World Championships Debrief: The Final Push to Seoul

When I walked off the mats in Seoul, I was a perfect mix of happy and relieved.

The 2025 IFSC World Cup season is finally over, wrapping up with the World Championships in Seoul, South Korea, that took place between September 21 and 28. The World Champs is unlike any other event on the IFSC calendar - not only because it only comes around every two years, but also because it arrives at the very end of the season. For me, as a boulder specialist, that meant after the last Boulder World Cup, which this year was in Innsbruck, Austria, back in June.

The gap between these events meant extending my training - and my season - for another twelve weeks. Twelve weeks that I, in retrospect, did not have in the tank.

After finishing the regular World Cup season in June, I was coming off two months on the road, spending weekend after weekend pushing my mind and body to perform to the best of my ability at each of the five World Cups across three continents.

At the beginning of the season in May, competing feels effortless - I’m happy to be back on the circuit and peaking my performance for another strong season. By the end of June, I’m wringing out the last drops of energy I have left, but determined to finish off strong.

I was physically ready to take a good break after Innsbruck, but I’m so addicted to World Cups that I decided to push further to Seoul for the World Championships in September. Was it the best decision? Maybe not.

Zach came with me to Seoul as support. By that point, I was mentally drained, and having someone who knows me better than anyone - both as an athlete and a person - was grounding. We’ve been working together at the gym all season, particularly over these last few months leading up to Seoul. It’s always valuable to have someone with me at World Cups, especially when the National Team hasn’t been able to send a coach for the past couple of seasons.

Zach being there takes it a step further - attending not only as a family member and travel buddy, but also as my personal coach. He helped me warm up and, most importantly, was there to watch me climb alongside the best in the world.

Overall, the round went pretty well. My goal for this event was to make semi-finals - a goal I have at every World Cup - and I was a touch short: seven attempts short, to be exact. It’s an interesting feeling to walk away from a round satisfied with your climbing but unsatisfied with your result.

I topped three of five boulders and got the zone on a fourth. In the end, I was seven attempts off of semi-finals and finished in 27th place. Not that close, but not that far off.

And as usual, you can watch every boulder from the World Championships on our YouTube Channel.

There were some really good moments. My heart was racing on boulder two when I finished with seconds to spare. Although that’s not ideal for my scorecard to take so many attempts on a boulder, it’s always exciting to clinch a last-minute top. I remember looking down from the finish hold and seeing 11 seconds on the timer. That's a cool image to have etched in my brain. Boulder one was also a really solid top - Zach told me that a lot of people struggled with a few moves on that boulder, and I made it look easy. It's funny because I didn't think much of that one until Zach showed me the scores.

Especially knowing how tired I was going into this event, I did well, and I'm happy with my climbing. I almost made semis, after all.

Plus, there’s invariably something you can learn from a competition like this, and I learned something big.

It didn't come about during the round (though there were several technical takeaways I have); it was around the lead-up to this event, now looking back at it all. In short, I need an off-season.

I see so many athletes competing all year, traveling to a dozen World Cups across multiple disciplines from April to October, jumping back and forth between time zones, seemingly unfazed. I've come to realize that I'm just not that kind of athlete.

Don’t get me wrong — I love competing. I love the build-up to the new season, I love visiting new gyms and new countries, I love the sense of purpose I have every day training for World Cups, heck, at the right time of year, I even love the airport! But what I love above all else in this sport is the feeling of progression.

When there’s a never-ending stream of competitions - like this year, from May to September - there’s no good opportunity to break your body down and allow your performance to slip for a few months so that you can build back stronger. You’re just maintaining every day, and I struggle with that.

When I know I'm in maintenance mode, I expect absolute maintenance. I read into every fluctuation in my training performance. I capitalize on the highs when I can, but the lows are hard to brush off. I burnt myself out fixating on my performance.

I have to applaud Zach for sticking with me all the way until Seoul this year, and my long-time coach Libor for jumping on a call with me - seemingly every other week - to tweak my program so I could keep pushing through.

Now that we’re finally at the finish line, I see the biggest lesson of all from Worlds: I shouldn't have pushed my season so far this year.

Of course, I had to go to Korea to learn this lesson, and I'm glad I did.

It's an uncomfortable truth to admit that I don't have the mental stamina to have a season span longer than a few months, but I think a lot of that comes from me comparing my path to others'.

This is my 8th year competing in World Cups and my 11th year competing, period. At this point in my career, I need to know myself well and admit what my limits are. I'm looking to get at most another decade out of this sport, so the time to burn myself out trying to compete in one-off, end-of-season competitions is over. Not everyone needs a break so early, but that's what's best for me.

Following the World Championships, Zach and I spent the rest of our time in Seoul walking around, shopping, and eating. And yes - we did go to Tim Hortons while we were in Seoul. It was much fancier than ours...

Our flight home was delayed by over 24 hours, and we ended up spending a night in Calgary with friends who recently moved there - a nice turn of events. We got home a day late, early in the AM, but safe and sound, back in Montreal.

While my ideal rest month would probably involve sitting on the couch for thirty days straight, especially after a season like this, Zach and I are instead off to Ontario twice this October, as MacLachlan's High Performance Climbing Program officially kicks off!

But after competing on four continents this season and facing a huge travel disruption getting out of Seoul, a couple of train rides down to Toronto doesn't seem so bad.