Two New World Records in Sport Climbing at the 2024 Olympics (Speed Climbing Disciplines)
Sport climbing made its second appearance at the Olympic Games, with two world records shattered by athletes from the USA and Poland at the 2024 Olympics.
While sport climbing hasn’t gained significant popularity in Vietnam compared to other Olympic disciplines, the sport was only introduced to the Olympic program at Tokyo 2020. In its second Olympic outing, fans witnessed two world records broken by athletes from the USA and Poland.
Coming into the Olympic Games Paris 2024, Team USA’s Sam Watson was holding the world record with a time of 4.79 — the second athlete to go under 5 seconds.
Coming into the finals on Thursday morning the first-time Olympian broke his own world record to go the fastest time of the day (4.74), shaving another one one-hundredths of a second off his world record time to become the fastest climber in the world. And he did it in the bronze medal match.
Meanwhile, in the women’s event, Aleksandra Miroslaw showcased her dominance by clinching the gold medal with a time of 6.10 seconds, defeating China’s Deng Lijuan (6.18 seconds). Earlier, the Polish athlete had broken both her own world record (6.24 seconds) and the Olympic record (6.84 seconds) by clocking 6.06 seconds in the qualifiers.
“It means a lot,” Miroslaw said. “It’s the first time for speed climbing and … I have my flag, and I was standing on the podium in the first-place [position], hearing the national anthem. It was amazing.”
At the Tokyo Olympics, despite setting an Olympic record in speed climbing, Miroslaw finished fourth overall due to the combined format of speed and boulder & lead events. At Paris 2024, with sport climbing divided into two separate events, the Polish athlete comfortably secured her first Olympic medal.
The sport climbing events at the Paris 2024 Olympics will continue until August 10th (Vietnam time), concluding with the women’s boulder & lead finals.
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