First-ever qualifight in Sport Climbing at Olympic Games

For the first time in history, the Olympic Games became the venue of a sport climbing competition. 20 climbers from all over the world tried to qualify for the 8-person finals in Tokyo. In 3 different categories at the same time. Speed climbing, bouldering and lead climbing. Try to imagine a legendary Usain Bolt competing in the 100 m sprint, the marathon run and the 400 m hurdles within the same day! The result we all could witness was a real qualifight.

The drama show

As a "speed climbing outsider" and a hot medal aspirant at the same time, Adam entered the first of the three parts with only one goal. Not to be last. And he made it. With the 18th place and a satisfying feeling, he headed towards much more liked bouldering and the things started to get really tough. The Olympic route setters had prepared quite difficult and varied boulder problems. So it is not surprising that none of the competitors toped all of the 4 boulders. But for sure the brothers' duo Mickael and Bassa Mawems from France stood out and earned a huge respect. As expected, they did a great job in speed climbing as it is their main domain but no one would have expected such an unbelievable performance in bouldering they managed to pull off. Mickael topped out 3 routes which immediately boosted him to the overall 1st place, even ahead of Tomoa Narasaki who is considered as really strong in both speed and bouldering. Adam managed to top out 2 out of 4 boulder problems. He almost got to the top of the third boulder but unfortunately ran out of time. In the end it didn’t matter as he finished in 3rd place and 6th in the overall results.

Finally came Adam's favourite discipline. Lead climbing. It was obvious all the climbers would have to dig deep after the two previous styles. Plus as the evening progresses the humidity gets close to 70% and it just requires a brutal power and stamina to climb in these conditions. The holds get very slippery and the competition becomes a thrilling game. Every single little mistake can cost you precious energy, but at the same time climbing on the very edge of impossible and risk is the only thing which can get you higher.

Adam made it to the hold number 39 and then in his own words just ran out of manna. He finished in 4th position and qualified for the first-ever finals in sport climbing at the Olympic Games from the overall 5th place.

Check out the full results from all 3 disciplines.

- The men's finals will start on Thursday, August 5 at 10:30 CET.

Disclaimer: During the Olympic games Adam will be solely focusing on his physical and mental preparations for the finals. Therefore all the Tokyo Echoes news are brought to you by his team members. Thank you very much for understanding.