Just three weeks ago in Seoul, both the Men’s and Women’s Speed Climbing World Records were broken. On Friday in Salt Lake City, the same two climbers did it again!
Kiromal Katibin Sets 5.10 – Ever Closer To Under 5 Seconds!
Starting off in the qualification round Kiromal Katibin shot up the wall to set a new Speed Climbing World Record of 5.105 seconds! This takes 0.07 seconds off of his previous world record (5.17) set just three weeks ago in Seoul. At this point, the mythical five-second barrier may be beaten this year! Watch here.
In the finals event, Kiromal hit another huge mark with 5.19 in his first face-off but fell in the second round to take fifth overall. Veddriq Leonardo went on with three more rounds well under 6 seconds and in the finals beat Tobias Plangger who took a fall.
Kiromal Katibin is part of the Indonesian team who are pushing new beta on the route, skipping more holds than ever. This leads to less movement from side to side and leaves a straighter line for the climbers to shoot up. The route has been the same since 2007 now and there have been calls for a change to mix things up.
We’ve seen Kiromal and his teammate Veddriq Leonardo both hitting personal bests and breaking each other’s records at event after event. This is Kiromal’s third world record. His first was set back in 2021 at 5.258 in qualifications at last year’s Salt Lake City Event but beaten by his teammate Veddriq who hit 5.208 when they faced off in the finals.
Indonesian teammate Aries Susanti Rahayu has previously set a world record back in 2019.
Aleksandra Miroslaw Takes Third Consecutive Speed Record!
Back at the first Olympic Speed Climbing event in Tokyo, Aleksandra Miroslaw took her first world record in Olympic fashion with 6.84. Three weeks ago she beat that in Seoul with a time of 6.648. Today in qualifications she made it a hat-trick with a time of 6.53 seconds! Watch here.
This is a significant jump for Aleksandra and Speed Climbing as a whole. Aleksandra seems absolutely dominant in Speed at the moment, having taken the crown from Iuliia Kaplina for the first time back in 2020. This is also Aleksandra’s third Gold at World Cups this year after winning last year’s event but taking third in the season.
She’s well on track for the first place in this year’s overall ranking and well ahead of most other climbers who are still struggling to get under seven seconds. She seems to be in a league of her own after pulling the World Record in Tokyo.
Speed Climbing Advancing Fast
In the past few months Speed climbing times have been rapidly advancing, with just a handful of climbers really pushing the limits of what is physically possible on this route. This weekend the latest IFSC World Cup took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, and featured both Speed and Boulder events
It’s been a packed couple of weeks in Salt Lake City as another Boulder and Speed event took place last weekend, with the Paraclimbing event happening on the 24th and 25th. You can watch the Paraclimbing finals here. This busty schedule was in part due to the event in Moscow, Russia being canceled.
Read More
– What Is Speed Climbing?
The Salt Lake City event is continuing with Boulder finals. There was some controversy after three of the climbers in the Women’s event were injured on the same move in qualifications on Boulder 4. The move involved an outward push with both arms pulled back from the body and Jenya Kazbekova, Sienna Kopf, and Johanna Färber all had shoulder or elbow injuries doing the move.
Header photos courtesy of Daniel Gajda/IFSC
