Can you imagine climbing a 15-meter (49.2-foot) wall in 10 seconds? How about doing it just over five seconds? No? Same. That’s why most of us don’t compete in speed climbing.
Speed climbing is one discipline within the Olympic sport of “sport climbing,” which made its Olympic debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games. At the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, sport climbing will encompass speed climbing and a boulder and lead combined event.
Aniya Holder is a South African speed climber who’s heading to the 2024 Olympics. She says the sport is “like running up a wall,” which sounds impossible, but clearly, it’s not.
Holder says her personal goal is to break the South African record of 11:10, which she’s already done, just not in an official competition.
Watch her recent interview here:
The world record holder for women is Aleksandra Miroslaw of Poland. Here she is doing her Spider-Woman thing at the Tokyo Olympics:
And here’s one of the world’s elite men in the sport, Kiromal Katibin of Indonesia, who can climb 15 meters in just over five seconds. Just don’t blink, because you might miss it:
Will you tune in to watch speed climbing in the 2024 Olympics?
