Paris 2024: Sport Climbing preview
Get ready for wall-to-wall action as the sport climbing competition at Paris 2024 kicks-off today with four Olympic debutants taking to the wall for Great Britain.
Hamish McArthur, Erin McNeice, Toby Roberts and Molly Thompson-Smith are all competing in the Boulder & Lead discipline, which culminates in finals on Friday and Saturday for the Men’s and Women’s respectively.
Format
Sport Climbing's second Olympic showing will take place in Le Bourget in the northeastern suburbs of Paris. The format changes from Tokyo 2020 and will now see two medals available for the sport, one for Boulder & Lead and one for Speed. Twenty women and twenty men will take to the mats for the Boulder & Lead event. There are no British athletes competing in the Speed event.
There are four problems in each Boulder round with 25 points available on each. The climbers have five minutes per problem and as many attempts as they can muster within the time limit.
100 points is the maximum score available in the Lead round with athletes getting six minutes to climb as high as they can, once they fall their round is over.
The top eight athletes with the highest combined score across Boulder and Lead will progress to the finals.
Schedule
5 AUGUST
09:00 - Men's Boulder & Lead, Semifinal Boulder
6 AUGUST
09:00 - Women's Boulder & Lead, Semifinal Boulder
7 AUGUST
09:00 - Men's Boulder & Lead, Semifinal Lead
8 AUGUST
09:00 - Women's Boulder & Lead, Semifinal Lead
9 AUGUST
09:15 - Men's Boulder & Lead, Final Boulder
11:35 - Men's Boulder & Lead, Final Lead
10 AUGUST
09:15 - Women's Boulder & Lead, Final Boulder
11:35 - Women's Boulder & Lead, Final Lead
Meet the climbers
Toby Roberts
Nineteen-year-old Toby Roberts became the first-ever British male to secure an Olympic ticket at the IFSC European Qualifier Laval in October 2023. Roberts claimed his first senior medal with a Lead bronze in 2022 at the Edinburgh Lead World Cup. In 2023, he won World Cup golds in both Boulder and Lead, continuing his medal streak into 2024 with three more medals, including a Lead win in Wujiang.
Hamish McArthur
Hamish McArthur joined the GB senior climbing team at just 16 years old and placed third on the world junior stage at 19. He was crowned world junior champion in Boulder and Lead in 2021. Now aged 23, McArthur has worked hard to establish himself on the global circuit, securing a place at Paris 2024 through the Olympic Qualifier Series (OQS) in June.
Molly Thompson-Smith
Molly Thompson-Smith, 26, became the first British woman to win a medal in a Lead World Cup event with bronze in Slovenia in 2017. Her growing success led to a bronze medal at the 2020 European Climbing Championships in Moscow. After suffering a severe ankle break in 2023, Thompson-Smith has not had a straightforward journey to the Games. However, after placing 13th in Shanghai and 11th in Budapest in the OQS, she secured her ticket to the Games alongside McArthur and McNeice.
Erin McNeice
Rounding out the team is 20-year-old Erin McNeice. McNeice’s breakthrough season has come this year, beginning with a fifth-place finish at the Lead World Cup in Keqiao before following that up quickly with another fifth at the Boulder World Cup in Wujiang. Two third-place finishes at the OQS events ensured she sealed her Paris 2024 ticket.
Support Team
The support team for the British climbers in Paris includes:
Team Leader: Jon Garside
GB Team Coaches: Liam Briddon, Rachel Carr, Tristian Roberts, Mark Glennie
Support Coach: Eleanor Glennie
Team Support: Lucinda Whittaker
In the UK, Emma Bird and Michelle Forrest provide appeals support.
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