Khaibullin could make a Speed medal in Tokyo

Rishat Khaibullin was the biggest sensation in the Combined World Championship last year, getting the bronze after finishing seventh in Speed event and then winning it in Combined. Interestingly, the 24-year-old is not a Speed specialist and as he says he find it, "awfully boring", he had just trained it once a week but nevertheless improved from 6.85 to 5.83 in the Speed WCs during 2019.

Since a couple of years, the Kazakhstani lives in Czech Republic and since the last year in Brno where he often trains win Adam Ondra. In Briancon he was #11 after having been #5 in the qualification which can be compared to #44 in his best performance during the last two years World Cups.

With the multiplication scoring in Tokyo, this means there is actually a realistic chance that he could copy his bronze also during in the Olympics. He just needs to win Speed, beating three specialists, and to be ranked #5 out of eight in either Lead or Boulder. Another possibility is that if he is second in the Speed qualification, he could still make it to the Top-8 final by being around #12 in Lead or Boulder.

As a matter of a fact, one realistic option for the three Speed specialists that have qualified to Tokyo to get a medal, is to win the Speed qualification and hope that also Rishat makes it to the final. Then scoring 1 - 7 - 8 = 56 in the final could be good enough to get a medal if Khaibullin is runner-up in the Speed final. In other words, in such case, the Speed final will likely be the sub six seconds race who likely will get the bronze.

In any case, let us hope that Khaibullin makes it to the final as he has much better chances to score a decent result in both Boulder and Lead, in comparison to three Speed specialists. It should also be said that with the recent 5.8 personal best by Tomoa Narasaki, the three Speed specialist as well as Khaibullin, none of the three Speed specialist or Khaibullin might qualify to the final. On the other hand, if they make it to the final, their bronze possibility have improved if Narasaki wins by scoring something like scores like 1 - 2 - 3. Overall, it is very good for the Olympics that Khaibullin has improved in Lead and Boulder as well as Narasaki has improved in Speed.