Milne and McNeice both podium in Seoul
- Saturday 5th October 2024
In the final Boulder World Cup of the 2024 season in Seoul Max Milne and Erin McNeice both podium with Silver and Bronze medals respectively; Dayan Akhtar finishes in 4th.
Team GB boulderers made a strong finish to the season with no less than three of the team making finals; Max Milne, Erin McNeice and Dayan Akhtar. All three athletes laid down stellar performances in the finals in what were close fought rounds; Milne and McNeice ending with metalwork as reward for their efforts - sadly Akhtar narrowly missed the podium finishing in 4th.
Max Milne – a.k.a. MaxTheFuture – finished in second place and so collected his second ever IFSC Boulder WC medal, in this case a second silver to go with his first which he won back in 2022 at the Brixen event. Milne was denied the top spot and a Gold medal by Dohyun Lee by the narrowest of margins as both competitors ended the final round with two tops and four zones each – sadly however, Lee collected his four zones in four attempts whilst Milne required a fifth attempt.
The battle for third place was equally close fought by the trailing four climbers; Sohta Amagasa, Dayan Akhtar, Jongwon Chon and Meichi Narasaki. Whilst Akhtar, Chon and Narasaki all got three zones each, Amagasa alone managed a forth zone and so collected the Bronze medal. Dayan Akhtar – climbing in his first ever IFSC Boulder finals finished ahead of Chon and Narasaki having collected his three zones in less attempts. In tight rounds such as these Akhtar was within the narrowest of margins not to podium but ending with his highest ever place will undoubtedly be very satisfying.
In the women’s final rankings were equally tight right to the final boulder. Posting a super strong finish Anastasia Sanders flashed the final bloc and so just edged ahead of Zelia Avezou to take her first ever IFSC Boulder Gold and forcing Avezou into Silver. Having yet another amazing competition McNeice collected her two tops and four zones in less attempts than Natalia Grossman and so secured her first ever IFSC Boulder medal with a Bronze.
Having finished fifth in the Paris Olympics, McNeice continues her impressive march ever higher in the competition rankings. McNeice’s excellent result denied a podium position to Natalia Grossman whilst Miho Nonaka and Agathe Calliet finished in fifth and sixth respectively.