Rapid Indonesian speed climbers push boundaries and smash records

Smashing records and nabbing multiple medals at top international events, Indonesia is an unlikely powerhouse in sport climbing ahead of next year's Paris Olympics.

The country's climbers have been at it again at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, winning three out of six medals on the first day of the sport, all in speed climbing.

Climbing was officially included in the Olympics for the first time at the pandemic-delayed Games in Tokyo in 2021.

On that occasion, athletes competed in a single event combining three forms of the sport - lead, bouldering and speed - a controversial decision at the time.

Paris 2024 will feature speed climbing as a separate event - good news for Indonesia.

In the discipline, competitors scramble up a standardised 15m vertical route in a matter of seconds.

The format is simple: Fastest to the top.

Indonesia, which has not generally excelled in global sport, sees the new standalone event as a chance to make it to the Olympic podium after single-mindedly pouring resources into speed climbing in particular.

Veddriq Leonardo, who this year became the first man or woman in history to scale the speed wall in under five seconds, told AFP he has his eye on Olympic gold.

Indonesia has won only eight golds in their Olympic history, all in badminton.

"I am training for that," he said in Shaoxing, the city near Hangzhou that is hosting the Asian Games' sport climbing events.

He clocked the fastest time at the men's speed final on Tuesday (Oct 3), leaving the competition in the dust and setting an Asian Games record with a 4.95s climb - but only won bronze due to a quirk of the tournament rules.

It was just slower than his 4.90s world record set in Seoul earlier this year.

Fellow Indonesian Desak Made Rita Kusuma Dewi took