Speed climbing is an interesting event. I’m not really a climber, but I’ve been climbing a few times and enjoyed it every time I did. I’d honestly like to try out speed climbing just for the fun of it—I think I’d be lucky to get under a minute though tbh, when these ladies are all getting under 10 seconds even for the slowest of them.
Unfortunately, any time I’ve been to a climbing gym, they haven’t had a speed climbing wall. Not that my sample size is very large, but asking climbers I know about places they’ve been, they apparently don’t have speed climbing walls either. Kind of a shame. Especially around the Olympics, you’d think it’d be a thing they’d want to give people a chance to try out.
The speed wall is more difficult than you think. Most average climbers would not make it to the top. That also makes it a waste of a lot of wall space in a commercial gym which serves mostly average climbers unfortunately.
Duplantis is just incredible. That is all. Complete class of his own. What an incredible athlete. That pole-vault final with gold plus new WR was just… We all knew it was inevitable but it was still something else to behold.
Oh ha! I just noticed the pole vault bar is on some sort of electronic control. I suppose it’s only sensible, since it would be difficult to get up there to replace it every time they knock it off!
Bouldering has started. Love the small army of volunteers sweeping up the holds in between competitors.
Late comment but this was my first time watching bouldering and I found it pretty exciting. Loved the puzzle element of seeing the athletes not just display physical excellence but also piece together how to approach the problem in their head. Very cool!
I saw “NM” on one of the scorecards for the pole vault. Wasn’t sure what that meant, so I Googled “nm pole vault scorecard”. Apparently “people also ask”…
Anyway, the answer to my question was “no mark”.
Apparently having a simple single red and white striped flag is an indication of success in speed climbing. I’ve seen two Polish and one Indonesian athlete, and all three of them significantly outperformed their head-to-head opponent.
Oh, and now I’ve seen an Indonesian lose. It looked like she was just slightly behind her Spanish opponent, until she missed a foothold and fell.
Apparently her previous qualifier time was even faster than her Spanish opponent, and she’ll make it through to the final because of that.
2 Poles, an American, 2 Indonesians, 2 Chinese, and one Spaniard make it through to the quarter finals.
