Speed Climbing
The fastest sport at the Olympics.
Speed climbing is simple and brutal: a standardised 15-metre wall, overhanging 5 degrees, identical in every gym and arena on the planet. Same holds, same route, since 2007. Two climbers race side by side; you hit a pad at the top to stop the clock. The world’s best men cover it in under five seconds — that’s roughly three metres per second, straight up. Blink twice and you miss the race.
Because the route never changes, speed climbing is the track and field of the climbing world. It rewards explosive power, perfect repetition, and nerve. One slip ends your race — there are no second tries.
Competition record
Source: World Climbing (IFSC) official athlete profile, as of 11 June 2026.
| Event | Location | Date | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| World Climbing Oceania Championship | Mount Maunganui, NZL | Feb 2026 | 🥇 1st |
| World Climbing Series Wujiang | Wujiang, CHN | May 2026 | 35th |
| IFSC World Championships | Seoul, KOR | Sep 2025 | 31st |
| The World Games | Chengdu, CHN | Aug 2025 | 15th |
| IFSC World Cups (Wujiang, Bali, Denver, Krakow, Chamonix, Guiyang) | CHN · INA · USA · POL · FRA | 2025 season | 22nd–46th |
| IFSC Oceania Cup | Mount Maunganui, NZL | Feb 2025 | 🥇 1st |
| NEOM IFSC Masters | NEOM, KSA | Nov 2024 | 12th |
| Olympic Games Paris 2024 — Men’s Speed | Paris, FRA | Aug 2024 | 8th · PB 5.20s |
| IFSC World Cup Briançon | Briançon, FRA | Jul 2024 | 14th |
| IFSC Oceania Qualifier (Olympic quota won) | Melbourne, AUS | Nov 2023 | 🥇 1st |
| IFSC Youth World Championships | Seoul, KOR | Aug 2023 | 🥇 1st — World Champion |
| IFSC World Championships | Bern, SUI | Aug 2023 | 62nd |
| First World Cup season | Jakarta · Dallas | 2022 | Learning the circuit |
How I train
I train on the international-standard speed wall at Blake Park, Mount Maunganui — one of the reasons Tauranga has become the home of NZ speed climbing — under coach Rob Moore, with a programme that blends wall repetitions, explosive strength work, sprint mechanics and sports science. Business Insider’s Second To None series followed a full training block before Paris:
The Jumping Onto series
Between training blocks I film Jumping Onto — a series where I use a speed climber’s legs to jump onto boxes, walls, fences, and things that make my mum nervous. One clip (“5× national champ at 21”) has 1.8 million views, and World Climbing’s official channels have picked the series up. It’s the best shop window the sport has: five seconds of racing is hard to explain, but everyone understands a huge jump.
What people are saying →← Back to home