This past weekend saw professional climbers from all over the world flocking to the climbing haven of Chamonix, France for an action-packed speed and lead IFSC World Cup. The highlight of the event was undoubtedly Kiromal Katibin of Indonesia smashing through his own previous world record to set a new speed record of 5,009 seconds. While a sub-6-second send was once thought impossible, with this latest milestone it seems like a speed run under 5 seconds is within reach.
Unfortunately, Katibin had a stumble in another speed run, eliminating his chances of getting a podium position. In other exciting news, we got to see the triumphant return of legend Adam Ondra to the competition scene after a year’s break from the World Cup circuit. To no one’s surprise, the Czech screaming king took gold in lead, with a small amount of drama surrounding another famous name – Alex Megos – when the judges downgraded his score after determining that he had weighted a quickdraw.
On the women’s side, Janja Garnbret added yet another gold medal for lead climbing to her trophy case, with Italy’s Laura Rogora following with silver. For speed, China’s Lijuan Deng came out on top with a final run of 6,55 seconds – not at all far away from the current women’s speed record of 6,53 seconds, set by Poland’s Aleksandra Miroslaw at the Salt Lake City World Cup in May of this year.
Keep your eyes peeled for the next event on the IFSC calendar – a lead World Cup in Briançon on 22 and 23 July.
