event was the first of the qualification events for the aspiring Tokyo Olympians. Although the latest Hachioji event wasn’t a qualification round for the 2024 Paris Games, the event was the 2023 season opener and, arguably, the beginning of the road for those aspiring to contest the Paris 2024 Games. Without any doubts at all, it’s going to be a long and punishing road for them to travel.

And if emotions weren’t high enough already, those gathered in Hachioji were mourning the loss of a fellow competitor; German team member Christoph Schweiger who had died recently as a result of a road accident.

Not all the top boulderers were in Hachioji for the event however; missing for a variety of reasons including injuries and/or other commitments were the likes of big name stars and previous Olympians such as Janja Garnbret and Adam Ondra. Those that were there however had to hit the ground running in what was a very high scoring qualification round in both the men’s and women’s streams. Numerous athletes finished qualification with five tops and five zones – especially in the women’s stream. Once the results were published it wasn’t a surprise to see some of the well-established names topping the qualifications; Miho Nonaka and Tomoa Narasaki. However, somewhat shockingly, the list of men’s star performers not making the cut for the semi was quite remarkable; Jakob Schubert, Colin Duffy, Alberto Gines Lopez, Jernj Kruder, Sean Bailey and Sasha Lehnann included.

Any competitors expecting the high-scoring rounds to continue were savagely awakened as the semi’s were brutal – perhaps even more so than usual! Many semi-finalists were reduced to counting zones and only the very, very best succeeded in topping any blocs! Not making the cut into the women’s finals were Miho Nonaka, Natalia Grossman and Chaehyn Seo.  The ‘A-List’ men’s climbers not making the finals was equally surprising and lead by Tomoa Narasaki, Yannick Flohe and Ogata Yoshiyuki.

The finals in both the women’s and the men’s were yet more low-scoring rounds. However, Brooke Raboutou (USA) was the clear winner in the women’s and was the only competitor to top three blocs; with that she took her thoroughly deserved first ever IFSC Gold medal. Hannah Meul (GER) took the silver ahead of the home nation athlete, Matsufuji Anon (JPN) who took bronze. The men’s gold medal was won by Mejdi Schalck – secured by topping just two of the blocs; Hannes Van Duysen (Bel) and Schalck’s teammate Paul Jenft (FRA) took bronze.

Team GB were well represented at Hachioji and despite battling hard only Jim Pope was able to progress into the semi in joint 19^th place. Max Milne and Toby Roberts finished in joint 25^th – so just beyond the semi’s- whilst Hamish McArthur finished in 39^th and Dayan Akhtar in 85^th. In the women’s, Erin McNiece finished in 45^th place in her first senior WC whilst Zoe Peetermans and Jen Wood came in at 51^st and 53^rd respectively.

Getting the vibe of the comp Climber have asked Jim about his Hachioji experience. Firstly, making the semi's and then reflecting on his 20^th place finish in his first WC Boulder event in four years Jim was clearly pleased saying, “Yeah that one definitely meant a lot! I’ve gone really ‘all in’ this season, so it was nice to see that the training has worked. I felt great whilst climbing, both mentally and physically, so hopefully I can keep it going for the rest of the season.”

Having finished his Master’s degree at Hallam University Jim has fully committed for the year, “I’ve gone full time with my climbing and am focussing fully on the competitions. I’ve always tried to balance comps and outdoors, as I enjoy doing them both, but it rarely meant I achieved what I wanted to in either. This year I’m training and competing full-time to try and qualify for the Olympic qualification series in 2023. By shifting all my focus to one aspect of climbing I’ve seen a lot of progress which has been really rewarding.”

Jim’s take on the hard semi-final round is also very interesting and not what one might image from a competitor’s standpoint. Jim again, “Style-wise the semi’s were very different from the qualifiers. In quali’s there were two groups climbing, so they have to have 10 boulders up on the wall which means generally they are a lot straighter. However, in the semis they have more room to weave around and for crazier moves. Co-ordination moves are still something I’m trying to get better at and felt like I was trying to learn to do moves I’d never done before, in five minutes. Overall though, I really like that style of a round; it’s exciting when a single top makes such a difference and you could claw it back on any boulder.”

Jim and the rest of the GB Team are now in South Korea for the next event in Seoul this coming weekend. Jim told Climber, “It’s really nice when the comps are so close together as it takes the edge of them a bit. If it doesn’t go to planned, you can just have another go the following weekend! In quali’s I was really proud of my climbing and managed to feel pretty present on all the boulders, If I could keep that up and feel like that throughout the season I’d be happy!”

Climber wish Jim and the rest of the team all the best in Korea!

Finally, its worth considering the Hachioji event in the wider context as the event generated considerable comment on-line both in terms of those doing well and also the style of the setting. Hailed as a victory for the "next generation" on social media platforms, it was clearly the case that both Brooke Raboutou and Mejdi Schalck had worked hard on their game over the winner training period and that their obvious development between seasons underpinned their success in Hachioji. Whether Hachioji was a success for Next Gen or else more of an isolated event will become more apparent after the next few competitions. Many will certainly be watching established A-List climbers such as Narasaki, Schubert and Nonaka to see how they fair with considerable interest in Seoul. The setting team - whose job it is to challenge the competitors - certainly created some demanding blocs for the Hachioji event which kept the number of tops in the semi's and finals to a minimium; some have speculated on-line that the competition was too difficult and as a result boring to watch as competitor after competitor failed on the same moves. What continues to be obvious however is that the nature of the setting, as well as the build of the competition wall and holds themselves, have a considerable influence the outcome of a competition.

Watch the highlights from the Hachioji finals below…