Six seconds to Olympic glory: Speed ​​climbing stuns Paris – Sports

Blink and you’ll miss it, speed climbing claims to be the most exciting sport at the Paris Games. The 100-meter sprint? Pedestrian in comparison, taking almost twice as long.

Speed ​​climbing is in many ways like the Olympics, but vertical.

Participants climb up a 15-meter high wall with a five-degree incline. They must do everything they can to be the first to press the red button at the top.

During the knockout stage, which took place on Wednesday, two climbers will climb side by side over an identical course, needing 20 handholds and 11 footholds to reach the top.

American sprinter Noah Lyles showed in the men’s 100 meters final that Olympic glory depends on thousandths of a second.

Speed ​​climbing is no different: China’s Deng Lijuan reached her quarter-final in 6:369 seconds, six thousandths of a second faster than her rival.

There is so little difference between the climbers that one small misstep could mean the end of your Olympic adventure.

In the battle for bronze, Indonesia’s Rajiah Sallsabillah lost her balance for a fraction of a second and with it her chance of a medal.

‘The sky is the limit’

Aleksandra Miroslaw from Poland is the undisputed queen of speed. Like Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis, she continues to break her own world record, which she has done eight times in her career.

The 30-year-old broke her old world record again during qualifying for the quarter-finals at the Olympic Games, setting a new time of 6:06 sec.

The top-seeded and big favourite Miroslaw reached the quarter-finals and semi-finals virtually unopposed, but was dealt a major blow in the final by Deng.

Gold was won with a fingertip. Deng started a little faster, but Miroslaw ran after her and was the first to stretch for the buzzer, which he won in 6:10 seconds, the Chinese athlete came home in 6:18 seconds.

Overcome with emotion, Miroslaw sank to her knees, sobbing, before running into the crowd to hug her family as a sizeable Polish crowd waved flags and shouted her name.

“I never thought about the time. I had only one thing in my mind: just run. I didn’t even look to the other side, I didn’t even know it was close,” Miroslaw told reporters.

Could she break the six-second barrier? “I really don’t know how fast I can go. The sky’s the limit,” she said.

A view shows Indonesia’s Veddriq Leonardo in the preliminary round of the men’s speed climbing during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue in Le Bourget on August 6, 2024. (AFP/Michael Reaves/Pool)

‘Gen Z sports’

Sport climbing was first introduced at the Tokyo Olympics to attract a younger audience. It proved to be an instant success and will return to Los Angeles in 2028.

“It’s a sport for Generation Z,” said Fabrizio Rossini, spokesman for the International Federation of Sport Climbing.

“You can fit all the action into what are highlights in another sport, so it’s perfect” for the younger generation who have difficulty concentrating.

In Tokyo, the event consisted of three events: speed, bouldering and lead. The last two events were more methodical and difficult climbs, with the athletes fighting to get as high up the wall as possible.

For the Paris Games, the organizers decided to set aside the speed event, undoubtedly the most spectacular climbing discipline.

That meant Wednesday’s medals were the first in Olympic history, with Miroslaw becoming the first-ever Olympic speed climbing champion.

The 6,000 spectators in the sun-drenched Le Bourget stadium north of Paris cheered wildly and stamped their feet after each climb, as hits from Coldplay and Taylor Swift blared out.

“The finale was fantastic. It was absolutely amazing,” said an enthusiastic Brandon Blaser, 49, a real estate developer from Salt Lake City in the United States.

“Just those six seconds are the culmination of everything they’ve worked for. It was really, really fun to watch,” he told AFP.