Anraku Dominant in Prague Semis as Ondra's Boulder Career Ends at Home

There are moments in sport that carry more weight than the scoreboard. Sorato Anraku of Japan moved through the men's boulder semifinal at Štvanice Island on Friday afternoon with the efficiency that has made him the standard-setter in competition bouldering — reading problems quickly, committing early, controlling the chaos that sends lesser athletes to the flash-fail zones between a zone and a top. He was dominant. He will be in Saturday's final.

In the stands, Adam Ondra watched from the side of the wall he could not reach.

#lastboulderdance

This was always going to be Prague's defining story. Ondra, the Czech climber who changed what hard climbing means on both rock and plastic, had announced ahead of this event that the World Climbing Series Prague 2026 would be his final appearance in the bouldering discipline. The hashtag — #lastboulderdance — was on the merchandise, on the social graphics, on the volunteer T-shirts that folded it into the visual identity of the competition week.

The bouldering discipline has moved away from Ondra's strengths. Modern competition boulder problems increasingly reward explosive dynamic movement — campus-style jumps, coordination sequences, power that loads and fires in under two seconds. Ondra has described the physical toll: his shoulders, adapted over a career of two-hour sport climbing redpoints on overhanging limestone, do not absorb the lateral stress of modern boulder finals. He decided to leave the discipline while he could choose the exit.

He chose Prague. His city, his crowd, his last boulder competition.

He was eliminated in qualification.

There is a specific kind of silence that settles over a venue when the hometown athlete does not advance. Štvanice's bouldering zone has a particular intimacy — the competition wall is outdoors, the Vltava river is metres away, and the crowd is close enough to the problems that a jump gone wrong is legible from the stands. The qualification crowd read what happened. Ondra did not solve enough problems to advance. He finished with the scores he had, shook hands with the setters and organisers he has competed alongside for twenty years, and took his place among the spectators.

He will compete in the lead discipline later this week. His career in bouldering competition is complete.

The Semifinal

Anraku's dominance in the semifinal extended a pattern established across the season's opening boulder events. The Japanese climber does not appear to be struggling with the problems others find opaque. He works through the sequence phases methodically — read, attempt, refine — and his success rate in the semifinal stage of major boulder competitions in 2026 has been exceptional. He topped problems others took multiple attempts to complete and set the tone for Saturday's final before it begins.

The field that advanced to the final includes Anraku and Dohyun Lee of South Korea, who has been in the top positions through the qualification stage, alongside France's Mejdi Schalck and Samuel Richard. The French pair's presence in the final is notable — Schalck in particular arrives with form from earlier in the season.

Eight climbers. Four boulders. Four minutes per problem. The scoring in boulder finals is clean in its brutality: tops beat zones, earlier attempts beat later ones. A climber who tops all four problems wins unconditionally regardless of attempt count, unless another climber also tops all four on fewer total attempts. Anraku's semifinal performance suggests he is capable of that clean sweep. Whether anyone else is, the final will tell.

The men's boulder final takes place Saturday at Štvanice. The lead qualification is also running across today and tomorrow before the lead semis and finals close out the event on Saturday and Sunday.

For Czech sandstone bouldering destinations to extend the trip beyond the competition, see our Czech sandstone climbing guide. For limestone sport climbing further afield, see our Rodellar climbing guide.