Eugenie Lee and Max Milne are Rab CWIF 2025 Champions

Tuesday 25th March 2025

Eugenie Lee and Max Milne topped the standings in the Rab CWIF 2025 competition held at the Climbing Works in Sheffield over the weekend just gone.

Eugenie Lee on W2 taking the win with three tops and all four zones. Photo: Keith Sharples

Qualifiers

Using the same format as at previous events, the Rab CWIF 2025 kicked off on Saturday with 30 problems for the Qualification round. Fae MacDougall finished in the lead in the women’s stream with 261 points and was marginally ahead of Izzy Bridgens with 245 points. Connie Bridgens and Zoe Peetermans were in equal third on 244 points. Nathan Phillips topped the men’s stream with 297 points with Jim Pope and Max Milne following on 290 and 288 points respectively.

Isabella Edgington taking second place only marginally behing on attempts. Photo: Keith Sharples

Semi-Finals

Sunday morning’s semi-final saw Fae MacDougall retain her top ranking with three tops and four zones marginally ahead of Bibi Hamers (NED) and Isabella Edgington with the same number of tops and zones albeit in more attempts. Max Milne dominated the men’s semis finishing with a super impressive clear sweep – i.e. four tops in four attempts. Jim Pope and Dayan Akhtar both trailed Max with three tops and four zones. Former British Bouldering Champions Zoe Peetermans and the current Champion Jack MacDougall were both squeezed out of the finals having finished the semis in 7th place. Mickeal Mawem (FRA) finished in 4th place so qualified for the finals but Yoshiyujki Ogata (JPN) ended his CWIF run with a 12th-place finish.

Fae MacDougall finishing the finals strong with the third of three flashes in the finals. Photo: Keith Sharples

Finals

With a full house of spectators and live online the Sunday evening finals were high energy and hence required full gas from the six men and six women through to the final.

Max Milne exploding up M1 securing one of seven flashes in the semi's and final rounds; his can only be described as a dominant performance.. Photo: Keith Sharples

Despite having topped both qualifiers and semi, W1 wasn’t kind to Fae MacDougall; after her four minutes toiling against it, she came away empty-handed and earned the unwelcome distinction of being the only finalist not to make any impression on the bloc. Ultimately it cost her the win. She did flash all three of the remaining blocs and with that strong finish, she collected the third-place finish. Isabella Edgington also topped three blocs (W1, W2 and W4) but crucially having secured the fourth zone she moved ahead of MacDougall to take second place. Like Isabella, Eugenie Lee also finished with three tops and four zones albeit in one less attempt than Isabella and so finished in top place to take her first CWIF title. Izzy and Connie Bridgens finished in 4th and 5th and Bibi Hamers in 6th.

Sohta Amagasa secured second and the only podium finish for oversea's climbers at CWIF 2025. Photo: Keith Sharples

As often the case, the men’s field was less closely scored; all three podium finishers got three of four tops albeit with considerably more attempts on the scoreboard. Having flashed all four blocs in the semi it seemed that Max Milne was not only the clear favourite but he was gunning for total dominance. And so Max very nearly achieved just that; a single second attempt being required for the M4 was Max’s only falter in an otherwise faultless performance. His effortless – almost weightless – dynamic approach to the final move on M4 was – for once – his undoing. Taking a slightly more conservative approach on his second attempt he finished with four tops in five attempts.

Dayan Akhtar collecting a deserved third place finish. Photo: Keith Sharples

Sohta Amagasa (JPN) finished marginally ahead of Dayan Akhtar after both got three tops apiece. Sam Butterworth, Mickeal Mawem and Jim Pope finished in 4th, 5th and 6th respectively.

Women's Rab CWIF 2025 podium. Photo: Keith Sharples