Skateboard 2 Olympics medals but Climbing only 1

It seems most climbers finally accepted that Climbing only got one set of medals in Tokyo and are pleased that we will get two sets in Paris 2024. Skateboard was also a new Olympic sport in Tokyo but for some reason, two sets of medals were given out for the ones doing the best tricks in Street as well as in Park, which are quite similar disciplines. In practice, this means that there were 80 skateboard athletes participating in Tokyo but only 40 Climbers, out of which seven were Speed specialists. Another difference was that the max quota per country in Skateboard was three per discipline and gender in Skateboard instead of two in Climbing.

When it comes to Paris 2024, Skateboard will have two sets of medals and 22 athletes participating, i.e. 88 spots available. This can be compared with 72 athletes for Climbing, as there will be 32 in Speed and 40 in a Lead/Boulder Combination. It should be mentioned that in Tokyo, 18% of the Climbers could be considered Speed specialists, while in the Paris 2024 Olympics 44% of the Climbers will be Speed specialists.

These 44% Olympic athletes can be compared to a possible 0.001% of all climbers in the world focusing on Speed. Sure, there will be many more training and competing in Speed in the coming years but that would also be the case for any constructed Olympic sport. Personally, I think there is a golden opportunity for any Climbing beginner to start a quest for a Speed gold in Paris 2024. If I were a performance-focused national climbing coach, I would have focused on Speed because the chances for great results are much bigger in Speed. Going back five years or so, there were probably only about 32 climbers, i.e. the number of participants in Paris, who dedicated their life to Speed climbing.

The dilemma with the second set of medals in Climbing in Paris is that it is still a combination, i.e. Bouldering and Lead. Surely there are a few athletes that have shown that such a combination is possible, but by checking the 2019 World Cups we can say that it was the Bouldering experts that suffered the most in the Combined endurance game during the qualis as well as in Tokyo. Furthermore, in general, the results for the Olympians in the World Cup 2021 have been incredibly bad and you might wonder if this Combined thing is fair for our sport and the athletes trying to do it.