Sam Watson breaks the world record for bronze while Veddriq Leonardo of Indonesia wins the gold medal in speed.
Sport climbing combined olympics
In the inaugural men’s Speed gold in the sport of climbing at Paris 2024, Veddriq Leonardo of Indonesia triumphed, while Sam Watson of the USA shattered his own world mark to win the bronze.
Day after Polish superstar Aleksandra Mirosław won gold in the women’s sprint, Leonardo made history at the Olympics by capturing Indonesia’s first gold in Paris 2024 alongside the legendary Polish athlete.
Due to the exciting nature of this elimination round, Watson lost to Wu Peng in the semifinals and missed the final. However, he later won bronze after defeating Reza Alipour with a world record climb of 4.74 seconds.
Leonardo finished 0.02 seconds faster than Wu of the People’s Republic of China, who took home silver, then nearly equaled that time with a 4.75 to win gold.
“I feel incredible. I’ve always wanted this, and now I realized my goal,” a clearly happy Leonardo exclaimed.
Just eight climbers were left in the running for the first-ever men’s Speed gold medal at the Olympics after qualifying on Tuesday.
At Tokyo 2020, sport climbing had been consolidated into a single event; however, this time, Boulder & Lead and Speed were held apart.
This gave the speed experts a chance to shine. Watson was the first to go, defeating Julian David with a time of 5.03 to 5.65.
World No. 2 Wu defeated World No. 1 and defending champion Matteo Zurloni in an exciting second quarterfinal by a just 0.002 seconds (4.995 vs. 4.997).
After breaking the previous world mark in the quarterfinals, Frenchman Bassa Mawem (5.26) was sent packing by Leonardo, the former world record holder, who also announced his retirement from the sport.
Alipour, a previous world record holder, defeated Amir Maimuratov with an impressive performance to round up the semi-final lineup.
Before their match, the match between Watson and Wu, who were competing for a spot in the gold medal race, appeared too close to call.
Watson had managed to sneak ahead, but Wu capitalized on the smallest of errors made by the American to make it to the final, scoring 4.85 against Watson’s 4.93.
Their exceptional times demonstrate the rapid improvement in speed climbing in recent years, and both racers achieved even faster timings in the second semi-final.
Leonardo, who won the Speed World Cup overall in 2021, 2022, and 2023, defeated Alipour (4.84) with a personal best time of 4.78.
Then it accelerated even farther. Watson overcame his disappointment to defeat Alipour in the bronze medal race by setting a new world record of 4.74, which is just 0.01 seconds quicker than his previous best established on Tuesday.
In keeping with the theme, the highlight race of the entire finals saw Leonardo cross the finish line just 0.02 seconds ahead of competitor Wu, making history as the first Indonesian to finish on the top step of the podium in Paris 2024.
Olympic sport climbing: what is it?
With its formal debut during the most recent Olympic Games in Tokyo, speed climbing is a relatively new sport to the Olympics. To compete in the three disciplines that comprise the sport, one must possess strength, speed, agility, and strategy.
Sport climbing: what is it?
Three formats are used in sport climbing: bouldering, speed, and lead.
In the first discipline, competitors must ascend a nearly 5-meter wall without the use of ropes in the shortest amount of time and with the fewest number of tries feasible. Athletes must tackle four boulders, or “problems,” during their climb. Climbers have five minutes to finish the route in the semifinals, but only four minutes in the championship round. Final climbers get eight minutes to survey the course.
In the speed rounds, players compete in a one-on-one elimination round against the clock. Fourteen athletes get two runs, one on each side of the wall, to start the competition with “seeding” leads. After that, their combined times are used to rank them. Next are the elimination heats, where competitors compete against one another, with the top seven finishers moving on to the next phase. The Olympic medal is decided in the last round of competition, which consists of “knockout” races with quarterfinals, semifinals, and the final. The fastest athletes can climb a wall that is fifteen meters high in under seven seconds! Before a race, athletes are allowed to examine the wall in an attempt to figure out the best path to the summit.
Athletes compete in the last event, lead, which involves scaling a 15-meter-tall wall in six minutes. They gain more points as they ascend higher. Getting to the top awards 100 points. The routes are more difficult and intricate than any of the athletes had encountered before.
Sport climbing combined olympics
