KRAKOW, Poland, July 4 — American climber Emma Hunt became the first woman to break the six-second barrier in speed climbing on Saturday, setting a world record of 5.99 seconds at the World Climbing Series Krakow.
Hunt eclipsed the previous world record of 6.03 seconds, set by Paris Olympic champion Aleksandra Miroslaw at the 2025 World Championships.
Unlike the traditional two-lane knockout format used at the Olympic Games and previous World Cup events, the Krakow stop features a four-lane format in which four climbers race simultaneously.
The 23-year-old Hunt, who won the World Climbing Series stop in Madrid in June, advanced to the round of 16 with a time of 6.07 seconds before clocking a historic 5.99 in the next round to become the first woman to complete the standard speed route in under six seconds.
Miroslaw, making her first World Climbing Series appearance of the season, responded with a 6.04-second run in the quarterfinals, narrowly missing reclaiming the world record.
However, the Polish veteran was disqualified for a false start in the medal round. Hunt also made an error on her climb, leaving Indonesia’s Desak Made Rita Kusuma Dewi, the Asian record holder, to claim the women’s title with 6.54 seconds.
In the men’s competition, current world record holder Zhao Yicheng of China and former record holder Samuel Watson of the USA lined up on adjacent lanes in the four-man final.
Watson, 20, climbed a personal best of 4.60 seconds to take gold, while Zhao, 17, finished second in 4.69. Indonesia’s Raharjati Nursamsa claimed bronze.
The meeting marked the second head-to-head showdown between Zhao and Watson in a major international competition. At the World Climbing Series stop in Wujiang in May, Zhao defeated the American in the semifinal and set the current men’s world record of 4.54 seconds on his way to the title.
“I’ve copied some of the beta from Zhao Yicheng, and I think I did outrun him on the move that I looked to improve on this time,” Watson said after the final. “So that’s definitely a spark of motivation and I want to keep getting better.”
Watson added that he hopes to reclaim the men’s world record in the future.
The two Americans had already made history a day earlier when Watson and Hunt combined to set the inaugural speed climbing mixed relay world record of 11.22 seconds during qualifying. (Namibia Daily News/Xinhua)
