Sarah Tetzlaff of New Zealand is preparing to line up at the IFSC Climbing World Cup Guiyang 2025, the sixth and final Speed competition of the season, and her first in 2025: in fact, the Paris 2024 Olympian is returning to international competition after a hand injury sidelined her for several months earlier this year.

“I’m fully recovered now. I spent four months off the wall because I injured a lumbrical in my hand, which was quite annoying. But now I’ve been cleared to train at full capacity, so now it’s just about building up confidence for myself and what I’m doing on the wall,” said Tetzlaff.

With 73 athletes from 16 nations and four continents registered, Guiyang will bring a decisive close to the Speed season, where both the men’s and women’s series titles are still in play. For the women, Tetzlaff is focused on rebuilding her rhythm, not results.

FOCUSING ON EXPERIENCE

The New Zealander, who has long carried the Oceanian Speed records, knows this competition will be more about process than performance.

“It’s just about gaining that experience again, in competitions and getting comfortable,” she explained. “So, I won’t be at my best for this competition and maybe not in Seoul either, but this is the best thing for me, to still come to these events and try and do my best for where I’m at right now. And then we’ve got a lot of work to do in the off season, which is also kind of exciting.”

Still, she balances realism with determination: “I’m still taking it really seriously and I want to do my best, but I’m also juggling that mentally, that it’s not going to be my very best, but I know that there’ll be good things coming a bit later on.”

OCEANIAN GROWTH

Tetzlaff held the women’s Speed Oceanian record for a long time, until it was recently beaten by her teammate Helen Lee at The World Games Chengdu 2025, who set a new mark of 8.29 seconds. For Tetzlaff, the change is a reflection of healthy competition in the region.

“It’s been kind of a privilege to be the first person to be breaking all those Oceanian records, but I know I’m not setting world class times yet, and it’s great to have teammates and younger girls coming up underneath me to push me,” she said.

She added: “Sometimes it’s a bit scary, because they’re pretty fast, but I think everyone thrives with a bit of competition locally, and we’ve really lacked that in New Zealand and in Oceania, just because we’re so new to the sport.”

The Paris Olympian is equally proud of her role as both competitor and mentor: “I’m super proud. And it’s so exciting to see it grow and for all of the younger kids from New Zealand that have been competing in Speed, I’ve coached every single one of them. It’s so great to have the level be pushed because it’s what we need to kind of get up to the very top of the sport and be really competitive with the rest of the world.”

With plans in motion to expand Speed infrastructure in New Zealand – where currently only one Speed wall exists – Tetzlaff sees this moment as the start of something bigger: “Once we can do that, I think it’ll really grow and people will just love to do it.”

NEXT UP

Qualifications are set to kick off today, Friday, 12 September at 18:00 (UTC+8:00), while finals will take place tomorrow, Saturday 13, starting from 19:30. Both rounds will be streamed live on the IFSC YouTube channel, with geo-blocking in place for certain countries and territories.

News and updates about the event will be available on the IFSC website and on the Federation’s digital channels: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, X, and exclusively for the Chinese audience, Bilibili, Douyin, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu.