American teenager Sam Watson set a new Olympic world record on Tuesday in the Olympic speed game’s new climbing event, which pits two opposing climbers against each other as they race side-by-side to be the first to scale the climb. a 15 meter wall.
The speed field draws a skill from the original occasion of the climbing game, which debuted at the Tokyo Olympics.
During the 2021 games, the game was planned as a single occasion that combines the three specialties of bouldering (performed on short courses and technical courses without ropes), lead (in which the climber ties a rope to cover himself along the way) and speed (in which few other main technical issues matter, apart from speed).
For the Paris Games, sport climbing was split into two distinct medal opportunities: in a combined bouldering and lead climbing event, and in rapid climbing.
Speed climbers compete head-to-head to reach the top of a 15-meter wall as quickly as possible and slower climbers are eliminated from circle to circle in a bracket-style festival until only one winner remains.
The department of the occasion in separate disciplines in Paris mitigated some complaints about the way climbing was organized in Tokyo, where athletes said that the other skills represented completely different specialties and athletic skills, and that forcing climbers to compete in a combined occasion resulted in injustice. A “circus” that barely showed technical skill.
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“The two occasions are absolutely different, and enthusiasts will realize this simply by the morphology of the climber,” French climber Oriane Bertone, who specializes in bouldering and lead climbing, told the Paris 2024 committee. “They have very different styles. “
Watson, 18, of Texas, set a world speed record of 4. 75 seconds as she moved up the qualifying rounds of the Olympics on Tuesday. He broke his own record of 4. 79 seconds, which he set at the World Cup in China this year (it was matched on Tuesday by Indonesia’s Veddriq Leonardo before Watson beat him). Watson will face New Zealand’s Julian David in the quarterfinals of the men’s sprint event on Thursday.
With this new world record, Watson also holds the name of the fastest time ever recorded in a timed Olympic sport, according to CNN.
The women’s sprint game final will take place on Wednesday at 6:54 a. m. EDT. The men’s final will take place at the same time on Thursday.
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