Meshkova to Tokyo being faster

Eliska Adamovska was the last female out as she won the qualification. If she tops out and is faster than Viktoriia Meshkova, Stasa Gejo will get the ticket to Tokyo. The clock is ticking but all the way from the start she is not as fast but even when Eliska tops out one minute slower, nobody knows who made it Tokyo (besides the guys keeping track of the time). After some 40 seconds, the Russian coaches start to scream and the camera shows Meshkova starting to understand what happened. (c) Nikita Tsarev

Previous in the week, she won Gold both in Lead and Speed. Based on her previous World Cup results, this must be the biggest sensation ever in competition climber. Last year she did eleven Boulder and Lead WCs and the 20-year-old's best results were #16.

Dmitry Sharafutdinov, the Russian training coach who has won three World Championships and who is famous for mainly done pull-ups as his training regime, says that probably hard physical training 20+ hours a week in her apartment during the two months lockdown is the best explanation.

"The secret of her success is probably the spring lockdown. Everyone was at home. Communication only online. I wrote a training program. At home, Vika performed an enormous amount of physical training. Like me in my best years. 5 times a week, for 4-5 hours. (But the exercises are a secret.) Fingerboard was done regularly. But that was not the main one. Rather, the emphasis was on training large muscles. We used a little bit of everything. But no matter how strange it may sound, I took a lot from figure skating and alpine skiing. Not much with weights, mostly with her own weight.

A month ago, a test for coronavirus gave a positive result and she isolated herself. The disease was mild. She was under the supervision of a doctor of the Russian national command team. As soon as the symptoms went away she began training. Online first, and after negative tests five times at the climbing gym. It's hard for me to say now what played a decisive role. Perhaps rested."

1. Viktoria Meshkova RUS 2 - 6 - 1 = 12
2. Stasa Gejo SER 3 - 1 - 5 = 15
3. Eliska Adamovska CZE 8 - 4 - 2 = 64
4. Patrycja Chudziak POL 1 - 8 - 8 = 64
5. Chloe Caulier BEL 5 - 2 - 7 = 70
6. Elena Krasovskaia RUS 4 - 3 - 6 = 72
7. Hannah Meul GER 6 - 5 - 4 = 120
8. Molly Smith-Thompson GBR 7 - 7 - 3 = 147

It should be noted that the Speed specialist actually was very close to having gotten the bronze.