From Training Tool to Olympic Glory
How did speed climbing develop from a training exercise into the fastest Olympic sport? Athletes now race up a 15-meter wall in under 5 seconds, representing one of the most exciting evolutions in modern sports. Unlike regular sport climbing, which focuses on problem-solving and endurance, speed climbing demands explosive raw power, immaculate memorization, and split-second precision.
What began as a simple training method in the Soviet Union during the 1940s has transformed into a global phenomenon that captured audiences at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics. Understanding this development reveals how standardization, technological advancement, and international competition can transform a niche activity into a mainstream athletic spectacle.
Speed climbing started in the Soviet Union as a training exercise to help rebuild the climbing community after World War II.[1] The early climbs were essentially training exercises for mountaineers who wanted to take on big alpine expeditions. The Soviets got serious about it, using timed climbing to pick out their best athletes for elite camps in the Caucasus mountains.
The Russian federation of climbing established actual rules for speed competitions, bringing structure to what had been informal training exercises.[1]
The first international competition for speed happened in Gagra, Russia, where climbers from around the world got to glimpse how the Soviets did things.[2] But the sport was held back because every competition was completely different - one might have a 15-meter wall with certain holds, while another had a 20-meter wall with totally different grips.
Times and records in competitions could not be compared with one another, which made it hard for speed climbing to be taken seriously as a real sport. A world record set in one event basically meant nothing anywhere else.
Everything changed when French routesetter Jacky Godoffe created the standardized 15m speed climbing route.[3] Now every speed wall around the world has exactly the same setup: 20 handholds and 11 footholds each set in specific positions on the route. The wall is overhung by 5 degrees which makes it challenging but not impossible.
This was revolutionary because it meant athletes could actually memorize the route and emphasize purely on getting faster rather than adapting to new walls, routes, and holds every time. Suddenly, world records actually meant something because everyone was climbing the same route.
When the route was first established, climbers were hitting around the seven seconds mark. Athletes started to specifically train for speed with explosive movements, sprint workouts, and endless practice runs.
Veddriq Leonardo from Indonesia made history, being the first ever climber to break five seconds with a time of 4.984 seconds.[4] This represented nearly two decades of progressive improvement in technique, training, and equipment.
Men: Samuel Watson (USA) holds the world record at 4.648 seconds.
Women: Aleksandra Miroslaw (Poland) dominates with a record of 6.034 seconds from the 2025 World Championships in Seoul, Korea.[5] She has broken her own world record so many times that people lost count.
Times dropped from seven seconds to below five seconds in less than twenty years. These improvements came from better training methods, more advanced equipment, and athletes who were obsessed with shaving off hundredths and thousandths of a second.
When speed climbing made it to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, it should have been a huge celebration but instead it started a lot of drama in the climbing world. The IFSC decided to combine speed climbing with bouldering and lead climbing - two completely different types of climbing - and everyone hated it.[6]
Olympic finalist Adam Ondra straight up called it a circus.[7] The Olympic Committee only gave one gold medal per gender, so the IFSC didn't want to leave speed climbing out, even though it requires totally different skills than the other disciplines.
After seeing how strange the combined format was in Tokyo, they split things up for Paris 2024 so speed climbers could compete in their own event without having to be good at bouldering and lead climbing.
Despite all the complaints about the format, the Olympics were amazing for speed climbing's popularity boost. Millions of people who had never watched climbing before got to see athletes fly up a 15-meter wall in under five seconds, racing head-to-head in elimination brackets like it was a track meet. The sport went from being very niche to something that had mainstream appeal.
Looking at how speed climbing went from a Soviet training drill to the fastest Olympic sport shows how powerful standardization and competition can be in transforming something niche into a global phenomenon. The 2007 decision to create one standardized 15-meter wall and route was the game changer that made everything possible.
The Tokyo Olympics had its issues with the combined format, but it did a great job of putting speed climbing in front of a massive audience and proved it deserved to be there. Now that it has its own Olympic event, speed climbing's popularity is only going to keep growing.
More countries are building facilities, more younger kids are getting into it, and the athletes keep getting faster. It is proof that with the right combination of innovation, competition, and pure determination, almost anything can become a world-class sport that gets people excited.