These "Olympic Sport Climbers" Are Hands Down The Most Athletic People On The Planet
Umm...what? Seven seconds? They vertically ascended a forty-nine wall in seven seconds? Got it. Makes sense. Totally something I can wrap my head around. To be honest, I didn't even know this was an Olympic sport until I looked up and saw it on one of Jeff D. Lowe's ten screens. I then hopped on twitter and quickly realized that the people competing are arguably the most athletic people on the planet. I mean look at these freaks...
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They're using their finger tips to catapult themselves from crimp to crimp (climbing term nbd). Imagine the strength that takes? Here's how the sport works...
Olympic climbing is a sport that consists of climbing a wall with the help of guides and ropes. It is an individual sport where climbers compete for medals along three different disciplines: speed climbing, bouldering, and lead climbing.
Speed climbing: Climbers have to climb a 15-meter wall in the shortest time possible. This discipline is the most dynamic since climbers can climb this wall in 6 seconds for the male category and 7-8 seconds for the female category. The fastest climbers will be those who get the first positions in this category.
Bouldering: In this style, climbers must scale 5-6 meter rocks without any support from a rope. They must climb the greatest number of obstacles in 4 minutes. When the climber touches the last hold, the judges consider the obstacle valid and the next one begins with as many routes as possible.
Lead climbing: In this discipline climbers have 6 minutes to climb a 15 meter wall with the help of ropes. In this modality, the rocks are very small, and sometimes they can only use their fingertips to support themselves. This is the hardest modality because if the climber falls he does not have another attempt. Wherever the climber falls is his personal mark. In this category the opponents cannot see the climb of other athletes so as not to have a benefit on their turn.
The climbing community has bitched about the "fairness of the competition" given that most climbers only focus on one discipline, but that's neither here nor there. One of the stars of the sport is 17-year-old American Colin Duffy, who was the only climber out of 20 to rank top-10 in all three disciplines. You can watch him compete in the final round which is set for Thursday at 4:00 AM. I promise you it won't disappoint.