Polish Climber Miroslaw Breaks Women's Speed World Record Twice In Qualification

PARIS, Aug 5 (Bernama-Xinhua) – The opening day of sport climbing at the Paris Olympics saw both accidents and records.

Poland's Aleksandra Miroslaw broke her own world record twice, while a timing system malfunction caused a 20-minute interruption in the competition at Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue, Xinhua reported.

The speed climbing qualification round progressed through seeding and elimination stages to determine the top eight. Miroslaw clocked 6.21 seconds in her first attempt during the seeding phase, surpassing the previous world record by 0.03 seconds. She then improved her time to 6.06 seconds in the second round.

In the elimination round, the Polish finished with 6.10 seconds against Aniya Holder of South Africa and progressed into the finals.

The 30-year-old Miroslaw is the oldest among the 14 female speed climbers. She has broken the world record seven times since 2021 leading up to the current Olympic Games. However, the current leader in the discipline declined interviews with international media after the competition, expressing her feelings briefly in Polish before leaving the venue.

The speed event began with a hitch. The timing device on Lane A failed to stop when the first two competitors, Zhou Yafei of China and Indonesia's Desak, reached the top. The competition was temporarily halted, and the two climbers were allowed to rerun their attempts after the glitch was fixed.

"I was sure I hit the finishing pad on the top, and when I didn't see my time, I panicked a bit," Zhou recalled after the qualification. "But when I saw the Indonesian girl had the same issue, I knew it was a system problem, so I calmed down," she added.

The 20-year-old Zhou achieved a personal best of 6.38 seconds in the qualification, progressing into the final with her compatriot Deng Lijuan.

An email sent after the event said "The Paris 2024 teams are currently analysing the causes of this incident to ensure that it does not happen again".

Earlier in the day, the boulder phase of the men’s combined semi-final presented challenges from the route setters. Sorato Anraku of Japan, the youngest climbing athlete in Paris, was the only competitor to solve two out of the four problems in the semi-final.

 The 17-year-old was proud of his performance in a hard first round. "I'm happy that I topped two boulders, but I was frustrated that I couldn't do boulder four," said Anraku, adding that his ambition was "to become the king of climbing".

Others would cheer if they had only one boulder solved. "The routes are super hard!" said Czech climbing star Adam Ondra. "It's just a tiny mistake (that could lead to failure). You don't place your foot on the foothold 100 per cent the way it should be, and there's nothing you can do," he added.

Ondra, a 12-time World Championship medallist, managed to top only one out of the four routes but celebrated with a roar after completing the final route. 'Right now, the goal is to make it to the finals, which I know is extremely difficult,' he said.

Chinese climber Pan Yufei is currently in 13th place. The eight final spots will be decided after the lead competition on Wednesday.

--BERNAMA-XINHUA