Through observations, winks and anecdotes, the Carnets de Paris immerse you in the heart of the Olympic Games.
Quiz question: Which race is won the fastest at the Olympics? The 100m in athletics? Try again.
This is the speed test in the climbing discipline, with a world record of 6.06 seconds (for women, set on Monday morning) and 4.79 seconds (for men) to climb a 15 m high wall.
Anyone who has ever seen this event has wondered what exactly is going on. The athletes are going so fast on the wall that it looks like that good old movie trick where, to make it look like the superhero is climbing a wall, the actor is filmed walking on all fours on a set set up on a floor.
Introduced in Tokyo, this sport comes with three events. In addition to speed, there are two events that are more skill-based. The first is the bouldering event, where competitors are presented with four short courses that go no higher than 4.5 meters from the ground and are puzzles that they must solve in 4 or 5 minutes. The second is the difficulty course. In this case, they only have one chance to find the way to go as high as possible on a 15-meter high wall whose slope is mostly negative.
In Tokyo, the climber who did best in these three events won the medal. In Paris, there will be two medals: one for speed and one for the two skill events.
This gives rise to extraordinary slow-motion ballets that combine elegance, balancing and power. We see the athletes holding on to microscopic objects held only by the tips of their fingers or toes. To achieve their goal, they must jump, swing and completely overturn.
“You can’t overstate the degree of difficulty of these competitions,” famous American climber Alex Honnold, who was the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary, explains in the Paris Games podcast (Free Solo). “What these competitors achieve is almost impossible. Personally, I wouldn’t even be able to get past the first difficulties in the bouldering test. Ordinary climbers often wouldn’t even know how to go about it to even start getting off the ground.”
“Competition climbing is really at the forefront of moves in our sport. They’re doing things that no one has done before. I’m learning from moves that they’re inventing. To be honest, I can’t do what they do. But it gives you an idea of what’s possible and broadens your horizons.”
This report was financed with the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund-
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