GB Climbing athletes will be setting their sights on winning a ticket to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the IFSC Speed European Qualifier in Rome, Italy, on Friday 15 September.

A further two more tickets will be up for grabs this Friday and GB Climbing athletes are ready to give it their all on the wall.

GB Climbing Speed Athletes

Just last weekend, we saw Olympic hopeful Rafe Stokes set a new British Speed Record when he competed at the British Speed Climbing Championships in Edinburgh. Stokes consistently posted sub-six-second times and hit a top speed of 5.588 seconds in the Qualifier, just shy of his Personal Best of 5.460 seconds.

Matthew Fall will also be competing in Rome and last weekend nearly broke the six-second barrier with a time of 6.001 seconds.

Olympic Qualifier

This weekend’s Speed European Qualifier is the first of a series of five IFSC Continental Qualifers and part of the qualification system to Paris 2024.

The winners of the IFSC Speed European Qualifier will be awarded a ticket to Paris 2024 – one for the Men’s winner and one for the Women’s winner.

Qualifying Process

In order to qualify to the Olympic Games at the continental stage, you need to win the event. This is probably the hardest way to qualify because the opportunity is so limited. To win this event, athletes will likely have to produce a qualification time in the low 5s (under 5.3 ideally) to progress into the finals. From here, athletes will have to win four of the knockout races in order to take the first place.

For the winners, their Olympic dream is secured and they can begin planning their off season and preparations for next summer’s games early.

For those that aren’t successful in Rome, next step is to qualify for the Olympic Qualification Series (OQS) which will take place in the spring to summer of 2024. This a three stage series held with other sports around the world (Abu Dabhi, Shanghai and Europe). Here the top five athletes ranked from the series will go to the games six weeks later.

Rafe Stokes, speaking to GB Climbing Coach, Rachel Carr, said: “After the British Championships I’m feeling very happy and confident going into European Qualifier. Hopefully I will be able to break another record and get the best placement I can.”

IFSC Speed European Qualifier Rome, Italy

Friday 15 September

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Matthew Fall (@mf_climbing)

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