Alberto Ginés López remarkable comp (and rock) stats

Alberto Gines Lopez did participate in 16 IFSC comps in 2021 as a preparation for the Olympics in Tokyo. The runner-up, out of all other 39 Olympians, did just do half as many. In the last World Cup, prior to the Games in Briancon 18/7, the Spaniard was #7 and the only Olympian participating! (c) Daniel Gajda/IFSC

His first IFSC comp in 2021 was the Euro Bouldering Cup in Klagenfurt 11/4 where he was #27. The following weekend he was #73 in the Meiringen Boulder WC. Two weeks later he was in Russia for the Euro Junior Championship and his results were again not that good; #4 in Lead, #8 in Speed and #12 in Lead. Then he stepped up winning three out of five Euro Youth Cups.

Back on the World Cup circuit, he skipped Salt Lake City, and was 41 - 5 - 5 - 31 - 5 and then 7 in Briancon. (Most of the best did not participate in these World Cups.) Even if Alberto had had relatively poor results in the comps 2021, I placed him as #5 in the 8a qualification prediction. The reason for this was that I agreed on such a competition focus prior to the Olympics.

In the Olympic qualifications, the 18-year-old started by being #7 in Speed and #14 in Bouldering and things did not look great for making the finals. The pressure was on and then he pulled out his best Lead performance of 2021 and was #3 in Lead. Before the final, I once again lifted Alberto and said that he would get the bronze if he won over Colin Duffy in Speed.

In the final, Duffy started out by doing a 0.005 false start. Then Alberto beat Adam Ondra in the semi and later Tomoa Narasaki slipped in the Speed final. In Bouldering he was #7 and then #4 in Lead and he was the winner of the first-ever Olympic climbing gold.

It should be mentioned that until 2019, he had won eleven Euro Youth Cups including two Euro Championships. In 2019, at age 16, he was #2 in the World Cups after three podiums. Out on the rock, he has made 8a headlines since he did his first 8c (+) being 13-years-old!