We follow Julian David, who is representing New Zealand in men's speed climbing at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. He's gearing up for one of his last events before the Games, the IFSC World Cup in Chamonix, France. The team's coach, Rob Moore, works with Julian and his teammate, Sarah Tetzlaff, for 25 to 30 hours a week to practice and refine their intense training regimen. For the very first time, speed climbing will be judged as a stand-alone event at the 2024 Olympics, and the pair are the first from New Zealand to qualify.
Sam Watson broke his own world record of 4.79 seconds at the 2024 Paris Olympics with a time of 4.75 seconds.
Julian David achieved a new personal best of 5.2 seconds.
At the time of publishing, this narrows their difference to 0.41 seconds.
Sam Watson broke his own world record of 4.79 seconds at the 2024 Paris Olympics with a time of 4.75 seconds.
Julian David achieved a new personal best of 5.2 seconds.
At the time of publishing, this narrows their difference to 0.41 seconds.
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00:00This is Julian David. At 19 years old, he's New Zealand's fastest speed climber.
00:06He's only been competing internationally for two years, but he's already closing the gap on his global competitors.
00:12At the time of filming, the world record for men's speed climbing was 4.79 seconds.
00:17In March 2024, Julian got his personal best down to 5.6 seconds.
00:22Speed climbing is a sport of millimetres.
00:25Your foot can miss the point of a hold and hit it 20mm to the wrong side and that basically runs over for you.
00:34Julian is completing a lightning-fast practice run at the IFSC World Cup in Chamonix, France,
00:40before the main event of the day, the qualifiers.
00:43Sometimes I'll be quite nervous heading into a competition just because it's a World Cup.
00:47It's our biggest event aside from the Olympics.
00:50The wall in Chamonix is always quite a tricky wall to race on.
00:55A lot of guys slip or fall and this does create opportunities if you can put together a really good run,
01:03especially at the moment with a lot of pressure on the athletes for the Olympics.
01:06He's very passionate, very driven, very, very talented.
01:10He's just shot to the top over just a couple of years.
01:15The numbers we're seeing, the strength, characteristics and power is just pretty phenomenal.
01:21Sometimes he's very frustrating because he's so good.
01:24A year ago, I was only national champion. I try not to think about it too much because it's bad for ego.
01:30At his current personal best time, Julian is climbing the 4.5-storey wall in the same amount of time it takes Usain Bolt to run about 60 metres.
01:39The margin of error when you're going that fast, it's too easy to slip, to call.
01:43It's pretty impossible to bet on somebody to win.
01:46We always say anything can happen in speed.
01:49So in a sport like speed climbing, where every millisecond counts and even the best laid plans can be derailed in an instant,
01:56how do elite athletes improve their odds of winning?
02:03I'm training twice a day, every day apart from Saturday and Sunday.
02:07I'm actually the one that is known for not stretching as much as they should.
02:11It's a bit boring, but you have to do it.
02:14It's something I need to get used to and do more of.
02:17Stretch, to be honest.
02:19Today, we're doing 12 runs at 90%.
02:23Basically, consistency is the whole point.
02:26In competition, it's who is the most consistent on the day.
02:29Me doing 12 runs at 90%, we would never do that in competition.
02:33We won't run that much.
02:34Focusing on not slipping and still maintaining, you know, going as fast as we can.
02:38I've got this little competition, you may have heard of it.
02:40It's called the Olympics.
02:422024 marks the very first time speed climbing is being judged as a standalone event in the Olympics.
02:47It made an appearance in the 2020 Olympics, but only in combination with the other disciplines of sport climbing.
02:54We filmed with Julian and his teammate, Sarah Tetzlaff, just a few short months before they headed to Paris to make history for New Zealand.
03:02A lot of planning and preparation and repetition of the moves goes onto the training.
03:09And, you know, to the point where it just gets a bit boring, this repetition that we do.
03:13We've got our climbing wall set up here.
03:15We've had this set up since 2019.
03:17I built it in association with the club.
03:19For the Olympic qualifying event before the Tokyo event, we finished it at probably around about four minutes before the event started.
03:30Me and Sarah are the first speed climbers qualified from New Zealand to go to climbing, and speed climbing specifically.
03:35So, yeah, pretty stoked.
03:37Me and Julian have been training together for maybe four years now, but full-time together for just over two years.
03:45We're going to race.
03:47What does that mean?
03:50Both of us are going to sprint up the wall, and the first one to get to the top gets bragging rights for the rest of the day.
03:54Is that how it goes?
03:56Yeah, you're just the better person. Superior, if you will.
04:01So, Sarah, how do you feel about this race?
04:03Oh, I feel pretty good about this race.
04:05Yep, feeling confident, cool, calm, collected.
04:10I'm really nervous, because if she beats me, I'm screwed.
04:14If you look at Julian and Sarah together, you know, Sarah is this perfectionist athlete that likes to analyse things a lot, whereas Julian doesn't like the analysis so much.
04:26Speed climbing is a discipline of sport climbing where athletes compete for the fastest time.
04:31Officially regulated walls are 15 metres high, with a continuous overhang of 5 degrees.
04:37It takes an experienced climber about 30 seconds to reach the top, while speed climbers do it in less than 10 seconds.
04:44Unlike other types of climbing, where climbers seek the path of least resistance, speed climbers look for the most direct route to the top.
04:51The speed route has been the same for more than a decade, and climbers practice it year-round to ingrain in their minds and muscles the sequence of movements that gets them to the top as fast as possible.
05:01So the holds and the wall remain exactly the same, but each person that's racing on the wall does this slightly differently, finding out their individual, we call it beta, finding out what beta works best for them.
05:13Beta is essentially a strategy for scaling a climb. Different climbers use different beta to play to their strengths.
05:20The beta is the way that an athlete climbs the climb, and this changes from each athlete.
05:26It's based on whether you are really powerful, or whether you're more dynamic, or whether you're an elastic athlete versus a strength athlete, you know, and so every athlete has a slightly different beta.
05:39In speed climbing, performance depends on how quickly you can use your energy.
05:44Humans are capable of large bursts of power over short intervals, but that energy can deplete quickly. And you're also battling gravity.
05:52You want to think about as less as possible you've got another run to do. In training, it's more just focusing on what was good on the wall.
06:00So for this one, for example, that's not my fastest time at all, but I did really well at the top section, the end bit, despite not having as good a start, I recovered well.
06:11When Julian started speed climbing in 2022, his personal best was 8.71 seconds. A year later, he won gold at the 2023 Youth World Championships for speed climbing.
06:22And just three months later, he qualified for the Olympics at the IFSC Sport Climbing Oceania Qualifier in Melbourne, with a winning time of 6.77 seconds.
06:31Julian has made huge strides in two short years, but he still has room to grow if he wants to rival the best speed climbers in the world.
06:39At the 2024 IFSC Speed Qualifications in China, Sam Watson on Team USA set a new world record, 4.79 seconds.
06:50That put Julian within a second of the fastest speed climber in the world. 0.81 seconds to be exact.
06:56He's still young, he's still developing as an athlete, and he's learning a lot on the way.
07:03The thing about me, like my life, a 19-year-old going to the Olympics is pretty, you know, it's hard to wrap my head around really.
07:09It's just such a hyped up thing, you know, it's the pinnacle of my sport.
07:13I was at school last year and all these kids coming up to me, like they almost put me on a pedestal and be like, oh, I think you're so cool, like what you're doing is awesome.
07:21But it's weird because I'm the same age as them, you know, but they're all, I don't know, partying and whatever.
07:26They look at me and think I'm lame for not partying, but then I'm doing this.
07:31I've tried doing what I do with this, with other sports, and I just couldn't, I didn't like it.
07:36Like getting up early, I'd be like, nah, man, I want to stay in bed, but for climbing, I'm excited.
07:40I want to get up and get on with the day, get climbing, you know.
07:49So what happened there?
07:51You didn't get that, did you?
07:53Say what?
07:54You didn't get that?
07:55Well, yeah, can you explain what happened?
07:57A dry fight out of a hold, I don't know why.
08:00Misplaced hands, maybe.
08:02That's embarrassing.
08:03It's really embarrassing, yeah.
08:04It's probably the worst thing that can happen to you, actually.
08:07Probably post-starting.
08:09Would you rather post-start or do that?
08:11Do you have any advice for him?
08:13Well, I gave him good advice beforehand.
08:15I said he needs to stick it, and then that happened.
08:19So I don't think my advice will help.
08:21I need some more motivation, I want some more advice.
08:24Come on, give me something.
08:25That's all I have.
08:27I've got some motivation.
08:28I need some advice not to do what I did.
08:30Motivation?
08:31No, go that way.
08:36So this is my bedroom.
08:38I've got up here all the photos from when I won Youth Worlds.
08:41I've got the medal here from IFSC.
08:44All of these are from nationals.
08:47As you can see, I've still got a bit of room for medals,
08:50and whatever I do manage to win.
08:52I've already got a little token here.
08:54I'll add it to the board.
08:55I've got some room still.
08:58I'm going to go to IFSC Melbourne.
09:01I think it was live-streamed here.
09:07Speed finals.
09:08There we go, that's us.
09:14At this point here, usually you'd be quite nervous,
09:16but I'm just in the zone, you know?
09:19Another race.
09:20Good start.
09:21Flowing through.
09:22So if you saw there, Hayden, he slipped.
09:25And in my mind, because you can tell in your peripheral vision,
09:28I thought he'd fallen off the wall completely.
09:30I saw he stopped.
09:31I thought he'd fallen off the wall completely,
09:33and I just stopped to celebrate.
09:35There was no bad intention.
09:38I wasn't trying to...
09:39It was just the emotion that got to me.
09:41Something I'll never do again.
09:43His qualification was a little bit of a controversial race.
09:49He stopped right before the stop pad and celebrated it a little early.
09:54And the other runner was coming up on the wall pretty fast,
09:57so it was a bit of a heart-in-the-mouth moment.
10:01Yeah, nothing mean towards Hayden.
10:04The guy's awesome.
10:05He's a strong competitor,
10:06and I'm proud to be racing in Oceania with him.
10:09And for everyone wondering, I do regret that.
10:11I do wish I hadn't done that,
10:13but two years of training to realise you've got to start at the Olympics.
10:17Yeah, never to happen again, though.
10:25We do six or seven sessions a week on the wall,
10:29and then strength and conditioning work three times a week.
10:32Speed climbers build power in their legs
10:34so they can explode from foothold to foothold.
10:37Pushing off and carrying momentum up the entire route is crucial.
10:40Sometimes I have to push him a bit harder in training than I'd like to.
10:45So they do a trap bar deadlift, maximum weight, and an isometric hold.
10:51How much weight is that?
10:53Bodyweight, 70 kgs.
10:55And then they do an iso hold on a weighted pull-up,
10:59and they run on the wall straightaway.
11:03Power is a key part of climbing,
11:05so this part of training is about strengthening Julian's leg muscles and reflexes.
11:10So the idea of this exercise is we drain our legs and our arms,
11:15because they're the biggest muscles in our bodies,
11:17and we basically fatigue ourselves,
11:19go straight on the wall,
11:21and force you to use other smaller muscles to fire better.
11:26It feels really hard to move.
11:28I'm trying really hard, but I'm not moving that fast.
11:31So how many times can you do it in one day,
11:35How many times can you do it in one day before you're too exhausted?
11:41I think of this session, maybe 10 and I'd be pretty.
11:44At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics,
11:46all three disciplines of climbing were eligible for one medal,
11:50a decision that caused some controversy.
11:52Some of the most significant misconceptions about speed climbing,
11:56and it's a real funny one,
11:59is that speed climbing is not real climbing.
12:01Like, hello, you're climbing up a wall?
12:05I think that the evolution of the sport of climbing
12:09has made speed climbing way more fun.
12:12I've been coaching climbing in New Zealand for nearly 30 years,
12:16and I can teach technical climbing on a bouldering or a lead wall,
12:21but speed climbing has been something that I've been in as long as the athletes.
12:25We've only been going really three years in speed climbing.
12:28Everybody does this monotonous thing over and over again,
12:31and it's important for everyone to be able to suffer together, you know,
12:37but to create an environment where everyone can enjoy that process,
12:41because it is hard, and it is tough, and it is repetitive.
12:45Now, with weeks of advanced training under his belt,
12:48Julian's about to put his progress to the test
12:50at one of his last major events before the Paris Games.
12:53We started with two practice runs,
12:57which went according to plan.
12:59Pretty much the practice runs are just trying to get a good, solid run in,
13:04getting a feel for the wall, seeing what the texture is like.
13:08The wall changes a little bit when the sun's on it and when the sun's not there.
13:13Each athlete is allowed two practice runs to familiarize themselves with the wall.
13:17That seems like a decent amount until you realize that
13:19if each climber takes six seconds to get up the wall,
13:22it's a 12-second practice session.
13:25And that's not the only challenge.
13:27The wall here in Chamonix, France, is infamous for one special quirk.
13:31The walls have a friction coefficient that's measured on them
13:36to be homologated for a world cup or for a world record,
13:40and Chamonix has the bottom end of the scale for the friction that's on the wall,
13:46so it is quite a slippery wall,
13:48so your runs have to be pretty much perfect
13:51to be able to get up the wall at a good speed.
13:54It rewards good runs.
13:57A good run consists of climbers maintaining a good rhythm up the wall.
14:02Losing momentum could mean the end of your climb.
14:04If you fall off on the wall, you can only pull yourself back on
14:08if you're on the hold that you've fallen off on.
14:10You can't fall off completely and swing down and grab hold of another hold
14:13and then start climbing again.
14:15This is pretty exciting because you see in races, in the finals especially,
14:19when the pressure's on and there's people slipping,
14:22someone might slip down low and catch themselves
14:25and pull back onto the wall and keep going,
14:27and then the next person on the other lane could slip up higher
14:30and then they fall off and then they're back together racing again.
14:33We have a little piece at the top where his hips need to be in the right position
14:37and his foot needs to be across a little,
14:39and in the practice runs, his hip and foot were not in the right position,
14:43so just a little reminder to get him to switch back into the mode
14:46that he knew he was supposed to do.
14:49The stakes are high for Julian as he carries his Youth World Championship title
14:52into the World Cup.
14:54The pressure is on, and the climb that decides if he gets a coveted spot
14:58in the finals is quickly approaching.
15:00I think it'll be my sixth World Cup, so definitely still new
15:05and going for that final spot, so we're all happy when it happens.
15:09Once the climbers are behind the wall and they're in the starting lane,
15:13I sort of let go of everything.
15:16I've done as much as I can, and I have to trust that the athletes
15:21will take over and do everything from there.
15:23In qualification, it doesn't matter if you win your race against the person next to you.
15:27You just try to get as fast as you can.
15:29Basically, the first run, I had a real good focus.
15:32I was listening to my music that gets me in the zone.
15:35I actually enter this point where we call it flow state.
15:39I don't remember the climb. I don't really remember walking out.
15:42It just kind of happens.
15:47C'est beau, ça. C'est beau, ça.
15:49Usually, with the first run, you take it a little bit chill,
15:53so you just get a good run in, and that saves you for the next run.
15:56You can go, you know, cut out of the bag, full beans, go as fast as you like.
16:01But sometimes it doesn't go to plan.
16:05And the second run was much the same, except I slipped at the very end,
16:09which is a bit unfortunate, but it is what it is.
16:17Yeah, so I didn't qualify for finals, unfortunately.
16:20It was 5.36 to make it to finals, and I got a 5.44, so close.
16:25And my second run was quicker than my second qualification run,
16:29but I slipped at the very end and got 5.5,
16:31so I'm still happy that I managed to get a quick time.
16:34But I think next time in Plain-Au-Saint, I'll make finals, hopefully.
16:37Yeah, it was a good time.
16:39Today's competition is a stark reminder that in speed climbing,
16:43even the most skilled athletes can face unexpected challenges.
16:46It's a testament to the unforgiving nature of the sport,
16:49where the outcome isn't always decided by who's the best,
16:52but by a split-second twist of fate.
16:55Julian ran 5.44 as his fastest time in qualification today.
17:01It was his best competition run that he's done ever,
17:05and he broke the New Zealand record and the Oceania record,
17:08so we're pretty happy.
17:10What's happening in a month?
17:12Wow, Julian is off to the Olympics.
17:15Are you going as well?
17:17We are absolutely going. Wouldn't miss it for the world.
17:20What an honour, and at least for myself,
17:25a feeling of immense gratitude for the opportunity and what it represents.
17:30Brionson will be the last competition before the Olympics,
17:33and then I'll have maybe a couple weeks of training before I head into the village.
17:38Just a week before the start of the Paris Games,
17:40Julian set a new continental and personal best record, 5.26 seconds,
17:45narrowing his gap from 0.81 seconds to just 0.48 seconds
17:50behind Samuel Watson's world record of 4.79 seconds.
17:5419 going to the Olympics is pretty outrageous.
17:57I remember watching it back in 2012, the London Olympics,
18:00and thinking, wow, I want to go to that, and now I have the opportunity to.
18:03I've got some secret hopes that are my own,
18:07but realistically we are just trying to do the best we can do
18:11and get close to running PBs, which will be a win for us.
18:15I think the motivation side of it, I guess,
18:20is the fact that I'm maybe the first Kiwi to do this.
18:24I'm paving the way for the future generation, who are looking quite strong.
18:28They'll be freaking amazing. I can't wait for them to come.
18:31And I think in itself that's quite motivating, being the first one to do it.
18:37OLYMPIC GAMES LONDON