Quotes from the athletes at the Speed and Lead competitions taking place in the French mountain town
The IFSC Climbing World Cup in Chamonix, France hosted competitors from around the world at this year's fifth Speed World Cup and fourth Lead World Cup competition. Here’s what some of the top-performing athletes had to say following each round.
SPEED FINALS
Aleksandra Miroslaw of Poland - women's gold medal
“I actually return here after seven years as my last Chamonix World Cup was in 2018 when I also won, so I’m happy because Chamonix is very special. My first gold was here also, so it’s like the cycle of history.”
“It’s not a new injury. I had it before Tokyo [2020] and then it was ok, but now it’s back. But I have two months now to recover before the World Champs.”
Desak Made Rita Kusuma Dewi of Indonesia - women's silver medal
“I’m sad because I made some mistakes in my climbing, but I’m still happy as it’s the second medal in two events.”
Emma Hunt of USA - women's bronze medal
“I’m happy because it’s a medal, a personal record and a new Pan American record, which I forgot about.”
“It’s so special because it’s the first competition that my whole family has been to where I’ve medalled, so it’s a special place.”
Sam Watson of USA - men's gold medal
“This is the crown jewel of the World Cup circuit here in Chamonix. It’s my second time, so a repeat of last year, and this one meant a lot.”
“The funny thing is that a 4.65 with a 1.90 reaction time, legally I could have gone 0.09 faster and got the world record,” said Watson, “but it’s quite poetic considering my false start at the last one and my slow and cautious reaction times this comp. But records will fall in the future and I’m happy to be on the top step of the podium.”
Rishat Khaibullin of Kazakhstan - men's silver medal
“I’m a little bit tired but I am so excited after this competition. It’s a wonderful place for a World Cup so I really enjoy it.”
Zach Hammer of USA - men's bronze medal
“It means so much. Obviously, I loved Denver but it was a bit unfortunate that it got rained out, so it means a lot to get a podium after doing a full round of competition.”
LEAD QUALIFICATIONS
Alex Megos of Germany
“For now qualification is okay. I think it’s really good this time that you don’t have to top both routes in Chamonix to be through to semis.
“The routes, I mean I’ve only climbed one so far, but it’s really good. Good route setting so far.”
Lucija Tarkus of Slovenia
“I was pretty nervous before the start because it was my first Lead competition of the year, and I focussed more on Boulder for the first part of the season, so I wasn’t fully confident with my Lead performance.
“I made a bit of a stupid mistake on the first one and I knew I have to climb really high on the second route, and I’m really happy that I did it I feel it.”
SPEED QUALIFICATIONS
Amir Maimuratov of Kazakhstan
“Chamonix is a magic place for me, I had my very first final here. This place has very fresh air, a great atmosphere and everyone seems to be going very fast as they are very hungry after Kraków.
“Having a World Cup so quickly after the last one, there are a lot of people that are angry because they lost and want to show their best, so it made it a fast round.”
Gilles Meili of Switzerland
“It feels only half good because on the 5.3 qualification run my Tomoa skip was very bad, so the first half of the route was very slow for me, but then I managed to push out in the second half of the route.”
“I’ll do the World Champs, and if the time to make finals is similar to [the Chamonix times] my goal would be to make finals. If I get a clean run I can do a 5.1 and there is still a lot of time to go until the event so I think I can only get faster.”
Isis Rothfork of USA
“I’m very happy with my qualification because Kraków was bad. I was kind of stressed going into this comp and I changed my goals a little bit. I wanted the emphasis on good, quality runs over just being fast and I was able to do well by my standards. I changed how I was thinking, not how I was climbing."
"I had some good training before this in Switzerland, and it’s always nice to have good times in training going into a comp but with Speed you can have good times and a bad comp, so I think my mental switch was more key than anything else.”
“I’ll just try and take it one step at a time. I’ve never won a race in finals so to PB in the competition and win a race would be nice.”
Beatrice Colli of Italy
“I was surprised with 7.03 I was 14th, it’s crazy, everyone is going so fast now.”
“I’m happy because Chamonix is always the best place to compete and before qualification, I was feeling great and wanted to do my best. I couldn’t do my best though because I had bad reaction time as I was thinking too much about a false start.”
