Speed Climbing - sub 5 seconds...

Is now a reality:

4.98 seconds

28 APRIL 2023

Veddriq LEONARDO (INA) - IFSC World Cup in Seoul, South Korea

but what is the record in Antarctica?

This has so little correlation to the sort of climbing I do that it might as well be a different sport altogether.  

I always thought it strange that the Olympic competition combined the speed climbing in with the bouldering and lead climbing to determine the medal standings.   

Imagine having elite-level climbing ability and dedicating the most productive years of your climbing career to speed climbing

Aaron Kwrote:

Imagine having elite-level climbing ability and dedicating the most productive years of your climbing career to speed climbing

You don't need to have 'elite-level climbing ability' to climb speed route. It checks in someone around 5.10+
BTW, the new combined speed-boulder-lead format demonstrated that - speed specialists could not even start boulder cup level problems, they had to make both boulders and lead route starts easier.

amariuswrote:

You don't need to have 'elite-level climbing ability' to climb speed route. It checks in someone around 5.10+
BTW, the new combined speed-boulder-lead format demonstrated that - speed specialists could not even start boulder cup level problems, they had to make both boulders and lead route starts easier.

Tomoa N and other pros have been quoted saying that the beta/effort required to do a fast lap on the speed route is somewhere in the 8a/+ range, so it isn’t totally trivial, just stupid

It's interesting to see the parallel between speed climbing now and gymnastic rope climbing for speed back in the 1960s. Rope climbing was an Olympic gymnastic event until the 1930s, and it remained a gymnastic event an all-around gymnast had to engage in in America until the 1960s, when it was finally dropped. Artistic gymnasts hated it - it was definitely a specialist's domain. No carry-over values with the other apparatuses. However, it was a crowd pleaser - spectators would get excited as young men flew up the 20 foot 1.5 " manilla rope, defying gravity, moving faster than an ordinary person could pull that length or rope between their legs on the gym floor. 

Chicago 1959

That's wild. 

It must feel incredible to move up a wall that quickly. I can't even imagine. 

Kai Larsonwrote:

This has so little correlation to the sort of climbing I do that it might as well be a different sport altogether.  

I always thought it strange that the Olympic competition combined the speed climbing in with the bouldering and lead climbing to determine the medal standings.   

Next Olympics speed climbing will be a separate event:

“In Paris 2024, two competitions will crown their own olympic champion in sport climbing. One will be a combined competition of bouldering and lead events, and the second one will only feature a speed event.”

This should be moved to the other sports category 

David Housewrote:

Next Olympics speed climbing will be a separate event:

“In Paris 2024, two competitions will crown their own olympic champion in sport climbing. One will be a combined competition of bouldering and lead events, and the second one will only feature a speed event.”

So in 2020 there was one combined event, with the 3 types of climbing each weighted equally.

In 2024,  speed is weighted twice as high as sport or bouldering, in terms of medals per type of climbing (if we even assume that climbing the same 5 sec route over and over is actually a sport).

Speed climbing may be dumb (and it is) but the fact that someone can climb that far that fast, is pretty remarkable.  Many people would struggle to run that distance in that time on flat ground, much less to do it vertically.  While it may not be "real climbing," it's a fantastic feat of athleticism and still deserves recognition as an accomplishment.

4.9s!

In before the "you putted the spoileder in the title!!!"

(Yes, I'm joking.)

Also the first post in this thread is out of date already: Leonardo broke the WR to 4.98 and then in the same event on the same day lowered it again to 4.90

John RBwrote:

Also the first post in this thread is out of date already: Leonardo broke the WR to 4.98 and then in the same event on the same day lowered it again to 4.90

He did?

His results were: 4.98 Qualification, 5.01 Final 

https://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition/calendar/?task=resultathletes&event=1292&result=2

It's weird because on the site they list the WR as 4.90 but there are no results that I can find for it. The only results they show are the above 4.98 and 5.01.

Not that anyone here cares. LOL! 

E MuuDwrote:

He did?

His results were: 4.98 Qualification, 5.01 Final 

https://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition/calendar/?task=resultathletes&event=1292&result=2

It's weird because on the site they list the WR as 4.90 but there are no results that I can find for it. The only results they show are the above 4.98 and 5.01.

Not that anyone here cares. LOL! 

Quarterfinal - 

E MuuDwrote:

He did?

His results were: 4.98 Qualification, 5.01 Final 

https://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition/calendar/?task=resultathletes&event=1292&result=2

It's weird because on the site they list the WR as 4.90 but there are no results that I can find for it. The only results they show are the above 4.98 and 5.01.

Not that anyone here cares. LOL! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIa6VYrfqX8&ab_channel=InternationalFederationofSportClimbing&t=32m20s

I only climb 5.2 trad at the Gunks

I actually think there is potential for speed climbing to be interesting. I don't think there's anything wrong with it as a competition. Plenty of you find it interesting when it's done on El Cap or another a big route.

The real problem is there's only 1 official route! Because of the bullshit about needing to have a "world record". Might as well go back to rope climbing.

I think it should be like motorsport with a circuit of a dozen different routes or so, it would be way way better. Like motorsport you could still have "track records" throughout the years, long ones, short ones, keep classics around for decades, while having scope to slowly introduce new rounds or modify "tracks" that turn out to need to be tweaked or whatever.

Edit: by motorsport I meant F1 or MotorGP where they have both left *and* right turns. Not the circular stock car thing you do in the USA.

The good news is that the Speed portion of Seoul 2023 managed to finish before the torrential rains hit.  Then the bouldering segment was canceled due to rain yesterday and now, today, they're running the men's and women's semis and calling that the finals because they're out of time now.