Adam Ondra on 6th Place at Olympics and Feeling Bitter
"Every sport event creates just one winner, and just three medalists and many 'losers'..."
The Paris 2024 Olympics have come to an end with Janja Garnbret and Toby Roberts winning gold in the women’s and men’s combined categories. You can read more about some of the highlights of the Olympics here.
One of the favourites going into finals was Czech superstar Adam Ondra, who looked poised to best his Tokyo Olympics performance and possibly land on the podium. However, despite having a strong lead round, his boulder round wasn’t good enough for him to finish with a medal.
Ondra broke his silence today, four days after finals, on Instagram, saying, “Every sport event creates just one winner, and just three medalists and many ‘losers’ which is [the] merciless nature of sport. I feel like the Olympic Games are even tougher as the competition itself feels so important to every single participant, and that ‘loss’ has an even more bitter taste than any other competition. In our sport, where many of my generation did not really have a chance to compete at the Olympics during our late teens or early 20s, it feels even more bitter.”
Climbing will return to the Olympics in 2028 when the games head to LA. It’s too soon to tell who from Paris will qualify, but there’s a good chance that several of the most-watched “big name” climbers might not have what it takes to compete against the next generation of competitors.
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