The Fastest Round in IFSC History

Last night made history. After months of training and waiting, the world’s quickest climbers returned to the wall for the fastest day in IFSC history. Indonesia’s Kiromal Katibin and Poland’s Aleksandra Miroslaw each shaved decimals off their fastest runs to set their categories’ new World Records.

In Salt Lake City of last Year, Leonardo set the previous World Record at 5.20 seconds. Yesterday Katibin ran 5.17 outpacing his teammate. As many Speed climbers run their fastest times in practice, a question remains as to the to possible speed of Indonesia’s best.

Although the qualification round follows a two run format where the fastest eight make finals, the head-to-head fromae of the final pressures athletes to not beat their opponent over setting a fastest time.

With that said, we have never seen final like this in World Cup history. To begin, Indonesia dominated the qualification round with five athletes making the eight man final. These five all fall within the top six positions. Furthermore, in order to win head-to-head against his teammates, Katibin will still have to run under 5.4 second speed runs.

This task is difficult enough in itself. The slowest speed of the men’s top eight was 5.76 seconds. The sport has developed in the off-season.

In the women’s field, Miroslaw beat her own World Record by two tenths of a second. With a run time of 6.64 seconds, Miroslaw outpaced the second-place qualified athlete by an entire half-second, asserting herself as the best in the world.

Although the women’s field has more spreads times than the men’s, Indonesia has one again condensed at the top of the field. The country’s three fastest women scored second through fourth with speeds splitting between 7.15 second and 7.31 seconds. The slowest time to make finals was an 8.23 second run from France Lison Gautron, 1.61 seconds slower than Miroslaw.

Although Indonesia certainly made their mark on this morning’s qualification round, Poland retains their dominance in the field with two other women making finals. Watch the fastest head-to-head final below.

Heading to Finals

Men

1 – Kiromal Katibin (INA) 5.17

2 – Veddriq Leonardo (INA) 5.41

3 – Rahmad Adi Mulyono (INA) 5.48

4 – Reza Alipour Shenazandifard (IRI) 5.49

5 – Aspar Aspar (INA) 5.70

6 – Zaenal Aripin (INA) 5.74

7 – Seung Beom Lee (KOR) 5.76

8 – Erik Noya Cardona (ESP) 5.78

9 – Guillaume Moro (FRA) 5.79

10 – Alfian Muhammad Fajri (INA) 5.80

11 – Yongjun Jung (KOR) 5.85

12 – Ludovico Fossali (ITA) 5.887

13 – Tobias Plangger (AUT) 5.889

14 – Raharjati Nursamsa (INA) 5.93

15 – Pierre Rebreyend (FRA) 5.94

16 – Samuel Watson (USA) 5.97

Women

1 – Aleksandra Miroslaw (POL) 6.64

2 – Desak Made Rita Kusuma Dewi (INA) 7.15

3 – Rajiah Sallsabillah (INA) 7.26

4 – Nurul Iqamah (INA) 7.31

5 – Aleksandra Kalucka (POL) 7.40

6 – Patrycja Chudziak (POL) 7.51

7 – Franziska Ritter (GER) 7.55

8 – Capucine Viglione (FRA) 7.67

9 – Beatrice Colli (ITA) 7.80

10 – Natalia Kalucka (POL) 7.83

11 – Emma Hunt (USA) 7.99

12 – Aurelia Sarisson (FRA) 8.05

13 – Jimin Jeong (KOR) 8.12

14 – Alivany Ver Khadijah (INA) 8.18

15 – Nuria Brockfeld (GER) 8.20

16 – Lison Gautron (FRA) 8.23