adidas ROCKSTARS 2016 – Superfinal Men

While the route setters quickly swapped the holds from the women’s superfinal for the men’s ones, Robeat and Trommelfeuer once again took the stage and treated the crowd to some amazing percussion/beatboxing. With the holds ready to go, Jan Hojer and Tomoa Narasaki made their way onto the stage. In front of a home crowd, Jan inevitably got the bigger cheer but all of Tomoa’s victories this year have come away from Japan, so he can cope just fine with or without the crowd supporting him.

Within 30 seconds of the super-final beginning, Tomoa had proved this again. He was already on top of the wall, with the buzzer pressed and his arms in the air having flashed the boulder. Jan also flashed it but just couldn’t live with the speed that Tomoa climbed. Jan looked disappointed but after an otherwise poor season (by his standards) he should reflect in the next few weeks that second place to the dominant force in male bouldering in 2016 probably isn’t a bad result.

He commented after leaving the stage, “It’s always great to climb in front of a home crowd and it’s my fifth year here but I’ve only made finals once and I didn’t make it to the super final and that was my goal for this competition. It was amazing here to show myself that I can still climb with some of the best guys.”

Tomoa, meanwhile, who has now won every major title available to him this year, put it perfectly when he walked down off the stage and said, “2016 is my season”. He’s appeared from nowhere this year and already looks like he can dominate male bouldering for the foreseeable future.