Personal bests fell across the board early in the session, with little international competition over the past few years the athletes were itching to get on the course and back to the sport they love.  

The world record for women in speed climbing sits at 6.96 with Iuliia Kaplina of Russia, but it was given a real shake up by Polish climber Aleksandra Miroslaw, who in her second run of the day scored a 6.97. Demonstrating the truly stacked field on show in this Olympic qualifier. 

Moving swiftly up the wall in the first run of the speed qualification round, the Australian touched in 8.83. Slipping in the final moments of the second run Mackenzie stopped the clock in 9.38, meaning her first time (as the quicker of the two) will be counted towards her final score. Leaving her in 13th place.  

 Moving onto the problem-solving portion of the evening’s competition, bouldering, the specialists were on show.   

An uncommon feature of this section is the wall is completely new for each run. Meaning that having a sneak peek at the men’s wall last night will serve no benefit to the athletes. To ensure secrecy of the wall, athletes must surrender all electronic communications a few hours prior to competition commencing. It’s a real test of the athletes’ ability to adapt and problem solve. 

The field of 20 attempted to scale as many fixed routes as they could on the 4-metre-high wall in their allotted five minutes, with high temperatures adding to the difficulty.   

Only three athletes managed to solve the fourth problem and only four were able to solve three out of the four problems, with bouldering proving troublesome for the entire field.    With an impressive solve on problem one, topping out in three attempts, Mackenzie looked set to improve upon her ranking. However, the difficult problems set by the route setters and high humidity, saw the Aussie improve by only one place, getting one top and two zones from four problems. Moving her into 12th with twelve points at the end of the qualifying round.  

The final portion of the qualifier, lead, involves athletes trying to climb as high as they can on a wall over 15 metres high, with varying degrees of slant and difficulties, within six minutes.  

With an ‘energy zapping’ start the Victorian athlete dropped off the wall with 15 holds just after clipping into a nearby quickdraw (a score of 15+ for her intention to reach the next one).  

At the end of the final element, the Olympic debutant finished in 19th place, meaning she will not move through to the final.  Speed: 13.00 

Bouldering: 12.00 

Lead:  16.00 

Combined Total: 2496.00 

Fellow Australian Tom O’Halloran finished in 20th place in the men’s qualification round meaning that’s it for the Aussie contingent in sport climbing at these Olympic Games. Paris 2024, only three years away, is sure to see even more fierce competition as this sport evolves on the international stage.  

Sarah Dyce

#HaveAGo at Sport Climbing