In the third IFSC Speed World Cup of the 2025 season, downtown Denver, USA will welcome 82 athletes from 20 nations to compete for World Cup glory, with one athlete in particular hoping for a new lease of Speed life.

Ecuador’s Andrea Rojas has been competing on the international stage since 2011 in all of the climbing disciplines. But, after giving everything in Speed in an effort to qualify for the Olympic Games Paris 2024, Rojas needed a bit of time to reassess things.

Rojas said: “After the OQS (Olympic Qualifier Series) last year I decided to take a break from comps to rediscover my inner passion for the sport. I was trying to reconnect with myself out of the competition environment.

“Honestly, I wanted to stop with Speed, but Albert Ok motivated me to try again, with a new way of training with him, so I gave it a go.”

With a new way of training with the ‘professor’ – as Ok is known on Instagram – Rojas started to see results with a moral boosting win: “Chile organised the Pan American Championships in Santiago, so I had a new goal. We trained hard for it, I got injured, but I was able to compete, and I won.”

Even with a gold medal confidence booster, Rojas still had some doubts as she had to deal with something every elite athlete wishes they didn’t – an injury.

“I had to stop again for two, almost three, months because of my shoulder injury and again I didn’t know if it made sense to continue trying, but this time I wanted to be back and try to live this competition life in a better way. Little by little I got back into good shape and now I feel I am in my best shape ever.”

Despite the ‘best shape ever’, Rojas still is keeping her feet on the ground – at least when it comes to her mentality: “I have no expectations for this comp. I just want to enjoy the environment, adapt to the wall as best as I can and show my 100%.”

Rojas doesn’t just have a Speed connection as an athlete to the current IFSC World Cup circuit, she also coaches her friend, Argentina’s Valentina Aguado, in the Lead and Boulder disciplines.

There is also her life outside of the circuit. “These last two years I’ve been starting my career as a coach with a youth team in Milan, Italy. I studied sport science at university there and I love it!”

Talking about her current situation with Aguado, Rojas said: “Last summer my friend Valentina wanted to start training with someone new and asked me for help. I felt so honoured to try this new thing. We managed to balance our friendship and our coach-athlete relationship pretty well and she also managed to win the Lead competition at the Pan Ams the same day as me. It was super special!”

Both Rojas and Aguado have had to find strength to deal with difficult situations, Rojas more competitively and Aguado more personal, and both have called upon the other to help each other through.

“It was so much more special because our wins happened one month after Valentina’s dad passed away. We had such a hard year, but we found strength in each other, and I was so proud of how she was able to compete and show her best.”

Bringing the focus back to Speed, and the present, Rojas is excited for a new destination on the IFSC World Cup calendar: “⁠I love that comps are in new places! Something that I really enjoy from this life is the possibility to discover new places and cultures from all the world.

“For sure competing in a big city like Denver makes the event special. I hope that we can show how fun our discipline is and inspire some people to climb too or try it for themselves.”

In the new downtown destination, Rojas will be up against the likes of previous winners from China; Deng Lijuan, Zhou Yafei and Zhang Shaoqin. Other climbers to have taken the top step are Poland’s Natalia Kalucka and USA’s own Emma Hunt who will be in a ten-strong team of home nation female climbers.

For the men, all eyes will undoubtedly be on world record holder Sam Watson who lowered his previous record to a now world’s best of 4.64s in Bali last time out.

Watson will be up against former world record holder Kiromal Katibin who is on a podium run with two bronze medals from the first two World Cup events in 2025.

Katibin is joined by fellow Indonesian and previous gold medallist Alfian Muhammad Fajri while other previous winners include Italy’s Ludovico Fossali who will be alongside countryman and world champion Matteo Zurloni, and China’s Long Jianguo.

The IFSC Speed World Cup Denver starts on Saturday 31 May with qualification for both the men and women with both finals rounds a day later on Sunday 1 June.

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