Sorato Anraku, the boy prodigy from Japan, is just 18 years old with a dazzling number of medals.
He has won 2 Overall Bouldering World Cups and 1 Overall Lead World Cup. He clinched Silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics (Combined), and became the 2nd ever climber to win 3 IFSC Bouldering events in a row.
He is, by far, the best indoor competition climber at the moment.
SORATO VS EVERYBODY ELSE
Listen, I was just as gobsmacked as everybody else when Sorato flashed the final boulder of the Salt Lake City Bouldering Event 2025. Mind you, he was the only one who topped it in one attempt.
His final score? 84.4.
In second place was Sohta Amagasa, who (only) achieved 69.6!
Of course, this isn’t to say Sorato is unbeatable. I think his fellow Japanese climbers, Mejdi Schalck, and Dohyun lee have a chance of beating Sorato this season.
After all, Sorato is only 18 years old!
He’s still improving, learning, and making mistakes along the way, and it’ll be unfair to label him as ‘unbeatable’.
But, it’s undeniable that he’s a once-in-a-generation talent.
The fact that he is making ‘easy work’ of World Cup routes speakes volumes. This season, without a doubt, has seen him become as dominant as Janja Garnbret.
The Case for sorato’s greatness
Let’s bring in some stats to see why Sorato is likely the future of climbing.
If we look at bouldering victories, defined as winning the overall annual world cup (season) or winning the biennial championship, Sorato already has 3 victories to his name — at just 18 years old!
To put into perspective how incredible Sorato is, get this: he’s the ONLY athlete below the age of 20 to have 3 victories or more. And it’s not just that, the 2nd youngest on the list is Tomoa Narasaki, who is 28 years old, with the rest being older than 30.
Winning at least 2 or 3 bouldering seasons or a championship is what climbers do in their primes, which Sorato hasn’t even reached yet!
At 16 years old, he won both the overall bouldering and lead world cup for the 2023 season, and at 17 years old, he won the overall bouldering world cup for the 2024 season.
This season, he’s en route to clinching gold again for the annual bouldering and lead world cups.
He has also been the only male climber this season to win both bouldering and lead events. He claimed bouldering gold at Keqiao, Curitiba, and Salt Lake City; and claimed lead gold at Wujiang.
In essence, he’s not a specialist, but an all-rounder like Adam Ondra.
The only thing Sorato is missing is a world championship, which I think he has a good chance of winning this year.
At the 2023 climbing world championship, he achieved a hard-fought silver for the lead event, coming behind Jakob Schubert.
On this current trajectory…
I truly believe that Sorato can easily become the next Adam Ondra/Jakob Schubert or Janja Garnbret.
As long as he stays healthy, he’s undoubtedly going to go down as one of the greats of indoor competition climbing (technically, he already is).
Perhaps we might even see him follow Adam Ondra or Janja Garnbret’s path, where they became so dominant at indoor climbing that they just packed their bags and focused on outdoor climbing instead.
I can’t wait to watch more of this kid. He’s really just climbing magic.
Check out some big takeaways from this season’s world cup events here!