The standalone Olympic discipline is getting faster and faster
As the IFSC World Cup Chamonix 2025 began, the Speed climbers needed to pull out all the stops to make it through qualification as both the men’s and women’s finals cut off times were the lowest they’ve ever been.
Previously the lowest time to make it through to finals were posted in Wujiang, China at the start of the year with 5.16s for the men and 7.11s for the women. In Chamonix, that time was lowered to 5.09s for the men and 7.08s for the women.
China’s Long Jianguo won the IFSC World Cup Wujiang, and he leads the way in the men’s competition with a time of 4.78s – a personal best.
Hot on his heels is Kazakhstan’s Amir Maimuratov followed by the USA pair of Sam Watson and Zach Hammer. Mr Consistent in 2025 is Indonesia’s Kiromal Katibin who has won a medal at every World Cup so far, and with a place in finals will be hoping his podium run continues.
Talking about Chamonix Maimuratov said: “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.”
Someone who didn’t lose last week was Indonesia’s Raharjati Nursamsa. Despite winning gold in Kraków, he will still be wanting to show his best – even if he isn’t racing on anger - and he made it through to the finals in seventh.
China’s Long is joined by two countrymen in Li Xu and Chu Shouhong in the finals which makes three from the nation, and that tally is equalled by Italy who has world champion Matteo Zurloni joined by Gian Luca Zodda and Ludovico Fossali who occupies the 16th spot.
Despite not making it into the final round, Switzerland’s Gilles Meili was taking part in his first ever World Cup and took the lead from everyone else by setting a fast time – nearly a whole second quicker than his previous competition personal best.
Finishing in 36th overall Meili said: “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.”
Looking ahead to more IFSC competitions Meili said: “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.”
Men’s finals competitors
1 LONG Jianguo (CHN) 4.78
2 Amir MAIMURATOV (KAZ) 4.89
3 Samuel WATSON (USA) 4.90
4 Zach HAMMER (USA) 4.91
5 Kiromal KATIBIN (INA) 4.93
6 OMASA Ryo (JPN) 4.95
7 Raharjati NURSAMSA (INA) 4.98
8 Rishat KHAIBULLIN (KAZ) 5.03
9 LI Xu (CHN) 5.05
10 Erik NOYA CARDONA (ESP) 5.05
11 Pierre REBREYEND (FRA) 5.08
12 Matteo ZURLONI (ITA) 5.08
13 Gian Luca ZODDA (ITA) 5.08
14 Leander CARMANNS (GER) 5.08
15 CHU Shouhong (CHN) 5.09
16 Ludovico FOSSALI (ITA) 5.09
Full men’s qualification Speed results here
The women’s Speed qualification continued where Kraków left off with the top three places taken by the medal winners in Poland last week.
In a little mix up of the positions, qualification in Chamonix saw Poland’s Aleksandra Miroslaw in top spot with Indonesia’s Desak Dewi fresh off a first-ever World Cup gold in second and USA’s Emma Hunt in third. The best time of the day was 6.38s from world record holder Miroslaw.
One climber doing things a little different from Kraków is Hunt’s teammate Isis Rothfork: “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.”
Lowering her personal best time to 7.01s to place in 11th overall, Rothfork isolated her thoughts ahead of the competition: “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.”
With a final round to now look forward to, Rothfork has some new goals and targets to hit: “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.”
The Chamonix qualification was the fastest ever with China’s Zhang Shaoqin time of 7.08s the cut off in 16thplace, and Italy’s Beatrice Colli was maybe caught a little off guard by the times: “I was surprised with 7.03 I was 14th, it’s crazy, everyone is going so fast now.”
Making it through, Colli gave her thoughts on her round: “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.”
While the final is dominated by Poland, Indonesia, USA and China, the Chamonix crowd will have a home nation climber to cheer for as Olympian Capucine Viglione made it through in 12th place.
Women’s finals competitors
1 Aleksandra MIROSLAW (POL) 6.38
2 Desak MADE RITA KUSUMA DEWI (INA) 6.42
3 Emma HUNT (USA) 6.54
4 ZHOU Yafei (CHN) 6.54
5 QIN Yumei (CHN) 6.55
6 JEONG Jimin (KOR) 6.59
7 Natalia KALUCKA (POL) 6.60
8 Aleksandra KALUCKA (POL) 6.80
9 ZHANG Mengli (CHN) 6.89
10 Rajiah SALLSABILLAH (INA) 6.94
11 Isis ROTHFORK (USA) 7.01
12 Capucine VIGLIONE (FRA) 7.01
13 Giulia RANDI (ITA) 7.03
14 Beatrice COLLI (ITA) 7.03
15 Leslie Adriana ROMERO PÉREZ (ESP) 7.07
16 ZHANG Shaoqin (CHN) 7.08
Full women’s qualification Speed results here
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, YouTube, and exclusively for the Chinese audience, Douyin, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu.
