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As you all know, climbing is going to be in the Olympics for the first time ever. And the big news in climbing right now is that we have begun to determine who is going to get the honor of being the first group of climbing Olympians.
In mid August, the World Championships took place in Hachioji, Japan. This event represented the first opportunity for climbers to make the cut, as seven men and seven women were selected based on their performance in the combined event.
This is Andrew Bisharat and in this episode I am joined as always by my friend and co-host Chris Kalous, who just returned from a vacation to northern Wisconsin. Because Chris has been off the grid, foraging for morels and berries in the woods, I wanted to bring him up to speed on what went down at the World Championships.
I should probably mention that I got a few things wrong in this episode. Most importantly, I butchered the pronunciation of just about every foreign climber’s name. Special shout out to Rishat Khaibullin, the climber from Kazakhstan who secured an Olympic spot by winning the Speed event. As you’ll hear, I was not even close to saying that name correctly.
I think I also said that Adam Ondra had won the first part of the World Championships, but in fact, he had only won a gold medal in the lead event. He was second in combined, behind Tomoa Narasaki.
Anyway, Chris and I certainly had fun talking about this event. We take our temperature on whether either of us is getting a case of Olympic fever yet, and we come up with our own Olympic event idea that might have more mass appeal—at least among climbers. Hope you enjoy this episode, and please continue to send feedback and tell your friends about our podcast. Without further ado, let the games begin.
