Sorato Anraku will compete in the main event of the men’s combined sport climbing final at the Paris Olympics on Friday.
18:16 JST, August 10, 2024
Sorato Anraku, who won silver in the men’s bouldering and sport climbing events at the Paris Olympics, is a climber with a natural style.
He has developed his own unique style of climbing, moving slightly up the wall with minimal force. The junior high school student became the first male climber to win the medal.
Anraku’s first introduction to sport climbing was by chance. When his father, Takeshi, joined a climbing gym near his home in Chiba Prefecture to lose weight, he took his son, then a second-grader in elementary school, with him because he was embarrassed to go to the gym alone.
The boy, who was always scolded for climbing trees because it was too dangerous, was fascinated by sport climbing. Anraku went to the gym almost every day during his summer vacations. Since he had no arm strength, he racked his brains about how to climb. Falling down often, he learned through trial and error how to climb without unnecessary effort, by thinking about the position of his hands and feet on the holds and the way he had to use his body.
It was Anraku’s favorite subject, math, that helped him figure out which route to take to climb a wall. “It’s like math, where you have to think about how to solve it and figure out the answer,” he said.
At 168 centimeters tall and weighing around 55 kilograms, Anraku competed against the most passionate athletes in the world. He is confident in the unique climbing style he has honed and refined, saying, “I can compete even without visible muscles.”
“I want to be an athlete who can inspire others and give them hope with my climbing,” he said.
Anraku was the best on the bouldering part of the final round, but was overtaken on his favorite event, the lead, at the Paris Games. “I’m disappointed with the second place, but I’m happy to be in the top three, which was my minimum goal,” he said.
