Speed climbing world records.

The records on 21 October 2026

Records can be set in any round; Zhao's came in a semi-final. Santiago, from 23 to 25 October 2026, is the last Speed event of the 2026 series; any record set there is not reflected here.

Why Speed has records

World Climbing describes Speed as a race up a 15-metre wall on standardised routes, identical for men and women and the same in every round. World Climbing says Speed is the only climbing discipline with officially recognised world, continental and Olympic records, and that it tracks 32 of them. The format is explained on how competitions work.

The men's record, 2025 to 2026

The men's record has been set three times since 2025, according to the reports below.

1. 4.64 s, Sam Watson (USA), at the IFSC World Cup in Bali in 2025. World Climbing gives this as the record Zhao broke.
2. 4.58 s, Zhao Yicheng (China), at the Asian Beach Games Sanya 2026, reported by World Climbing on 28 April 2026.
3. 4.54 s, Zhao Yicheng, in the Wujiang semi-final of the World Climbing Series on 10 May 2026, lowering his own mark, as reported by LaCrux and China Daily (12 May 2026).

Wikipedia lists Zhao as the winner of the Wujiang event and second in the 2026 Speed standings before Santiago.

The women's record

Emma Hunt (USA) became the first woman to climb the Speed wall in under six seconds at the World Climbing Series event in Krakow on 4 July 2026, Gripped reported the next day. Gripped's report does not give the time; USA Climbing (9 July 2026) gives it as 5.99 s, set in the individual final in which Hunt took bronze, and World Climbing's women's records page showed the same time in search (the page itself loads its table by script and came back empty when read). Hunt leads the 2026 Speed standings before Santiago, according to Wikipedia.

The earlier record we have a source for is Aleksandra Miroslaw's (Poland) 6.06 s, set in qualification at the Paris 2024 Olympics, according to World Climbing. Miroslaw then won the Olympic final in 6.10 s. USA Climbing (9 July 2026) gives the record Hunt broke as 6.03 s, also held by Miroslaw; we have not found where or when that time was set.

Relays

World Climbing says three standalone Speed events of the 2026 series, on four-lane walls, award relay medals as well as individual ones. Gripped reported that Samuel Watson and Emma Hunt set a mixed relay world record of 10.89 s in the Krakow final; USA Climbing's report (9 July 2026) places the relay on 4 July 2026. World Climbing headlined that China swept the relay titles at Guiyang in September 2026 and set a men's relay world record. A search summary said the Chinese team, Ling Yongzhi and Zhao Yicheng, lowered a previous best of 9.75 s, but we did not see the new time on a page we read, so it is not given here.

Paris 2024: a disputed record

Speed before the records

The BMC's competition history says speed competitions were held in Russia in the 1940s, and Gripped, in a summary we saw only in search, puts the first Soviet competitions in the late 1940s. The American Alpine Journal (1974) describes visiting climbers joining speed competitions at a Soviet gathering of young mountaineers near Yalta, in Crimea. The BMC also mentions a possible speed contest in 327 or 328 BC in present-day Uzbekistan as perhaps the first recorded one; that claim is unconfirmed.

At the first World Championships in Frankfurt in 1991, Speed was one of the two disciplines, and Wikipedia lists Hans Florine (United States) and Isabelle Dorsimond (Belgium) as the first Speed world champions. Wikipedia dates Speed's addition to the World Cup to 1998; World Climbing dates its Speed World Cups to 1989. More is on the competition climbing history page.