Olympics 2024 | Once laughed off as a joke, speed climbing route arrives on big stage

Paris: When Jacky Godoffe floated the idea of setting a fixed route for competitive speed climbing to the sport's international governing body in 2004, it was laughed off as a joke.

Fast-forward 20 years, and the universal route that the trailblazing French climber conceived then will mark a moment in history at the Paris Games, becoming the stage for the first-ever Olympic medals to be handed out in speed-climbing.

"I remember I was in a meeting in Italy in 2004 and I said as a joke, why couldn't we make this speed route with unique holds? And they laughed at me," said Godoffe, who was route-setting for the international climbing federation at the time.

"A couple of months later they told me, okay, maybe give us a proposal and we'll see what you can get. One year later this idea became reality," he told Reuters.

Track the latest updates from the Paris Olympics only with DH.

Speed climbing - a vertical sprint up a 15-metre-high wall - debuted at the Tokyo 2020 Games, but it was controversially combined with two other disciplines - boulder and lead - as a compromise because the Olympics could only offer a single medal event for the new sport.

But in Paris, speed climbing will, to the relief of the competitors, be a stand-alone event and produce a gold medal each for the fastest woman and man.

Godoffe, 67, said the concept for the universal speed route was to provide "something like the 100-metre track", where the race would be decided in about 10 seconds. The first race was held in Munich, at the 2005 World Cup.

"So it started with a joke and 20 years later it's still here," he laughed. "But I was just a little piece of stone in the construction."

Godoffe described route-setting as "the science of uncertainty", and that he was far from being wedded to the current design, where the world record for men is now under 5 seconds and about 6 seconds for women.

"I didn't expect it to last this long," he said. "And honestly, two years (after the first race), I told the federation that this route maybe could change every two years, or every year, I don't know. But it's out of my hands now."