The IFSC Youth World Championships in Helsinki, Finland drew to a close with the Speed discipline as the U17 and U19 men and women crowned their new world title winners at the KiipeilyAreena Ristikko gym.

Earlier in the week the Helsingin Kiipeilykeskus venue hosted the Boulder discipline before the young athletes of the Lead and Speed disciplines moved to the second venue.

With the Boulder and Lead medallists already confirmed, it was time for the Speed climbers to show what they could do to close the show.

In the men’s U17, China’s Zhao Yicheng was the standout performer coming close to sub-5 runs in qualification before breaking that barrier and lowering his times in every run until he secured his gold.

Zhao’s times were 4.95s, then 4.90s, then 4.88s in the semis before a 4.85s in the final. A real mark of consistency in such a young athlete.

Zhao beat teammate Yu Zexuan in the final which meant Yu took the silver medal. The Chinese athletes were joined on the podium by Japanese climber Saito Sota who beat Italy’s Jacopo Titi in the bronze medal race after the Italian fell.

The women’s U17 Speed gold was won by USA’s Evie Albrecht who had the odds stacked against her in the final races of the rounds. Albrecht was outnumbered three-to-one by Chinese climbers but rose above to claim the gold.

Albrecht beat Tang Jiaxin in the very tight gold medal race with the American posting a 6.96s to the Chinese climbers 6.99s meaniing Tang had to settle for silver. Wang Chunyouxuan beat Li Xiaofei in the bronze medal match-up to take the final place on the podium.

With two places on the each U17 podium, it was mixed fortunes for China in the U19 category as they had a lock-out in the women’s but no place on the men’s podium.

Meng Shixue led the Chinese 1-2-3 in the women’s U19 beating teammate Wang Yuting to gold. Bai Yumei joined gold medallist Meng and silver medallist Wang on the podium with a bronze medal. Bai beat USA’s Madi Walsh in the bronze medal race.

With Asian climbers dominating the Speed podiums in all other categories, the men’s U19 broke the trend with an all-European top three.

Germany’s Aodhan Umlauf came through to win gold ahead of silver medallist Francesco Ponzinibio of Italy and bronze medallist Paco Lahmann of France.

Umlauf won with a time of 5.37s in the final to Ponzinibio’s 5.73s while Lahmann’s time of 5.42s was enough to beat China’s Mai Taede to the bronze medal.

With all medals from all disciplines and categories claimed, the only task that was left was to make the official handover of the hosting from Helsinki, Finland to Arco, Italy.

IFSC Vice President Kobinata Toru formally passed the IFSC flag from Enni Bertling, representing the Finnish Local Organising Committee, to Davide Battistella, President of FASI, who will host the 2026 edition in Arco, Italy, to close a very successful event for the first-time hosts.