It's a passion, a way of life.
It's part of my life.
Everything I do in my life is for climbing and training.
It's giving me this opportunity to push myself to the limit
to try to qualify for the Olympics,
which is the highest goal that climbing has ever seen.
ROAD TO TOKYO SPORT CLIMBING THE QUALIFIER STORIES
-Hey, Leo. -How are you?
When do you arrive, more or less?
-Nine. -Nine o'clock.
DAY 1 MEN - QUALIFICATION ROUND
GINÉS LOPEZ
Ball, opens, heel...
left, here... If you kill yourself at the top...
I'm Alberto Ginés López, 17 years old, from Spain,
and I'm a professional climber.
The format is quite different
from what we are used to.
Before, almost everyone had a speciality
and only competed at one event.
The sequence would be Speed, Bouldering and Lead.
After Speed, are they going back there?
Back to the backdrop.
-It's that one, Speed. -Okay. Okay.
The best thing about this format?
We will see the most complete climbers
-and the best in each category. -Put the hand there, okay?
The worst? Having to train at something
that you may not like or may be bad at. A bit frustrating.
With the improvements and the introduction of Speed,
or Bouldering, that was hard for me
because Alberto's father kept saying that he wasn't born
for bouldering, so we had to work on that.
But I started seeing some Olympic potential,
even at his young age.
The Olympic Games are the dream of any athlete.
As a climber,
I think it's very important because,
apart from being my first Games, I trained for this
and I will do my best.
FRANCE
I'm Bassa Mawem. I'm part of the French climbing team.
The Olympics is the greatest...
contest in the world. All athletes dream
of going...
and walking in the stadium to represent their country.
It's a constant struggle.
Every time I train, every time I climb,
in Lead, Boulders or Speed,
I have the will to climb and to reach the top,
touch the summit. It's my goal in climbing
and in my life.
It works quite well.
My name is Nathaniel,
and I'm a climber through and through.
My goal this week is to get an invite to the Olympics.
I've felt more nerves
than any competition in my recent memory,
and... that's been really hard to, like, work through,
but now I feel like I'm in a good place.
And I think the game plan is to just go out there
and focus on the competition itself, doing my best,
and not thinking about any consequences.
In five minutes, we start with qualification.
It's 11, straight.
For his first practice run...
Sport climbing is...
very different from traditional climbing on rock.
It's a similar atmosphere of comradeship,
we are all friends and get along.
I met Adam last year
at a World Cup. We never spoke before.
We started getting along
and two weeks ago he invited me
to his home to train together for the pre-Olympic.
I think we are almost friends.
Good morning and welcome
to Toulouse. This is a culmination
of an IFSC season that stretches back
to the start of April.
This is the Olympic selection event.
Remember, in a combined qualification
in the Speed, you're not racing,
in inverted commas, the person next to you,
you are racing the clock.
Ready?
SPEED
I feel pretty attached to climbing for the fact
that all of the people, even in other countries,
I consider my friends.
I would never, like, cheer against them.
Since I come from a bouldering specialist background
I'm a little bit more of a powerful climber,
so adjusting to the speed isn't as difficult.
So I think that for me and my body type,
-it's kind of an advantage. -Ready?
If I want a chance, I need to finish first
in the Speed competition.
If I finish first,
I can qualify.
Speed is a discipline where it's easy to fail.
My plan is getting
a safe time to not be last.
These two climbers have been training together...
over the past month actually.
And now they run alongside each other
in the Speed competition.
1 MAWEM ... 11 GINÉS LÓPEZ
My Speed time was better than I expected.
It was my personal record.
It went pretty well.
Me and Sean have been competing together
for probably ten years.
We've kind of grown up around each other.
I have a lot of respect for him.
And he has a lot of respect for me, I hope.
Now it's time for the Boulder.
BOULDER
Come on, Sean!
MEG COYNE NATIONAL TEAMS MANAGER/COACH-USA
Climb, Sean!
Bassa Mawem, not much work to do at all.
He won the speed-climbing part of the competition.
He's booked his place in the final already.
The best Lead climbers
are very good at Boulder.
And the best Boulder climbers are good in Lead.
They have an advantage compared to the Speed climbers.
We are handicapped.
Come on!
To be able to qualify for the Olympics,
we know that to qualify for the finals
and maybe have a place on the podium,
we need to finish first.
Nice, Nathaniel!
Come on, Alberto!
Go, pay attention!
For me, it would be important
to represent Spain in the Olympics.
Anyone can qualify,
you have to be very careful
and try to do your best.
He found a way to block his feet.
Come on!
Come on, Alberto!
Come on!
Give it your all!
Great, Alberto!
Great!
Don't worry.
Great result.
-Almost broke my ankle. -Do you need some...
-Yeah. -Yes?
Better than expected.
When he was most under pressure,
Nathaniel put down a PR in the Speed.
And then both boys came out super early in Boulders,
and both set themselves really well.
This one's good, and I bet you flip places on this one.
Yeah.
It's hard for me to perform well
in all three competitions. The Lead and Boulders climbers
are the best in the world.
It's as if I was telling them,
"To qualify for the Olympics, be as fast as Bassa Mawem."
Left foot on the small one, yeah?
Yeah.
This? Right foot on the dome. This one...
We were about to compete in five minutes,
but we were looking at the track together,
trying to find which moves to make
to not fail,
helping each other to do it right
despite competing against each other.
LEAD
Twenty-two climbers taking part
in this men's qualification
Lead today, looking for one of six slots.
It's not like every country
was given a spot in the Olympics.
Every person had to qualify on their own.
Come on, Sean!
There was no guarantee for the US to get a spot.
So in a way, I am definitely representing
what the US can produce as a climber,
but for this year in particular,
more than that, I'm just representing myself.
Let's go, Nathaniel!
Come on, come on, come on.
My brother has always followed me.
He's always followed me in all my activities,
in all my sports.
My brother is a Boulders climber.
There no rivalry between us.
We push each other.
I was proud that he qualified.
I hope he will show up.
I think we don't know why we climb, but...
it's the definition of outdoing yourself.
Come on, Alberto! Keep it together!
He's tall. Will he be able to reach...
Come on, Alberto!
Watch that foot!
There he goes, lining it up.
Come on!
Goes for the top.
Good!
Now, and Alberto Ginés López with 2.19 left on the clock.
And I think Adam Ondra was the quickest
today of all climbers to find the top,
but we'll wait for the judges to confirm.
Who is first at the moment?
I think he's first. No, I think it's Stefano. In Lead.
Yes, and for the top...
Yeah, but the time was same.
Me and the Italian got the same time.
They need to check the exact timing
to find out who won.
It went quite well.
I need to perform on Saturday in order to qualify.
That's it. I'm happy to join my brother.
That's great. And now...
Now we should go together, but...
but you never know what can happen.
-We'll wait for the verdict. -Right.
It promises to be a great story.
Speed, at the beginning, I thought,
like, if I'm last or second last,
it doesn't really change that much.
I would say Bouldering is most important,
because it's the most random and I gained second place,
which was very good for the mind in Lead,
and I knew
that I don't really have to climb that high actually
in Lead, so I could enjoy, control it,
and I ended up topping out the final route.
It's not only the same second,
it's the same tenth of a second.
Really?
Yes.
So it's the same result. Alberto was...
-Thank you for the info. -So, you're abs--
-Same performance. -Okay. Thank you.
-Yeah? -Thank you very much.
If I can take top six tomorrow,
then I'll for sure have an invite.
If I take eighth, I don't know.