Sport Climbing Crowns First Women's Olympic Champ and Major Men's Upset

The inaugural sport climbing event at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris has its first women's champ, while a major upset occurred in the men's competition.

Aug 7, 2024; Le Bourget, France; Lijuan Deng (CHN), Aleksandra Miroslaw (POL), and Aleksandra Kalucka (POL) celebrate their medals in womenís speed climbing during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue. / Jack Gruber-USA TODAY Sports

The 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris featured plenty of recognizable names and sports. NBA and WNBA stars took part in the 3x3 and 5x5 competitions, while Simone Biles made her much-anticipated return to the floor in gymnastics. Katie Ledecky was returning to continue her dominance in the water for swimming events.

In addition to those regular favorites, several newer sports are joining the Olympics this year. One of those events is sport climbing, which debuted at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Sport climbing is divided into three disciplines; bouldering, speed climbing and lead climbing. Bouldering is on a wall about 15 feet tall that athletes will look to navigate as quickly as possible in as few of attempts as possible.

Speed climbing can be over in the blink of an eye. Starting at the bottom of a 49-foot wall, the athletes are timed to see who can scale the wall fastest in two-person heats. Times rank the climbers during the seeding rounds, but head-to-head competition is held during elimination rounds.

Last but not least, the lead climbing gives competitors a six-minute limit to scale the 49-foot wall in one attempt. They are allowed six minutes prior to the event to study the wall and develop a strategy. Quickdraws attached to their harness need to be clipped as they ascend the wall and point values are given depending on how far along they get.

Competition has been fierce to this point, as the women’s speed event crowned the first-ever champion on Wednesday morning. Aleksandra Miroslaw of Poland won the first gold medal with a 6.10 seconds.

That wasn’t even her fastest time of the Olympics. That came in qualifying when she broke the world and Olympic record twice. 6.21 seconds was the bar, which she smashed in her next run with a time of 6.06 seconds.

6.10 seconds isn’t her best time, but it was more than enough to earn the gold. The 2023 world bronze medalist beat out silver medalist Deng Lijuan of the People’s Republic of China and her countrywoman Aleksandra Kalucka, who earned bronze.

On the men’s side of the competition, there was a huge upset. Seven-time Climbing World Cup winner Tomoa Narasaki of Japan was eliminated from the men’s sport climbing combined competition.

Narasaki earned second place in the boulder round on Monday, but it was not enough to get him inside the top eight, which was needed to qualify. He finished 10th after the lead round that was held on Wednesday.

The combined event includes scores from both lead and boulder. Competitors must take part in both events and their scores are added together to determine where they rank. Narasaki failing to qualify is a surprise and will open the door for other athletes to take home some hardware.